[THE following observations were intended as part of the Introductory Remarks, prefixed to this play, and were accidentally omitted there. The reader will perceive that they contain some views differing from those of the English editors, whose remarks have been there selected.]

A traditionary anecdote ascribes the origin of the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR to the command of Queen Elizabeth, and places the date of its composition at some time after that of the two parts of HENRY IV. Rowe, in the life prefixed to his edition of SHAKESPEARE, first published in 1709, thus relates the story. Queen Elizabeth "was so well pleased with that admirable character of Falstaff, in the two parts of HENRY IV., that she commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to show Falstaff in love. This is said to be the occasion of his writing the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR." The same tradition had been related by the well-known critic, Dennis, seven years before, with such variations (omitting one circumstance and adding another) as, without contradicting Rowe's account, indicates that he derived his information from some different source. In the preface to the "Comical Gallant," (1702,) a play manufactured out of the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, in the fashion of Davenant's alteration of MACBETH, and Dryden's of the TEMPEST, by additions of new characters, and rewriting the dialogue; Dennis says of his original, that "it had pleased one of the greatest queens that ever was in the world. The comedy was written by her direction, and she was so eager to see it acted, that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days, and was afterwards, as tradition tells us, very well pleased at the representation."

In his prologue, he again asserts, that "Shakespeare's play in fourteen days was writ." This anecdote was again repeated in 1710, by Gildon, a dramatic and critical author of no original merit, but often referred to as a competent authority as to facts of literary and theatrical history. It was also received as unquestionable by the earlier editors, as Pope and Theobald, down to Johnson.

Modern criticism has however been more sceptical, and according as the tradition can be made to agree with one or other conjectural theory of the progress of Falstaff's character, the connection of his adventures here with those related in the historical plays, and the relative date of the composition, and of this comedy, the story has been either rejected, as wholly apocryphal, or received with such modifications as might suit the critic's theory. Mr. Knight admits only the royal command and the rapid composition, but holds the Falstaff of Windsor to have been a previous conception to the Knight of Eastcheap; while Collier rejects the whole story, because "Dennis had to make out a case in favour of his alterations, by showing that the comedy had been composed in an incredibly short period, and was consequently capable of improvement."

Yet, as Rowe relates his anecdote on the same authority with that on which most of the generally received facts of the Poet's history are known, acknowledging his obligations to Betterton, "for the most considerable passages" of the biography; as Betterton was then seventy-four years of age, and thus might have received the story directly from contemporary authority; as Gildon was Betterton's friend and biographer, and as Dennis (a learned acute man, of a most uninventive and matter-of-fact mind,) told his story seven or eight years before, "with a difference," yet without contradiction, so as to denote another and an independent source of evidence; as Pope, the rancorous enemy

of poor Dennis, whom he and his contemporary wits have "damned to everlasting fame," received the tradition without hesitation; we have certainly, in the entire absence of any external or internal evidence to the contrary, as good a proof as any such insulated piece of literary history could well require or receive, although may not amount to such evidence as might be demanded to establish some contested point of religious, or legal, or political opinion. The tradition, too, corresponds perfectly with the manner in which the printed copies of the comedy first appeared.

The first part of HENRY IV., whenever written, was printed in 1597, and the second in 1600. In 1601, this comedy first appeared in print with this title:

sor.

"A Most pleasaunt and excellent conceited Comedie, of Syr Iohn Falstaffe, and the merrie Wines of WindEntermixed with sundrie variable humors, of Syr Hugh the Welch Knight, Iustice Shallow, and his wise Cousin M. Slender. With the swaggering vaine of Auncient Pistoll, and Corporall Nym. By William Shakespeare. As it hath bene diuers times Acted by the right Honorable my lord Chamberlaines seruants. Both before her Maiestie, and else-where."

