The Problem of " The Merry Wives of Windsor." By
J. M. Robertson. (Chatto and Windus for the Shakespeare Association.
Is. 6d. net.)—Mr. Robertson is an acute and interesting critic of the Shakespeare canon. In this essay he attacks the aldprobkm of reconciling the Falstaff of The Merry Wives with the Falstaff of King Henry IV. and King Henry V., and solves it by the plausible assumption that The Merry Wives in its first form, which we do not possess, but which we may trace in the quarto version of 1602, was the earliest of the Falstaff plays. There is much to be said for Mr. Robertson's view that Elizabethan plays were often drastically revised and rewritten for special occasions, so that the original author, like the writers of some pantomimes, would scarcely recognise his work when he saw it produced. If it be true that Queen Elizabeth, after seeing Henry IV., desired to see Falstaff in Love, she may have meant the old play, which may have been worked up for a Court performance. Mr. Robertson. of course detects his favourite Chapman's handiwork in the play as we have it ; for our part, we should be sorry to think that every line was Shakespeare's.
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