1875, Edward Dowden: "The Falstaff of The Merry Wives of Windsor is another person than the Sir John who is 'in Arthur's bosom'" (Dowden 17).
1890, Giuseppe Verdi: "For forty years now I have wanted to write a comic opera, and for fifty years I have known The Merry Wives of Windsor. … Falstaff is a deplorable creature who does all kinds of bad things, but in a diverting manner. He's a real character" (Verdi 19).
1902, AC Bradley: "To picture the real Falstaff befooled like the Falstaff of the Merry Wives is like imagining Iago the gull of Roderigo, or Becky Sharp the dupe of Amelia Osborne. Before he had been served the least of these tricks he would have had his brains taken out and buttered, and have given them to a dog for a New Year's gift" (Bradley 94-95).
1902, Rosa Grindon: "It is one thing to say we do not like the Falstaff of the Merry Wives, but quite another to say that Falstaff of even the first part of Henry IV (let alone the second) would not have degenerated into the man as we see him there" (in Roberts 97).
1914, Elmer Edgar Stoll: ""And yet people like Falstaff, however they may interpret or explain him … It is partly, no doubt, because of the tradition that he is the supreme comic figure" (Stoll 25).