The same text, with slight variations, was reprinted in 1619. The edition of 1601, (dated 1602,) was lately reprinted for the Shakespeare Society, as "The first Sketch of Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor,'" excellently edited and annotated by Mr. Halliwell. This sketch is like the first edition of HAMLET, evidently a pirated and very inaccurate transcript of the piece it purposes to give, printing prose for verse, often mistaking the sense, and sometimes probably interpolating passages. Yet it is clearly not simply a mangled or abridged edition of the comedy we now have, but an ill-published copy of a sketch, an outline, such as might well have been written in a fortnight, by an author as fertile as Shakespeare in comie invention. The comedy we now read was first printed in the original folio of 1623; the dialogue being nearly twice as long as that of the sketch, though the plot, characters, and succession of incidents, are, with slight variations, the same. The character of Shallow is heightened, both in humour, and in resemblance to the wise Justice in HENRY IV., while the slight outline of Slender in the earlier editions, is worked up into the present whimsically effective piece of insignificance. The fairy scene at the close, originally slight, gay, and satirical, such as the good folks of Windsor might have invented, when inspired by a spirit of frolic-mischief, is discarded, in order to substitute a higher tone of fairy poetry, graceful and delicate, fanciful and grotesque. It seems probable that the author, when his play was about to be reproduced before the court, after some celebration of the Order of the Garter, rejected his former verses, in order to enrich his piece with a scene imitating and rivalling the high fanciful elegance of the Masques, which had then become popular, and in which Ben Jonson was then exhibiting an exuberance of refined, and original, and delicate fancy, which could never have been anticipated from the stern satire, the coarse humour, and the learned imitations of his regular drama.

Still, the precise date of the play, in relation to the other Falstaffian dramas, is a question on which no small amount of critical ingenuity and minute investigation has been displayed. Those who are not content to receive the old opinion, without further inquiry, may find much amusement and instruction in the prefaces of Halliwell and Knight, and the discussions of their predecessors, Malone and Chalmers.

Another warmly and ingeniously debated point of

controversy is, as to the relative place in Sir John's biography which his Windsor adventures should occupy. Johnson thought that they ought to be read between the second part of HENRY IV. and HENRY V. The objection to this conjecture is the incongruity of the relation which Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph, &c., bear to Falstaff at Windsor, with the situation in which they are left at the close of HENRY IV. Mrs. Quickly, especially, appearing at Windsor as Doctor Caius's housekeeper, without any prior acquaintance with Sir John, after having been so long the landlady of his old haunt on Eastcheap, brings the supporters of this theory "into such canaries," as she would say, "as is wonderful." The same difficulty applies to Mr. Halliwell's theory, that the time of action is between the two parts of HENRY IV. Others get rid of the whole difficulty, by assuming that the Poet did not trouble himself to make up any connected story, but having, for some reason or other, chosen to exhibit Falstaff in a new light, he naturally surrounded him with his old companions, so long the favourites of the audience, without thinking of their several situations and catastrophies in his other dramas. "Any other mode of solving the difficulty," says Collier, "seems unsatisfactory, and we do not believe that it ever presented itself to the mind of our great dramatist."

The question, as it stands, has been well argued, and the young critic, or the young lawyer, may find in its discussion by Malone, Knight, Halliwell, and others, an excellent exercise for his skill in analyzing and applying circumstantial and internal evidence. As my own opinion upon this grave question happens not to agree precisely with that of any of my predecessors, I cannot refrain from submitting it, with the full confidence that it will either settle the controversy, or else will add to its interest, by suggesting new doubts, and, "by decision, more embroil the fray."

I agree, then, with Mr. Knight, that the place of the Windsor courtship, in Falstaff's dramatic biography, is before the historical plays, but I see no reason why this should involve the necessity of the play having also been written first, the two questions appearing wholly unconnected.

Assuming that Shakespeare, either in obedience to the command of his political sovereign-a lady somewhat tyrannical, and not a little fantastical, and yet a woman of genius and of letters, whose suggestions the most republican poet might be proud to receive-or to please that other many-headed sovereign, the public, to whom the Poet owed a still truer allegiance--after having exhausted the last days of Falstaff in the historical dramas, had revived him for a new display of his character, and surrounded him with his former companions, it is quite incredible that he should have done so without some regard to the incidents, adventures, and characteristics that he alone had bestowed upon each one of them. Had these personages been like the cunning slave, the parasite, and the bully, of the Latin stage, or like the Scapins and Sganarelles of the old French comedy, (characters common to every dramatic author,) he would not have cared for any such connection. But these were the children of his own fancy, and they had lived in a world of his own creation; so that, though like Cervantes in similar circumstances, he might fall into an occasional forgetful contradiction of his own story, it was every way improbable that he should not have had in his mind some plan of congruous invention. Now, he had already made his readers and audience familiar with the latter part of Falstaff's career. When he reproduced him, therefore, it was natural that he should return to a somewhat earlier period of his life, especially when he was to represent him as a lover. Who, indeed, does not assent to Johnson's remarks on Falstaff's appearance in this character? "No task is harder than that of writing to the ideas of another. Shakespeare knew what the queen seems not to have known, that by any real passion of tender

