the Court, and put under strong bonds of good behaviour.  So that the action of the Comedy cannot well be referred to any point of time after that proceeding.  Moreover we have Page speaking of Fenton as having “kept company with the wild Prince and Pointz.”  Then too, after Falstaff’s experiences in the buck-basket and while disguised as “the wise woman of Brentford,” we have him speaking of the matter as follows:  “If it should come to the ear of the Court, how I have been transformed, and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fishermen’s boots with me:  I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits till I were as crestfallen as a dried pear.”  From which it would seem that he still enjoys at Court the odour of his putative heroism in killing Hotspur at the battle of Shrewsbury, with which the First Part of the History closes.  The Second Part of the History covers a period of nearly ten years, from July, 1403, to March, 1413; in which time Falstaff may be supposed to have found leisure for the exploits at Windsor.

So that the action of the Comedy might well enough have taken place in one of Sir John’s intervals of rest from the toils of war during the time occupied by the Second Part of the History.  And this placing of the action is further sustained by the presence of Pistol in the Comedy; who is not heard of at all in the First Part of the History, but spreads himself with characteristic splendour in the Second.  Falstaff’s boy, Robin, also, is the same, apparently, who figures as his Page in the Second Part of the History.  As for the Mrs. Quickly of Windsor, we can hardly identify her in any way with the Hostess of Eastcheap.  For, as Gervinus acutely remarks, “not only are her outward circumstances different, but her character also is essentially diverse; similar in natural simplicity indeed, but at the same time docile and skilful, as the credulous wife and widow of Eastcheap never appears.”  To go no further, the Windsor Quickly is described as a maid; which should suffice of itself to mark her off as distinct from the Quickly of Boar’s-head Tavern.

In truth, however, I suspect the Poet was not very attentive to the point of making the events of the several plays fadge together.  The task of representing Sir John in love was so very different from that of representing him in wit and war, that he might well fall into some discrepancies in the process.  And if he had been asked whereabouts in the order of Falstaff’s varied exploits he meant those at Windsor to be placed, most likely he would have been himself somewhat puzzled to answer the question.