Dennis, John

Dennis, John (1657–1734) English dramatist and critic, who adapted The Merry Wives of Windsor in 1702 as The Comical Gallant. His Epistle to this is the source of the legend that the play was written at the command of Queen Elizabeth, ‘and by her direction, and she was so eager to see it acted that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days’.

Two years later Dennis improved the story by saying that Elizabeth commanded Shakespeare to write the play ‘in ten days’ time’. Nicholas Rowe elaborated further: ‘she was so well pleased with that admirable character of Falstaff, in the two Parts of Henry the Fourth, that she commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to show him in love.’

In 1710, Charles Gildon conflated the anecdotes: ‘the Queen … who had obliged him to write a play of Sir John Falstaff in love and which I am very well assured he performed in a fortnight.’

Dennis also adapted Coriolanus as The Invader of his Country (1719).