derness, the selfish craft, the careless jollity, and the lazy luxury of Falstaff must have suffered so much abatement, that little of his former cast could have remained. Falstaff could not love but by ceasing to be Falstaff. He could only counterfeit love. Thus the Poet approached as near as he could to the work enjoined him; yet having, perhaps, in the former plays completed his own ideas, seems not to have been able to give Falstaff all his former power of entertainment." Every one of Falstaff's acquaintances must feel his amusement at Windsor dashed with constant vexation, at seeing the hero of the Boar's Head "made an ass of," hunted and worried, and at last obliged to veil his triumphant wit even to "the Welch flannel." But we also feel that this same pleasant "villainous misleader of youth," that "grey iniquity" delighting to "take his ease in his own inn," could not easily have been made the sport and butt even of ladies as sprightly and malicious as those of Windsor. It is quite clear that in the days of Mrs. Hostess Quickly, he had rid himself of all personal vanity that could lead him into any such self-delusions. Yet, as the vanity of being thought acceptable to the other sex is one of the last that men get rid of, the author would naturally be led to paint Falstaff, in the perilous adventures to which he had destined him, as being still of an age (however ridiculous his courtship would seem to Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford) to be yet liable to the delusions of personal vanity, and exposed to its attendant mortifications. He is of course made to take his last lesson of experience in that matter, before settling down into the lazy luxury of the Boar's Head. He is accordingly, though substantially the same character, made more of a vivacious, dissolute old boy, and less of the sagacious Epicurean wit, than he appears in HENRY IV. We have, then, only to imagine an indefinite interval of two or three years, during which Pistol and Bardolph return to their old service, and Mrs. Quickly removes from the quiet shades of Windsor to the more congenial atmosphere of a London tavern, and nothing is wanted to make the whole consistent and probable.

Mr. Halliwell has collected in his appendix to his curious reprint of the "First Sketch" of this play, several early Italian and old English tales, containing incidents similar to some of those introduced in this comedy, and which very probably furnished casual hints to the author. But the main plot appears to be Shakespeare's own invention, and several of the characters seem to have been sketched from known personages of the times.

Shallow has been identified, both by tradition, and by the heraldic allusions, with the Poet's old enemy, Sir Thomas Lacy. Doctor Caius, Dame Quickly, Sir Hugh, and the Host, have all of them very much the air of portraits of individuals, spirited and faithful, though a little caricatured.

The author has, by employing the comic personages of his own historical plays, fixed the date as of the reign of Henry IV.; but there is otherwise almost nothing to connect the plot or dialogue with that age; on the contrary, they rather partake of the manners and social habits of his own time. The scene is laid among the "green retreats of Windsor," so long "at once the Monarch's and the Muse's seat;" and the localities are said to be marked with sufficient distinctness to be still traced. Yet, except in the closing poetical allusions to the chivalric dignities of the castle, there is scarcely any thing to denote a state of society, under the shadow of a royal palace; no court gossip, no petty functionaries affecting superiority, no aping the manners of the great. Every thing much more resembles the probable state of old English society in some humbler provincial village; so that I am much inclined to believe that Shakespeare has here left us a living picture of the simple hospitality, the easy conversation, the social amusements, of his own half-village half-rural life at his native Stratford.

ACT I.-SCENE I.

"Sir Hugh"-"Sir" was a title formerly applied to the inferior clergy as well as to knights. At Cambridge and Dublin, the designation is still applied to bachelors of arts, but annexed to the surname only; as, Sir Evans, etc. Fuller, in his "Church History," says, "Such priests as have the addition of sir' before their Christian name, were not men graduated in the university; being in orders, but not in degrees; while others, entitled 'masters,' had commenced in the arts." It had the same use and origin with the Dutch and Scotch title of Dominie,' from the Latin address of Domine, used in colleges.

"-a Star-chamber matter"-The obnoxious old court of Star-chamber took cognizance of routs and riots.

"Ay, cousin Slender, and CUST-ALORUM."-Custalorum is meant by Shallow, who is pedantic, not illiterate, for an abridgement of Custos Rotalorum. Slender, not understanding the abbreviation, adds, "and ratolorum too."

