thought so clear, that it was written after King Henry V. Nym and Bardolph are both hanged in King Henry V. yet appear in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Falstaff is disgraced in The Second Part of King Henry IV. and dies in King Henry V. But in The Merry Wives of Windsor he talks as if he were yet in favour at court; "If it should come to the ear of the court how I have been transformed, &c." and Mr. Page discountenances Fenton's addresses to his daughter, because he kept company with the wild prince and with Poins. These circumstances seem to favour the supposition that this play was written between The First and Second Parts of King Henry IV. But that it was not written then, may be collected from the tradition above-mentioned. If it should be placed (as Dr. Johnson observes it should be read) between The Second Part of King Henry IV. and Henry V. it must be remembered, that Mrs. Quickly, who is half-bawd, half-hostess, in King Henry IV. is, in The Merry Wives of Windsor Dr. Caius's housekeeper, and makes a decent appearance; and in King Henry V. is Pistol's wife, and dies in an hospital; a progression that is not very natural. Besides, on Mrs. Quickly's first appearance in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff does not know her, nor does she know Pistol nor Bardolph. The truth, I believe, is, that it was written after King Henry V. and after Shakspere had killed Falstaff. In obedience to the royal commands, having revived him, he found it necessary, at the same time, to revive all those per-, sons with whom he was wont to be exhibited; Nym, Pistol, Bardolph, and the Page; and disposed of them, as he found it convenient, without a strict regard to their situations or catastrophes in former plays. There is reason to believe that The Merry Wives of Windsor was revised and considerably enlarged by the author, after its first production. The old edition in 1602, like that of Romeo and Juliet, is apparently a rough draught, and not a mutilated or imperfect copy, At what time the alterations and additions were made, is uncertain. Mr. Warton supposes them to have been made in 1607. Dr. Farmer concurs with * him in that opinion, though he does not think the argument, on which it is founded, conclusive. I have not met with any information on this head. This comedy was not printed in its present state, till 1623, when it was published with the rest of our author's plays, in folio. 23. KING HENRY VII. 1601, This play was probably written, as Dr. Johnson and Mr. Steevens observe, before the death of queen Elizabeth, which happened on the 24th of March 1603. The eulogium on king James, which is blended with the panegyrick on Elizabeth, in the last scene, was evidently a subsequent insertion, after the accession * Not before 1607. Probably some years after; at least not acted, as the imperfect copy was reprinted in 1619. FARMER. of of the Scottish monarch to the throne; for Shakspere was too well acquainted with courts, to compliment, in the life-time of queen Elizabeth, her presumptive successor, of whom history informs us she was not a little jealous. That the prediction concerning king James was added after the death of the queen, is still more clearly evinced, as Dr. Johnson has remarked, by the awkward manner in which it is connected with the foregoing and subsequent lines. It may be objected, that, if this play was written after the accession of king James, the author could not introduce a panegyrick on him, without making queen Elizabeth the vehicle of it, she being the object immediately presented to the audience in the last act of King Henry VIII. and that, therefore, the praises so profusely lavished on her, do not prove this play to have been written in her life-time: on the contrary, that the concluding lines of her character seem to imply that she was dead, when it was composed. The objection certainly has weight; but, I apprehend, the following observations afford a sufficient answer to it. 1. It is more likely that Shakspere should have written a play, the chief subject of which is, the disgrace of queen Catharine, the aggrandizement of Anne Boleyn, and the birth of her daughter, in the life-time of that daughter, than after her death; at a time when the subject must have been highly pleasing at court, rather than at a period when it must have been less interesting. Queen Queen Catharine, it is true, is represented as an amiable character, but still she is eclipsed; and the greater her merit, the higher was the compliment to the mother of Elizabeth, to whose superior beauty she was obliged to give way. 2. Had King Henry VIII. been written in the time of king James I. the author, instead of expatiating so largely in the last scene, in praise of the queen, which he could not think would be very acceptable to her successor, would probably have made him the principal figure in the prophecy, and thrown her into the back-ground as much as possible. 3. Were James I. Shakspere's chief object in the original construction of the last act of this play, he would, probably, have given a very short character of Elizabeth, and have dwelt on that of James, with whose praise he would have concluded, in order to make the stronger impression on the audience, instead of returning again to queen Elizabeth, in a very awk, ward and abrupt manner, after her character seemed to be quite finished; an awkwardness that can only be accounted for, by supposing the panegyrick on king James an after-production*. 4. If *After having enumerated some of the blessings that were to ensue from the birth of Elizabeth, and celebrated her majesty's various virtues, the poet thus proceeds: Стано 4. If the queen had been dead when our author wrote this play, he would have been acquainted with the particular,circumstances attending her death, the situation of the kingdom at that time, and of foreign states, &c. and, as archbishop Cranmer is supposed to have had the gift of prophecy, Shakspere, probably, would have made him mention some of those Cran. "In her days every man shall eat in safety, As great in admiration as herself; So shall she leave her blessedness to one, &c. He shall flourish, And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches To all the plains about him our children's children Shall see this, and bless heaven. King. Thou speakest wonders.] Cran. She shall be, to the happiness of England, An aged princess: many days shall see her, And yet no day without a deed to crown it. The lines between crotchets are those supposed to have been inserted by the author after the accession of king James. circumstances. |