Page. Not by my consent I promise you. The gentleman is of no having; he kept company with the wild Prince and Poins; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No, he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of my substance if he take her let him take her simply; the wealth I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes not that way.' .”—Act iii., scene 2.

Anne.

Fent.

:

Gentle Master Fenton,

Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir:
If opportunity and humblest suit

Cannot attain it, why then.-Hark

you hither."
[They converse apart.
You do amaze her: Hear the truth of it.
You would have married her most shamefully,
Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
The offence is holy, that she hath committed;
And this deceit looses the name of craft,
Of disobedience or unduteous title;
Since therein she doth evitate and shun

A thousand irreligious cursed hours,

Which forced marriage would have brought upon her."

How closely and accurately do all these circumstances fit in with Shakspere's own marriage; probably a run-away match without the knowledge of their parents. How pleasingly does the host describe the youthful poet, ascribing to him the very sins which Goodman Hathaway would most object to,-he dances, writes verses, and speaks holiday. Is it not also possible and probable, that the daughter, according to tradition, eminently beautiful," remained in a state of single blessedness till her twenty-fifth year, because she would not marry, where she did not love; and as Justice

66

Shallow is acknowledged to have been a Lucy of Charlecote, it is possible, cousin Slender and Dr. Cains may both have been rejected admirers of that "splendid gal" Anne Hathaway, the prototype probably of Thaisa and Silvia. Moreover, Master Fenton's address occurs just at the end of the play, and is delivered with so much earnestness, and the lines are so peculiarly appropriate to Shakspere's own marriage, we are necessitated to believe, they are the genuine utterances of his own mind, and that his own marriage had consequently been a very happy one; and that all the circumstances connected with the previous contract or betrothal, “long since contracted," had been reputable and consonant with the feelings of persons in their station :—

"The offence is holy that she hath committed,"

This analysis of the comedy according to "my humour," instead of detracting from the merriment of the Merry Wives of Windsor, adds richness and raciness to the story. No reader will ever confound the living characters of the comedy with their prototypes or shadows; and though the poet has made the marriage of Master Fenton and sweet Anne Page a vehicle for the justification of his own early marriage, yet surely they will live immortal and distinct from our pleasant Willy and his own sweet Anne.-Mr. Halliwell has pointed out, that Sly, Herne, Horne, Brome, Page, and Ford, are names found in MSS. in the Council Chamber, at Stratford.

We must now have a few minutes conversation with Thomas Nash, as he furnishes additional evidence, that Shakspere and Midas are one; and also explains a Falstaffian phrase, that has caused the shedding of much ink. The following extracts are all taken from Mr. Collier's edition of Pierce Penniless. Mr. Collier observes, "It seems evident that Nash felt, in the opening of the preceding epistle, (which we give literatim) that he was performing a task; but, towards the conclusion, he freed himself from this impression, and shook off the restraint upon his pen. It is impossible at this time of day to explain some of the temporary, and designedly ambiguous touches at authors of his day, near the close, but the hit at Peele and his Tale of Troy, 1589, seems pretty obvious, and Nash sets out with an obscure reference to Greene, and to the manner in which he was accustomed to vaunt his University Degrees at Oxford and Cambridge, in the title-pages of his tracts."

The prefatory epistle to Nash's edition of Astrophel and Stella, 1591, above referred to, contains the following passages:

"Gentlemen, that have seen a thousand lines of folly drawn forth ex uno puncto impudentiæ, and two famous mountains to go to the conception of one mouse; that have had your ears deafened with the echo of Fames brazen towers, when only they have been toucht with a leaden pen; that have seen Pan sitting in his bower of delight, and a number of Midasses to admire his miserable hornpipes, let not your surfeited sight, new come from such puppet play, think scorn to turn aside into this theatre of pleasure."

These allusions refer to Greene, Shakspere, and Lyly; -the two universities going to form one Greene ;— Fame's brazen towers and the leaden pen to Shakspere's Henry VI.;-and Lyly is the author of Midas. This explanation is confirmed by the following passage:

"Apollo hath resigned his ivory harp unto Astrophel, and he, like Mercury, must lull you asleep with his musick. Sleep Argus, sleep Ignorance, sleep Impudence, for Mercury hath Io, and only Io Pæan belongeth to Astrophel." The name of Argus is peculiarly applicable to Lyly; Impudence is of course Greene, and Mr. Ignorance can answer for himself.

We can now also readily understand the drift of Falstaff's expression, "ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me;" evidently an allusion to this epistle. The worthy knight quibbles on the word plummet, a pen or lead, that is, “a leaden pen; as if he had said, "I am not able to answer the Welch flannel; Nash even may abuse or jest over me; use me as you will.”

The reader, on being aware that Euphues was published in 1580, and Astrophel and Stella not till 1591, though written several years before, will readily understand the following humourous piece of satire, or Dello's revenge for his ridiculous position in Midas; ignis fatuus is an admirable and most apposite name for Euphues, and "arise out of dunghilles" refers to the line in Euphues.

"The sun shineth upon a dunghill."

"The sun for a time may mask his golden head in a cloud, yet in the end the thick veil doth vanish, and his

embellished blandishment appears. Long hath Astrophel (England's sun) withheld the beams of his spirit from the common view of our dark sense, and night hath hovered over the gardens of the Nine Sisters, while ignis fatuus, and gross fatty flames, (such as commonly arise out of dunghills) have took occasion, in the middest eclipse of his shining perfections, to wander abroad with a wisp of paper at their tails, like hobgoblins, and lead men up and down in a circle of absurdity a whole week, and never know where they are."

The following points apply to Marlowe, Shakspere, and Peele; evidently Dello is in a very uncomfortable and bristling humour if not "on a bed of beards," a hedgehog to himself as well as to his friends;-" Nor hath my prose any skill to imitate the almond leaf verse, or sit tabring five years together nothing but to bee, to bee on a paper drum."

"Others are so hardly bested for loading, that they are fain to retail the cinders of Troy, and the shivers of broken trunchions to fill up their boat, that else should go empty."

The "almond leaf verse is an ironical compliment; as the second part of Tamburlaine and the first three books of the Fairy Queen were published in 1590, the public immediately discovered, that Marlowe had purloined from Spenser the passage in Tamburlaine commencing with:

"Like to an almond-tree y-mounted high.'

The following graphic and invaluable caricature belongs to Mr. Ignorance and no mistake: