ページの画像
PDF
ePub

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX

TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

[merged small][graphic][merged small]

Falstaff. Let me see't! let me see t! oh, fet me seet! I'll in, I'll in.

Of this play there is a tradition, preserved by Mr. Rowe, that it was written at the command of Queen Elizabeth, who was so delighted with the character of Falstaff, that she wished it to be diffused through more plays; but suspecting that it might pall by continued uniformity, directed the poet to diversify his manner, by shewing him in love. No task is harder than that of writing to the ideas of another. Shakspeare knew what the queen, if the story be true, seems not to have known, that by any real passion of tenderness, the selfish craft, the careless jollity, and the lazy luxury of Falstaff must have suffered so much abatement, that little of his former cast would have remained. Falstaff could not love, but by ceasing to be Falstaff. He could only counterfeit love, and his professions could be prompted, not by the love of pleasure, but of money. Thus the poet approached, as near as he could, to the work enjoined him; yet having perhaps in the former plays completed his own idea, seems not to have been able to give Falstaff all his former power of entertainment.

This comedy is remarkable for the variety and number of the personages, who exhibit more characters appropriated and dis. criminated, than perhaps can be found in any other play.

Whether Shakspeare was the first that produced upon the English stage the effect of language distorted and depraved by provincial or foreign pronunciation, I cannot certainly decide. This mode of forming ridiculous characters can confer praise only on him, who originally discovered it, for it requires not much of either wit or judgment: its success must be derived almost wholly from the player, but its power in a skilful mouth, even he that despises it, is unable to resist.

The conduct of this drama is deficient; the action begins and ends often before the conclusion, and the different parts might change place without inconvenience; but its general power, that power by which all works of genius shall finally be tried, is such, that perhaps it never yet had reader or spectator, who did not think it too soon at the end. JOHNSON.

A few of the incidents in this comedy might have been taken from an old translation of Il Pecorone by Giovanni Fiorentino. I have lately met with the same story in a very contemptible performance, intitled, The fortunate, the deceived, and the unfortunate Lovers. Of this book, as I am told, there are several impressions; but that in which I read it was published in 1632, quarto. A somewhat similar story occurs in Piacevoli Notti di Straparola, Nott. 4a. Fav. 4a.

[blocks in formation]

STEEVENS.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Sir JOHN FALSTAFF.

FENTON.

SHALLOW, a country justice.
SLENDER, Cousin to Shallow.

Mr. FORD;}

Mr. PAGE,

two gentlemen dwelling at Windsor.

WILLIAM PAGE, a boy, son to Mr. Page.
Sir HUGH EVANS, a Welch parson.
Dr. CAIUS, a French physician.

Host of the Garter Inn.

[blocks in formation]

Mrs. FORD.

Mrs. PAGE.

Mrs. ANNE PAGE, her daughter, in love with Fenton. Mrs. QUICKLY, servant to Dr. Caius.

Servants to Page, Ford, &c.

SCENE, Windsor; and the parts adjacent.

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

ACT I.

En

SCENE I-Windsor. Before PAGE's house. ter Justice SHALLOW, SLENDER, and Sir HucH EVANS.

Shallow.

SIR Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-cham

ber matter of it: If he were twenty sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, Esquire.

Slen. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and

coram.

Shal. Ay, cousin Slender, and Cust-alorum.

Slen. Ay, and ratolorum too; and a gentleman born, master parson ; who writes himself armigero; in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, armigero.

Shal. Ay, that we do; and have done any time these three hundred years.

Slen. All his successors, gone before him, have done't; and all his ancestors, that come after him, may: they may give the dozen white luces in their coat.

Shal. It is an old coat.

Eva. The dozen white louses do become an old coat well; it agrees well, passant: it is a familiar beast to man, and signifies-love.

Shal. The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat. 1

Slen. I may quarter, coz?

Shal. You may, by marrying.

[1] Our author here alludes to the arres of Sir Thomas Lucy, who is said to have prosecuted him in the younger part of his life for a misdemeanour, and who is supposed to be pointed at under the character of Justice Shallow. The text, however, by some carelessness of the printer or transcriber, has been so corrupted, that the passage, as it stands at present, seems inexplicable. MALONE.

Mr. William Oldys (Norroy King at Arms, and well known from the share he had in compiling, the Biographia Britannica, among the collections which he left for a Life of Shakspeare) observes that-" there was a very aged gentleman living in the neighbourhood of Stratford, (where he died fifty years since) who had not only heard, from several old people in that town, of Shakspeare's transgression, but could remember the first stanza of

« 前へ次へ »