ture that _The
Merry Wives of Windsor_ was written first. Shakespeare invented the
chief part of the plot, taking, however, a few things from Tarlton's
_Newes out of Purgatorie_, which in turn was founded on a story called
The _Lovers of Pisa_. It is possible also that he may have derived
suggestions from a German play by Duke Henry Julius of Brunswick--a
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.