Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/375

 the comic characters of the braggart Parolles, the pompous Lafeu, and a clown less witty than his compeers. Another original creation, Bertram's mother, Countess of Rousillon, is a charming portrait of old age. In frequency of rhyme and other metrical characteristics the piece closely resembles ‘The Two Gentlemen,’ but the characterisation betrays far greater power, and there are fewer conceits or crudities of style. The pathetic element predominates. Meres attributed to Shakespeare, in 1598, a piece called ‘Love's Labour's Won.’ This title, which is not otherwise known, may well be applied to ‘All's Well.’ ‘The Taming of the Shrew,’ which has also been identified with ‘Love's Labour's Won,’ has far slighter claim to the designation.

‘The Taming of the Shrew’—which, like ‘All's Well,’ was first printed in the folio—was probably of a little later date. It is a revision of an old play on lines somewhat differing from those which Shakespeare had followed previously. From ‘The Taming of a Shrew,’ a comedy first published in 1594 (repr. Shakespeare Soc. 1844), Shakespeare drew the induction and the scenes, in which hero Petruchio conquers Catherine the Shrew. He first infused into them the genuine spirit of comedy, and introduced into the induction reminiscences of Stratford which may be due to his renewal in 1596 of personal relations with the town. The tinker, Christopher Sly, describes himself as ‘Old Sly's son of Burton Heath,’ who has run up a score with the fat alewife of Wincot. Burton Heath is Barton-on-the-Heath, the home of Shakespeare's aunt, Edmund Lambert's wife, and of her sons. Wincot is Wilmcote, his mother's native place. But while following the old play in its general outlines, the revised version added an entirely new underplot—the story of Bianca and her lovers, which owes something to the ‘Supposes’ of George Gascoigne [q. v.], an adaptation of Ariosto's ‘Suppositi.’ Evidence of styles makes it difficult to allot the Bianca scenes to Shakespeare; as in the case of ‘Henry VI,’ those scenes were probably due to a coadjutor.

In 1597 Shakespeare turned once more to English history. From Holinshed's ‘Chronicle,’ and from a valueless but very popular piece, ‘The Famous Victories of Henry V,’ which was repeatedly acted between 1588 and 1595 (licensed 1594, and published 1598), he worked up with splendid energy two plays on the reign of Henry IV. They form one continuous whole, but are known respectively as parts i. and ii. of ‘Henry IV.’ The kingly hero had figured as a spirited young man in ‘Richard II;’ he was now represented as weighed down by care and age. With him are contrasted (in part i.) his impetuous and ambitious subject Hotspur and (in both parts) his son and heir Prince Hal, whose boisterous disposition drives him from court to seek adventures among the haunters of taverns. Shakespeare, in both parts, originally named the chief of the prince's riotous companions after Sir John Oldcastle, a character in the old play. But Henry Brooke, eighth lord Cobham, who succeeded to the title early in 1597, and claimed descent from the historical Sir John Oldcastle [q. v.], the lollard leader, raised objection; and when the first part of the play was printed by the acting-company's authority in 1598 (‘newly corrected’ in 1599), Shakespeare bestowed on Prince Hal's tun-bellied follower the new name of Falstaff. The latter designation was doubtless a hazy reminiscence of Sir John Fastolf [q. v.], an historical warrior who had already figured in ‘Henry VI,’ and was owner at one time of the Boar's Head tavern in Southwark; the prince and his companions frequent the ‘Boar's Head,’ Eastcheap, in ‘Henry IV,’ according to traditional stage directions (first adopted by Theobald in 1733; cf., ii. 257). A trustworthy edition of the second part also appeared with Oldcastle's name substituted for that of Falstaff in 1600. There the epilogue emphatically denied that Falstaff had any characteristic in common with the martyr Oldcastle. Meanwhile humbler dramatists (Munday, Wilson, Drayton, and Hathaway), seeking to profit by the attention drawn by Shakespeare to the historical Oldcastle, produced a poor dramatic version of the latter's genuine history; and of two editions published in 1600, one printed for [Thomas] P[avier] was impudently described on the title-page as by Shakespeare. Shakespeare's purely comic power culminated in Falstaff, who may be claimed as the most humorous figure in literature. The Elizabethan public recognised the triumphant success of the effort, and many of Falstaff's telling phrases, with the names of his associates, Justice Shallow and Silence, at once took root in popular speech.

In all probability ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor,’ a comedy inclining to farce, followed close upon ‘Henry IV.’ Rowe asserts that ‘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 him in love.’ Dennis, in the