country and that way of living which he had taken up. . . He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and amongst them, some that made a frequent practice, of deer-stealing engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely; and in order to revenge that ill usage, he made a ballad upon him. And though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire for some time, and shelter himself in London." Later, in commenting upon Shakespeare's creation of Falstaff, Rowe says, Amongst other extravagancies, in The Merry Wives of Windsor he has made him a deer stealer, that he might at the same time remember his Warwickshire prosecutor under the name of Justice Shallow; he has given him very near the same coat of arms which Dugdale, in his Antiquities of that county, describes for a family there, and makes the Welch parson descant very pleasantly upon them."

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It is to be remembered that these statements were made from seventy to ninety years after the death of Shakespeare, and that there is no other foundation for this widespread tradition. The "discovered" ballad, which seemed to corroborate it, is now known to have been a later forgery, yet the arms of the Lucy family were three luces argent." Of the truth or falsity of this tradition it is impossible to

judge, though throughout the eighteenth century it seems to have been implicitly believed.1

Sources of the Plot. With the exception of Love's Labour's Lost, one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, of The Tempest, one of his latest, and of Midsummer-Night's Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor owes less to specific sources than does any other of his plays. With very slight hints from contemporary literature and from Italian stories, the author seems to have invented the plot and the details. The basic incident of a man's courting two or more women at the same time was very common in the tales of the time. It is to be found in the second story of the second day in Ser Giovanni Fiorentino's II Pecorone, in the third of Bandello's Novelle, in Straparola's Le Tredici Piacevoli Notte, fourth story of the second night, and in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, I. 49. In these tales a lover intrigues with two or three women on the same night, with results more or less disastrous to himself. The other common element, that of the deceived husband, is very frequent in Italian, French, and English tales of the Renaissance. It occurs with details somewhat like those of this play, in the second tale of the first day of II Pecorone; in Straparola, the story of Nerisio of Portugal, the second story of the second night; and in a free English adaptation of these, The Tale of the Two Lovers of Pisa in the anonymous Tarlton's Newes out of Purgatorie (1590). Here the lover tells his intentions to the jealous husband, who

1 An account of the real Sir Thomas Lucy is to be found in Madden's Diary of Master William Silence, London, 1895, pp. 106-108.

plans to surprise him; but the lady has him carried out in a chest, and again hides him in a vat of feathers. Similar stories are found in the numerous jest-books of the time and were probably very common. The combination of the stories, the invention of the details, and the creation of the characters must have been original with Shakespeare; for The Merry Wives of Windsor shows no verbal likeness to any printed version, except such as may have resulted from chance.

Stage History. — it is difficult to trace the stage history of any but the most popular plays. In the case of The Merry Wives of Windsor, the difficulty is increased by the carelessness of the old annalists and chroniclers of the stage, who often inform the reader that a certain actor played Falstaff, without mentioning whether it was in Henry the Fourth or in The Merry Wives of Windsor. This central figure was so popular that both the historical play and the comedy of which he is the chief personage have had an almost continuous life on the English stage.

The title-page of Q1 states that this comedy " hath bene divers times acted by the right Honorable my Lord Chamberlaines servants. Both before Her Maiestie, and elsewhere." According to Malone, John Heminge "is said to have been the original Falstaff." Heminge was a member of Shakespeare's company, one of the leaseholders of the Globe and the Blackfriars, and the famous player whose name we find, together with that of Condell, signed

1 See Collier's English Dramatic Poetry and Annals of the Stage (1879), III. 404.

to the Dedication and Address to the Reader, prefixed to the First Folio. But the part may have been created by William Kemp, who was noted for the assumption of comic rôles and particularly those which ridiculed the Puritans. Wright's Historia Histrionica (1699) says that John Lowin (1576-1669) was famous as Falstaff "before the wars." He was not the originator of the part, for he did not join the King's players until 1603 or later; but he continued to play it until the closing of the theatres in 1642.

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After the Restoration the fortunes of The Merry Wives of Windsor seem to have been bound up with those of the Drury Lane Theatre, opened in 1663. It was presented in its Shakespearean form and also in numerous improved versions" and adaptations: chief among the latter were Falstaff's Wedding (1666) by Dr. Kenrick, and The Comical Gallant: or the Amours of Sir John Falstaff (1702) by John Dennis. The part of Falstaff was taken by Cartwright and by Lacy (d. 1681) who was highly praised by Pepys and who was the favorite comedian of Charles II. Early in the eighteenth century, Thomas Betterton (1635-1710) was esteemed by his contemporaries for the mirthfulness of his Falstaff, both in Henry the Fourth and in The Sequel of Henry the Fourth by himself. Eastcourt (d. 1712) labored under a heavy load of flatness," when he assayed the part, says Colley Cibber in his Apology. The great tragedian, Barton Booth (1681-1733), once played Falstaff in the presence of Queen Anne, "to the delight of the whole audience."

At the rival theatre, Lincoln's Inn Fields, the season of 1720-1721 was marked by a series of Shakespearean re

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vivals; and James Quin (1692-1766) became the most famous Falstaff since Betterton, if not of all time, and for twenty-five years the most popular English actor. The Merry Wives of Windsor seems to have been in his repertory for a period of over thirty years. Unctuousness, hilarious jollity, naturalness, lack of grimace, and physical fitness for the part seem to have been the contemporary judgment concerning his Falstaff. Foote writes: "I can only recommend the man who wants to see a character perfectly played, to see Mr. Quin in the part of Falstaff; and if he does not express a desire to spend an evening with that merry mortal, why, I would not spend one with him if he would pay my reckoning." Horace Walpole upon hearing of his death exclaimed: "Pray, who is to give an idea of Falstaff, now Quin is dead?" That Garrick, the greatest actor of the eighteenth century, did not assume the part was popularly believed to be because of his recognition of his inferiority to Quin.

Meanwhile the play was revived at Drury Lane, where Harper played Falstaff before 1732, while Colley Cibber gained fame as Shallow and as Slender. Later at the Haymarket, in 1777, and at Drury Lane, in 1778, John Henderson, called the best general actor of his time, was pronounced superior to Quin for riotous mirth, comic facial expression, and highly colored acting, in the part of Falstaff, which "set all gravity at defiance." From 1730 to 1790, Love, Woodward, Shuter, Emery, Farley, Edwin, Dodd, and Blanchard also added to their reputations by appearing in this comedy. John Philip Kemble, who had become manager of Drury Lane in 1788, amended the