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- Introduction 15
Verplanck (whose admirable criticisms of Shakespeare
are now unfortunately out of print) remarks : " Assum-
ing that Shakespeare, either in obedience to the com-
mand 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 his-
torical dramas, had revived him for a new display of
his character, and surrounded him with his former com-
panions, itis 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 connec-
tion. 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 congru-
ous 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 |
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