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Another phase of Act V. Scene ii. of Love's Labour's Lost appears to be a reflection of an affair in the life of the individual whom Shakespeare has in mind in the delineation of the characters of Armado and Sir John Falstaff. Costard accuses Armado regarding his relations with Jaquenetta.

Cost. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she is two months on her way.

Arm. What meanest thou?

Cost. Faith, unless you play the honest Trojan, the poor wench is cast away: she's quick; the child brags in her belly already: 'tis yours.

Arm. Dost thou infamonize me among potentates?

Precisely similar conditions are shown to exist in the relations between Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet, in the Second Part of Henry IV., in which play there are also allusions to the characters of the Iliad, which link its composition with the same period as Troilus and Cressida; and an allusion to The Nine Worthies that apparently link it in time with the final revision of Love's Labour's Lost late in 1598.

ACT V. Scene iv.

Enter Beadles dragging in Hostess Quickly and Doll Tearsheet.

Host. No, thou arrant knave; I would to God that I might have thee hanged: thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint.

First Bead. The constables have delivered her over to me: and she shall have whipping-cheer enough I warrant her: there hath been a man or two lately killed about her.

Dol. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on; I'll tell thee what, thou damned tripe-visaged rascal, and the child I now go with miscarry, thou wert better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper-faced villain.

Host. O the Lord, that Sir John were come! he would make this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb miscarry.

The natural sequel to the conditions so plainly indicated in the passages quoted from the lately revised Love's Labour's Lost, regarding Jaquenetta and Armado, and from the recently written Henry IV. in reference to Doll Tearsheet and Falstaff, is reported in due time in a postscript to a letter written by Elizabeth Vernon, now Lady Southampton, on 8th July 1599, to her husband, who was in Ireland with Essex. She writes from Chartley:

"All the nues I can send you that I thinke will make you mery is that I reade in a letter from London that Sir John Falstaff is by his Mistress Dame Pintpot made father of a godly millers thum a boye thats all heade and very litel body: but this is a secret."

Here we have record that Shakespeare's patron, and his patron's wife, knew that Falstaff had a living prototype who was numbered among their acquaintances. That the birth of this child was not in wedlock is suggested by the concluding words of the Countess's letter "but this is a secret."

The identification of Florio as the original caricatured as Parolles and Falstaff has never been anticipated, though some critics have noticed the basic resemblances between these two characters of Shakespeare's. Parolles has been called by Schlegel, "the little appendix to the great Falstaff."

A few slight links in the names of characters have led some commentators to date a revision of All's Well that Ends Well at about the same time as that of the composition of Measure for Measure and Hamlet. While the links of subjective evidence I have adduced for one revision in, or about, the autumn of 1598, and at the same period as that of the composition of the Second Part of Henry IV., of the final revision of Love's Labour's Lost, and shortly after the production of Troilus and Cressida, in 1598, are fairly conclusive, a consideration of the characterisation of Falstaff in the First Part of Henry IV. and of the evidence usually advanced for the date of the composition of this play will elucidate this idea.

The First Part of Henry IV. in its present form belongs to a period shortly preceding the date of its entry in the Stationers' Registers, in February 1598. I am convinced that it was published at this time with Shakespeare's cognizance, and that he revised it with this intention in mind. All inference and evidence