I ought not to close without remarking what a wide diversity of materials this play reconciles and combines.  One can hardly realize how many things are here brought together, they are ordered in such perfect concert and harmony.  The greatness of the work is thus hidden in its fine proportions.  In many of the Poet’s dramas we are surprised at the great variety of character:  here, besides this, we have a remarkable variety of plot.  And, admirable as may be the skill displayed in the characters individually considered, the interweaving of so many several plots, without the least confusion or embarrassment, evinces a still higher mastership.  For, many and various as are the forms and aspects of life here shown, they all emphatically live together, as if they all had but one vital circulation.

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

The Merry Wives of Windsor, as we have it, was first printed in the folio of 1623.  The play, however, was registered at the Stationers’, January 18, 1602, as “an excellent and pleasant-conceited comedy of Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor.”  In pursuance of this entry, an imperfect and probably fraudulent edition was published in the course of the same year, and was reprinted in 1619.  In this quarto edition, the play is but about half as long as in the authentic copy of 1623, and some of the prose parts are printed so as to look like verse.  It is in doubt whether the issue of 1602 was a fair reproduction of the play as originally written, or whether it was printed from a defective and mutilated transcript stealthily taken down by unskilful reporters at the theatre.  On the former supposal, of course the play must have been rewritten and greatly improved,—­a thing known to have been repeatedly done by the Poet; so that it is nowise unlikely in this case.  But, as the question hardly has interest enough to pay the time and labour of discussing it, I shall dismiss it without further remark.

It is to be presumed that every reader of Shakespeare is familiar with the tradition which makes this comedy to have been written at the instance of Queen Elizabeth; who, upon witnessing the performance of King Henry the Fourth, was so taken with Falstaff, that she requested the Poet to continue the character through another play, and to represent him in love.  This tradition is first heard of in 1702, eighty-six years after the Poet’s death; but it was accepted by the candid and careful Rowe; Pope, also, Theobald, and others, made no scruple of receiving it,—­men who would not be very apt to let such a matter pass unsifted, or help to give it currency, unless they thought there was good ground for it.  Besides, the thing is not at all incredible in itself, either from the alleged circumstances of the case, or from the character of the Queen; and there are some points in the play that speak not a little in its support.  One item of the story is, that the author, hastening to comply with her Majesty’s request, wrote the play in the brief space of fourteen days.  This has been taken by some as quite discrediting the whole story; but, taking the play as it stands in the copy of 1602, it does not seem to me that fourteen days is too brief a time for Shakespeare to have done the work in, especially with such a motive to quicken him.