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- Introduction ii
satisfactory evidence that it was based on correct in-
formation. Itis probable that the revision of the play
was made for a court performance at Windsor. " The
fairy scene at the close, originally slight, gay, and sa-
tirical, 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."
Tradition ascribes the origin of the play to Queen
Elizabeth. Rowe, in the life of Shakespeare prefixed
to his edition, first published in 1709, says that Eliza-
beth "was so well pleased with that admirable charac-
ter 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." The same story had been
given by John Dennis, in 1702 (in the preface to The
Comical Gallant^ a comedy founded on the Merry
Wives\ with unimportant variations, indicating that he
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