contemporary, who died in 1611--to which _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ bears some resemblance, and of which he may have received an account from English actors who had visited Germany, as the actors of his time occasionally did. Tradition declares that he wrote this comedy at the command of Queen Elizabeth, who had expressed a wish to see Falstaff in love. This was first stated by John Dennis, in the preface to an alteration of _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ which was made by him, under the name of _The Comical Gallant, or the Amours of Sir John Falstaff_, and was successfully acted at Drury Lane theatre. That piece, which is paltry and superfluous, appeared in 1702. No authority was given by Dennis for his statement about Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare's play. The tradition rests exclusively on his word. Rowe, Pope, Theobald, and other Shakespeare editors, have transmitted it to the present day, but it rests on nothing but supposition and it is dubious. Those scholars who accept the story of Dennis, and believe that Shakespeare wrote the piece "to order" and within a few days, usually fortify their belief by the allegation that the comedy falls short of Shakespeare's poetical standard, being written mostly in prose; that it degrades his great creation of Falstaff; that it is, for him, a trivial production; and that it must have been written in haste and without spontaneous impulse. If judgment were to be given on the quarto version of _The Merry Wives_, that reasoning would commend itself as at least plausible; but it is foolish as applied to the version in the folio, where the piece is found to be remarkable for nimbleness of invention, strength and variety of natural character, affluent prodigality of animal spirits, delicious quaintness, exhilarating merriment, a lovely pastoral tone, and many touches of the transcendent poetry of Shakespeare. Dennis probably repeated a piece of idle gossip that he had heard, the same sort of chatter that in the present day constantly follows the doings of theatrical people,--and is not accurate more than once in a thousand times. _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ is a brilliant and delightful comedy, quite worthy of its great author (though not in his most exalted mood), who probably wrote it because his mind was naturally impelled to write it, and no doubt laboured over it exactly as he did over his other writings: for we know, upon the testimony of Ben Jonson, who personally knew him and was acquainted with his custom as a writer, that he was not content with the first draught of anything, but wrote it a second time, and a third time, before he became satisfied with it. Dr. Johnson, who had studied Shakespeare as carefully as any man ever studied him, speaking of _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, says that "its general power--that power by which all works of genius should finally be tried--is such that perhaps it never yet had reader or spectator who did