cal
pageant that filled the eye with beauty and strongly moved the
imagination; a play that is successful in the domain of romantic poetry;
a touching exemplification of the great art of acting; and once again
the presentment of that vast subject,--the relation of heart to heart,
under the dominion of love, in human society,--that more absorbs the
attention, affects the character, and controls the destiny of the human
race than anything else that is beneath the sun.

XVI.

THE MERRY WIVES AND FALSTAFF.

Shakespeare wrote _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ in 1601, and during the
Christmas holidays of that year it was presented upon the stage, before
Queen Elizabeth and her court, at Windsor Castle. In 1602 it was
published in London in quarto form, and in 1619 a reprint of that quarto
was published there. The version that appears in the two quartos is
considered by Shakespeare scholars to be spurious. The authentic text,
no doubt, is that of the comedy as it stands in the first folio (1623).
Shakespeare had written _Henry IV._--both parts of it--and also _Henry
V._, when this comedy was acted, and therefore he had completed his
portrait of Falstaff, whose life is displayed in the former piece and
whose death is described in the latter. _Henry IV._ was first printed in
1598 (we know not when it was first acted), and it passed through five
quarto editions prior to the publication of it in the folio of 1623. In
the epilogue to the second part of that play a promise is made that the
story shall be continued, "with Sir John in it," but it is gravely
doubted whether that epilogue was written by Shakespeare. The
continuation of the story occurs in _Henry V._, in which Falstaff does
not figure, although he is mentioned in it. Various efforts have been
made to show a continuity between the several plays in which Falstaff is
implicated, but the attempt always fails. The histories contain the real
Falstaff. The Falstaff of the comedy is another and less important man.
If there really were a sequence of story and of time in the portraiture
of this character plays would stand in the following order: 1, _Henry
IV., Part First_; 2, _The Merry Wives of Windsor_; 3, _Henry IV., Part
Second_; 4, _Henry V._ As no such sequence exists, or apparently was
intended, the comedy should be viewed by itself. Its texture is
radically different from that of the histories. One of the best
Shakespeare editors, Charles Knight, ventures the conjec