"-writes himself ARMIGERO"-Slender had seen his relative's official attestation, "Jurat coram me, Roberto Shallow, armigero," and thus substitutes the ablative case for the nominative, armiger, or esquire.-STEVENS.

"SHALLOW. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years.-Shallow's identification of himself with his forefathers is very characteristic, and not yet out of date in England. The late Washington Allston used to relate an anecdote which occurred in his presence at a seat of one of the oldest families in England. Some mistake had been made in conversation in relation to some supposed ancestor of the noble host, which the chaplain warmly correcting, added"His lordship came over with William the Conqueror." To which his lordship (an accomplished gentleman, who had no other resemblance to Shallow but on this point) gravely added, "Yes, I came over with the Conqueror;" thus carrying his own personality five hundred years further back than the learned Justice did.

"The LUCE is the fresh fish; the SALT FISH is an old coat."-A luce was the old name for a pike; and sir Thomas Lacy, (the Poet's old Stratford enemy,) whom Shakespeare is supposed to have intended to ridicule in this passage, bore three "luces" in his coat-of-arms. When Shallow adds that "the salt fish is an old coat,"

a joke seems intended upon the manner in which salt fish was capable of being kept.-COLLIER.

The English commentators have been much perplexed here, and pronounce the passage "an heraldic puzzle." Did not Shakespeare merely intend to ridicule the pedantry of heraldry, so common in his days, and doubtless, like all other pedantry, often blundering?

"SLENDER. Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?"-This and Slender's next speech are transferred in nearly all of the modern editions to Shallow, on the authority of Malone, who thought they were better suited to the Justice than to Slender. But all the older editions which have them (for they are not in the first sketch) ascribe them to Slender; and though they suit Shallow very well, yet it seems a more natural touch of humour to make Slender, so negatively indifferent as to all other matters, struck with admiration at the legacy. I accordingly concur with Collier in adhering to the original copies.

"he was outrun on COTSALL"-i. e. on Cotswold downs, in Gloucestershire, celebrated for coursing, for which they are suited by their fine turf, and were famous for other rural sports. Tom Warton, in a note in Johnson and Stevens, luxuriates in his account of the "Olympick Games" there celebrated, and commemorated by Ben Jonson, Drayton, Randolph, and the choicest wits of the reign of James I. These games lasted until (says Warton, with characteristic unction) "the grand rebellion broke up every liberal establishment."

"-kiss'd your keeper's daughter."-Commentators have supposed this to be a quotation from some old ballad. Walter Scott, in Kenilworth, suggests another interpretation: that this was part of the charge made against the Poet himself by Sir Thomas Lacy, whose character furnished much of the material for Shallow.

"Twere better for you, if it were known in coUNSEL."-Counsel seems here equivalent to secresy, as in Heywood's Edward IV.-Nay, that's counsel, and two may keep it, if one be away." Stevens suggests that Falstaff means to play upon the words "council" and "counsel;" and he is probably right.

"Good WORTS? good cabbage."-Worts (according to the old authors cited by Stevens) was the ancient name of all the cabbage kind. We still say cole-wort.

"— and against your CONEY-CATCHING rascals.”Coney-catcher was synonymous with sharper, one who took in men as silly as coneys or wild rabbits.

"-two Edward SHOVEL-BOARDS."-Shovel-board was a game, not yet discontinued. The broad shillings of Edward IV. were well adapted to it, and hence they were sometimes called "shovel-boards." Slender had paid more than double price for them, for some reason or other; but he is no great accountant, as is shown by his estimate of his loss by robbery: i. e. two shillings and four pence, all in sixpences.

"-lattin bilbo"-Another allusion to Slender's person. Lattin is a mixed metal of copper and calamine, and cast in thin plates; it would consequently, both in edge and substance, be a vile material for making sword blades. The word is still used in the north of England as equivalent to tin. Stevens suggests that the word should be lathen bilbo. Falstaff talks of driving the Prince and his subjects before him with a dagger of lath.

"Word of denial in thy LABRAS"-Lips. This is equivalent to saying "the lie in thy teeth."

"-marry trap"-This apparently was an exclamation of triumph, when a man was caught in his own snare, or otherwise punished as the consequence of his own behaviour.

"the NUTHOOK's humour"-The nuthook was used by the thief to hook portable commodities out of a window; and thus Nym, in his queer fashion, means, "if you say I'm a thief," etc.

"What say you, Scarlet and John ?”—Alluding to Robin Hood's well-known men, and to the red face of Bardolph.

