Excerpt from Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor
In the epilogue to 2 Henry IV. a promise had been given to continue the story with Sir John in it; this promise was not kept in Henry V.; and "The Merry Wives," according to a well authenticated tradition, was composed by command of the Queen, "who obliged Shakespeare to write a Play of Sir John Falstaff in Love, and which I am very well assured he performed in a fortnight: a prodigious thing when all is well contrived, and carried on without the least confusion" (Gildon, 1710; Dennis first mentions the tradition in 1702; cp. title-page of 1602 edition).
The date of the first composition of the play may with certainty be placed at about 1600 (probably Christmas, 1599).
An old tradition identifies Justice Shallow with Shakespeare's old enemy, Sir Thomas Lucy (of the deer-poaching story); Lucy died in July, 1600, and it is held by some that the Poet would not have waited "till his butt was in the grave before he aimed his shafts at him." At the same time it is noteworthy that the "dozen white luces" is only found in the Folio, not in the Quarto editions. The question at issue, on which scholars are divided, is whether the Quarto represents a pirated edition of an early sketch of the play, revised and enlarged in the first Folio version, or whether both versions are to be referred back to the same original.
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