One thing alone could render the words, in which poetic
genius finds voice, tolerable in the playhouse to a spectator of
Pepys's prosaic temperament. The one thing needful is inspired acting,
and in the case of these three plays, when Pepys saw them performed,
inspired acting was wanting.
It is at first sight disconcerting to find Pepys no less impatient of
_The Merry Wives of Windsor_. He expresses a mild interest in the
humours of "the country gentleman and the French doctor." But he
condemns the play as a whole. It is in his favour that his bitterest
reproaches are aimed at the actors and actresses. One can hardly
conceive that Falstaff, fitly interpreted, would have failed to
satisfy Pepys's taste in humour, commonplace though it was. He is not
quite explicit on the point; but there are signs that the histrionic
interpretation of Shakespeare's colossal humorist, rather than the
dramatist's portrayal of the character, caused the diarist's
disappointment.
Just before Pepys saw the first part of _Henry IV._, wherein Falstaff
figures to supreme advantage, he had bought and read the play in
quarto. "But my expectation being too great" (he avers), "it did not
please me as otherwise I believe it would.
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