"And being FAP."-Fap is drunk, or fuddled; a cant word.

"-conclusions pass'd the carieres"-The ingenious Bardolph appears affectedly obscure in this passage; he is trying to escape, like the cuttle-fish, in a darkness of his own creation. If we allow him to have any distinct meaning, he probably intends to say that the whole affair passed all reasonable bounds, and became a scene of confusion, in which, unfortunately, even his innocence could not protect him from suspicion. This erudite defence serves his purpose of confounding Slender, who answers, "Ay, you spake in Latin then

too."

"-upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas"-This is a chronological error of the very particular Simple, and one no doubt intended by the Poet. Allhallows is, in reality, five weeks after Michaelmas.

"three VENEYS for a dish of stewed prunes."Three veneys signifies three bouts, or comes-on; from the French word venir.

"I have seen SACKERSON loose."-Sackerson was the name of a bear exhibited at Paris Garden, Southwark, in Shakespeare's time. The custom then was to name the animals after their owners. Sir John Davies, in his "Epigrams," has allusion to the prevalent custom of bear-baiting:

'Publius, a student of the common law,

To Paris Garden doth himself withdraw:
Leaving old Ployden, Dyer, and Broke alone,
To see old Harry Hunkes and Sacarson.'

-"that it PASS'D"-It surpassed; or, it passed expression; a common mode of referring to something extraordinary. Thus, in act iv. scene 2, "This passes."

"By cock and pye"-A common adjuration of the period. Cock is a corruption of the sacred name; the pye is a table in the old Roman offices, showing how to find the service of the day.

SCENE II.

"Doctor Caius."-I doubt whether Shakespeare had the learned founder of an eminent Cambridge college in his mind when he gave a name to this character, who is, of course, intended as a satire on the foreign physicians of the time, who were so fashionable and popular with the English gentry. Farmer, however, says that the doctor was handed down as a sort of Rosicrucian, and mentions a MS. entitled "The Secret Writings of Dr. Caius." In the "Merry Tales of Jack of Dovor," 1604, a story told by "the fool of Windsor" begins thus:"Upon a time there was in Windsor a certain simple outlandish doctor of physick belonging to the dean," &c. The character may then possibly have been drawn from life; and, as Shakespeare would scarcely have introduced the real name into his play, he may have made quite an arbitrary choice.-HAL

LIWELL.

SCENE III.

"Let me see thee froth, and LIME."-In the quartos it stands lime, in the folios "line;" a very easy and probable misprint. We know from Shakespeare himself, that lime was fraudulently put into sack, as Stevens asserts, "to make it sparkle in the glass;" and he adds, soap into the tankard to make the beer froth." We may understand the words as addressed to Bardolph only, which will take away Knight's ground of defence for the other reading: i. e. "that the host could not so unblushingly avow the frauds of his calling."

"base HUNGARIAN wight"-So the folio. The quarto, which has supplied the ordinary reading, gives us Gongarian. The editors have retained Gongarian, because Stevens says there is a similar epithet in one of the old bombast plays. Hungarian means a gipsy; and is equivalent to the Bohemian of Quentin Durward. In this play the Host calls Simple a "Bohemian Tartar." Bishop Hall, in his "Satires," has a punning couplet,

'So sharp and meagre that who should them see Would swear they lately came from Hungary,'— and therefore Malone says that "a Hungarian signified a hungry, starved fellow."-KNIGHT.

"the HUMOUR of it"-The following epigram, taken from "Humor's Ordinarie, where a Man may bee verie merrie and exceeding well used for his Sixpence," quarto, 1607, will best account for Nym's frequent repetition of the word humour. Epigram 27:

"Aske HUMOURS what a feather he doth weare,
It is his humour (by the Lord) he'll sweare;
Or what he doth with such a horse-taile locke,
Or why upon a whore he spends his stocke,—
He hath a humour doth determine so:
Why in the stop-throte fashion he doth gee,
With scarfe about his necke, hat without band,-
It is his humour. Sweet Sir, understand,
What cause his purse is so extreme distrest
That oftentimes is scarcely penny-blest;
Only a humour. If you question, why
His tongue is ne'er unfurnish'd with a lye,-
It is his humour too he doth protest:
Or why with sergeants he is so opprest,
That like to ghosts they haunt him ev'rie day;
A rascal humour doth refuse to pay.

