Page. _I cannot tell, and yet my heart is eas'd;
And yet it doth me good the Doctor miss'd.
Come hither, Fenton, and come hither, daughter._ (1773)
General Observation. 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. Shakespeare 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 hope 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 discriminated,
than perhaps can be found in any other play.
Whether Shakespeare was the first that produced upon the English
stage the effect of language distorted and depraved by provincial
or foreign pronunciations, 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 month,
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 places 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 an end.