Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again.
Plead a new state in thy unrival'd merit,
To which I thus fubfcribe,-fir Valentine,
Thou art a gentleman, and well deriv'd;
Take thou thy Silvia, for thou haft deferv'd her.
Val. I thank your grace; the gift hath made me
happy.

I now beseech you, for your daughter's fake,
To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.

Duke. I grant it, for thine own, whate'er it be.
Val. These banish'd men, that I have kept withal,
Are men endu'd with worthy qualities;
Forgive them what they have committed here,
And let them be recall'd from their exile:
They are reformed, civil, full of good,
And fit for great employment, worthy lord.

Duke. Thou haft prevail'd: I pardon them, and thee;

Difpofe of them, as thou know'ft their deferts.
Come, let us go; we will include all jars
With triumphs, mirth, and rare folemnity.

Val. And, as we walk along, I dare be bold
With our discourse to make your grace to smile.
What think you of this page, my lord?

Duke. I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.

Val. I warrant you, my lord; more grace than boy.

'Should not this begin a new fentence?

Plead is the fame as plead thou. TYRWHITT.

So I have printed it. STEEVENS.

2

-include all jars] Sir Tho. Hanmer reads conclude.

JOHNSON.

To include is to fhut up, to conclude. So in Macbeth:

and shut up

""

"In measurelefs content."

Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, b. iv. c 9:

"And for to but up all in friendly love." STEEVENS.

Duke. What mean you by that saying?

Val. Please you, I'll tell you as we pass along, That you will wonder, what hath fortuned.Come, Protheus; 'tis your penance, but to hear The ftory of your loves difcovered:

That done, our day of marriage fhall be yours; One feaft, one house, one mutual happiness. [3 Exeunt omnes.

3 In this play there is a strange mixture of knowledge and ignorance, of care and negligence. The verfification is often excellent, the allufions are learned and juft; but the author conveys his heroes by fea from one inland town to another in the fame country; he places the emperor at Milan, and fends his young men to attend him, but never mentions him more; he makes Protheus, after an interview with Silvia, fay he has only feen her picture; and, if we may credit the old copies, he has, by miftaking places, left his fcenery inextricable. The reafon of all this confufion feems to be, that he took his story from a novel, which he fometimes followed, and fometimes forfook, fometimes remembered, and fometimes forgot.

That this play is rightly attributed to Shakespeare, I have little doubt. If it be taken from him, to whom shall it be given? This question may be asked of all the difputed plays, except Titus Andronicus; and it will be found more credible, that Shakespeare might fometimes fink below his highest flights, than that any other fhould rife up to his loweft. JOHNSON.

MERRY

MERRY WIVES

O F

WINDSOR.

Perfons Reprefented.

Sir John Falstaff.

Fenton.

Shallow, a country juftice.

Slender, cousin to Shallow.
Mr. Page,

Mr. Ford,

} two gentlemen dwelling at Windfor.

Sir Hugh Evans, a Welch parfon.
Dr. Caius, a French doctor.

Hoft of the Garter.

Bardolph.

Pistol.

Nym.

Robin, page to Falstaff.

William Page, a boy, fon to Mr. Page.

Simple, fervant to Slender.

Rugby, fervant to Dr. Caius.

Mrs. Page.

Mrs. Ford.

Mrs. Ann Page, daughter to Mr. Page, in love with

Fenton.

Mrs. Quickly, fervant to Dr. Caius.

Servants to Page, Ford, &c.

SCENE, Windfor; and the parts adjacent.

O F

2 WINDSOR.

ACT I.

I. SCENE I.

Before Page's houfe in Windfor.

Enter Juftice Shallow, Slender, and Sir Hugh Evans. Shal. Sir Hugh, perfuade me not: I will make+ a Star-chamber matter of it: if he were twenty fir John

A few of the incidents in this comedy might have been taken from fome old tranflation of Il Pecorone by Giovanni Fiorentino. I have lately met with the fame ftory in a very contemptible performance, intitled, The fortunate, the deceived, and the unfortunate Lovers. Of this book, as I am told, there are several impreffions; but that in which I read it, was published in 1632, quarto. A fomething fimilar story occurs in Piacevoli Notti di Straparola. Nott. 42. Fav. 4a.

This comedy was first entered at Stationers' Hall, Jan. 18, 1601, by John Bufby. STEEVENS.

This play fhould be read between K. Henry IV. and K. Henry V. JOHNSON.

The adventures of Falstaff in this play feem to have been taken from the story of the Lovers of Pifa, in an old piece, called "Tarleton's Newes out of Purgatorie." A late editor pretended to much knowledge of this fort; and I am forry that it proved to be only pretenfion.

Mr. Warton obferves, in a note to the last Oxford edition, that the play was probably not written, as we now have it, before 1607 at the earliest. I agree with my very ingenious friend in this fuppofition, but yet the argument here produced for it may not be

conclufive.