Object why bootes and spurres are still in season,
His humour answers, humour is his reason.
If you perceive his wits in wetting shrunke,

It cometh of a humour to be drunke.
When you behold his lookes pale, thin, and poore,
The occasion is, his humour and a whoore:
And every thing that he doth undertake,
It is a veine, for senseless humour's sake.'

STEVENS.

to steal at a minute's rest."-Nym's meaning is, that a thief should be always ready to practise quickly and dexterously.

"she discourses, she carves."-Jackson (Shakespeare's Genius Justified) proposes to read craves; and the emendation is certainly easy and simple, had

it been necessary for the sense; but a passage that Boswell produces from Vittoria Corombona, seems to place the accuracy of the generally received reading out of doubt-"Your husband is wondrous discontented.-Vit. I did nothing to displease him; I carved to him at supper time."

"He hath studied her wILL," etc.-The ordinary reading is "He hath studied her well," etc. The folios and later quarto read will; the two earlier quartos only "He hath studied her well," etc. There seems no reason for the received common reading, introduced by Malone and Stevens, which I concur with Knight and Collier in rejecting.

"-he hath legions of ANGELS."-The allusion here is to the coin called an angel.

"Falstaff will learn the HUMOUR of this age."-The folio has "honor." Few misprints were more frequent than "honor" for humor, and vice versa. Falstaff alludes to the fashion or humour of being attended by a skirted page.

"the humour of this love to PAGE."-So the quartos, and so the fact, as afterwards appears. In the folio 1623, Ford seems to have been accidentally printed for Page, and Page afterwards for Ford. Possibly Shakespeare originally intended that Nym should "discuss the humour" of Falstaff's love to Ford, while Pistol took the same course with Page.

(Winchester Tower, Windsor Castle.)

SCENE IV.

"a CAIN-coloured beard."-In the folios it is

"Caine coloured," as if the allusion were to Cain; who being a murderer, was, like Judas, usually represented with a red, or sandy beard. But the quartos read "kane coloured," which means that Slender's beard was of the colour of cane. Repton, the celebrated landscape gardener, published an essay on old English beards, some years ago, which the later changes of fashion may bring again into notice for other than antiquarian purposes.

" as TALL a man of his hands."-"Tall" was familiarly used in that day for bold, stout. I had thought with many editors, that "of his hands" referred to the jockey measurement; but Singer's quotation from Cotgrave's contemporary French and English Dictionary,

"- this Flemish DRUNKARD."-The English of the days of Elizabeth accused the people of the Low Countries with having taught them to drink to excess. The "men of war" who had campaigned in Flanders, according to Sir John Smythe, in his "Discourses," 1590, introduced this vice; "whereof it is come to pass that now-a-days there are very few feasts where our said men of war are present, but that they do invite and procure all the company, of what calling soever they be, to carousing and quaffing; and because they will not be denied their challenges, they, with many new conges, ceremonies and reverences, drink to the health and prosperity of princes; to the health of counsellors, and unto the health of their greatest friends; in which exercise they never cease till they be dead drunk, or, as the Flemings say, Doot dronken."

"These knights will HACK."-James the First of England made two hundred and thirty-seven knights in one month, and his whole number was so immense that the order became ridiculous. Accordingly "these knights will hack" means, will become common. Being "Sir Alice Ford" would not "alter the article of thy gentry" means, would not add any lustre to thy gentry. The passage was added when the play was enlarged, after the accession of James.

"We burn day-light"-We waste our time like those who use lamps by day.

"Hope is a CURTAL-DOG in some affairs."-This is not literally a dog without a tail, as it is explained generally; nor is it spelled curtail. The "curtal dog" is, like the "curtal friar," an expression of contempt. The worthless dog may have a short tail, and the Franciscan friar might wear a short garment; and thus they each may be curtailed. But the word came to express some general defect, and is here used in that sense.-KNIGHT.

"-my name is BROOK"-The folio throughout gives the assumed name of Ford as Broome; the quartos, Brooke. We must adopt the reading of "Brook," for we otherwise lose a jest of Falstaff's, "Such Brooks are welcome to me that o'erflow such liquor." For a century after, however, the stage name was Broome. In Johnson's "Life of Fenton," we have this anecdote:

"Fenton was one day in the company of Broome, his associate, and one Ford, a clergyman. They determined all to see the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, which was acted that night; and Fenton, as a dramatic poet, took them to the stage-door; where