Chapter XVI: Letter III: Sir, Feb. 8 (10)

To account for all this, let us only suppose that _Falstaff_ was a man of natural Courage, though in all respects unprincipled; but that he was surprized in one single instance into an act of real terror; which, instead of excusing upon circumstances, he endeavours to cover by lyes and braggadocio; and that these lyes become thereupon the subject, in this place, of detection. Upon these suppositions the whole difficulty will vanish at once, and every thing be natural, common, and plain. The _Fact_ itself will be of course _excusable_; that is, it will arise out of a combination of such circumstances as, being applicable to one case only, will not destroy the general character: It will not be _preceded_ by any braggadocio, containing any fair indication of Cowardice; as real Cowardice is not supposed to exist in the character. But the first act of real or apparent Cowardice would naturally throw a vain unprincipled man into the use of lyes and braggadocio; but these would have reference only to the _Fact in question_, and not apply to other cases or infect his general character, which is not supposed to stand in need of imposition. Again,—the detection of Cowardice, as such, is more diverting after a long and various course of Pretence, where the lye of character is preserved, as it were, whole, and brought into sufficient magnitude for a burst of discovery; yet, mere occasional lyes, such as _Falstaff_ is hereby supposed to utter, are, for the purpose of sport, best detected in the telling; because, indeed, they cannot be preserved for a future time; the exigence and the humour will be past: But the _shame_ arising to _Falstaff_ from the detection of _mere lyes_ would be _temporary only_; his character as to this point, being already known, and _tolerated for the humour_. Nothing, therefore, could follow but mirth and laughter, and the temporary triumph of baffling a wit at his own weapons, and reducing him to an absolute surrender: After which, we ought not to be surprized if we see him rise again, like a boy from play, and run another race with as little dishonour as before.

What then can we say, but that it is clearly the lyes only, not the _Cowardice_, of _Falstaff_ which are here detected: _Lyes_, to which what there may be of Cowardice is incidental only, improving indeed the Jest, but by no means the real Business of the scene.—And now also we may more clearly discern the true force and meaning of _Poin_’s prediction. “_The Jest will be_,” says he, “_the incomprehensible Lyes that this fat rogue will tell us: How thirty at least he fought with:—and in the reproof of this lyes the jest_”; That is, in the detection of these lyes _simply_; for as to _Courage_, he had never ventured to insinuate more than that _Falstaff_ would not fight longer than he saw cause: _Poins_ was in expectation indeed that _Falstaff_ would fall into some dishonour on this occasion; an event highly probable: But this was not, it seems, to be the principal ground of their mirth, but the detection of those _incomprehensible lyes_, which he boldly predicts, upon his knowledge of _Falstaff_’s character, this _fat rogue_, not _Coward_, would tell them. This prediction therefore, and the completion of it, go only to the impeachment of _Falstaff’s veracity_, and not of his _Courage_. “_These lyes_,” says the Prince, “_are like the father of them, gross as a mountain, open, palpable.—Why, thou clay-brained gutts, thou knotty-pated fool; how couldst thou know these men in Kendal Green, when it was so __ dark thou couldst not see thy hand? Come, tell us your reason._”

“Poins. _Come, your reason, __JACK__, your reason._”

Again, says the Prince, “_Hear how a plain Tale shall put you down—What trick, what device, what starting hole canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?_”

“Poins. _Come, let’s hear, __JACK__, what trick hast thou now?_”

All this clearly refers to _Falstaff_’s lyes only _as such_; and the objection seems to be, that he had not told them well, and with sufficient skill and probability. Indeed nothing seems to have been required of _Falstaff_ at any period of time but a good evasion. The truth is, that there is so much mirth, and so little of malice or imposition in his fictions, that they may for the most part be considered as mere strains of humour and exercises of wit, impeachable only for defect, when that happens, of the quality from which they are principally derived. Upon this occasion _Falstaff_’s evasions fail him; he is at the end of his invention; and it seems fair that, in defect of wit, the law should pass upon him, and that he should undergo the temporary censure of that Cowardice which he could not pass off by any evasion whatever. The best he could think of, was _instinct_: He was indeed a _Coward upon instinct_; in that respect _like a valiant lion, who would not touch the true Prince_. It would have been a vain attempt, the reader will easily perceive, in _Falstaff_, to have gone upon other ground, and to have aimed at justifying his Courage by a serious vindication: This would have been to have mistaken the true point of argument: It was his _lyes_, not his _Courage_, which was really in question. There was besides no getting out of the toils in which he had entangled himself: If he was not, he ought at least, by his own shewing, to have _been at half-sword with a dozen of them two hours together_; whereas, it unfortunately appears, and that too evidently to be evaded, that he had run with singular celerity from _two_, after the exchange of _a few __ blows_ only. This precluded _Falstaff_ from all rational defence in his own person;—but it has not precluded me, who am not the advocate of his _lyes_, but of his _Courage_.

But there are other singularities in _Falstaff_’s lyes, which go more directly to his vindication.—That they are confined to one scene and one occasion only, we are not _now_ at a loss to account for;—but what shall we say to their extravagance? The lyes of _Parolles_ and _Bobadill_ are brought into some shape; but the fictions of _Falstaff_ are so preposterous and _incomprehensible_, that one may fairly doubt if they ever were intended for credit; and therefore, if they ought to be called _lyes_, and not rather _humour_; or, to compound the matter, _humourous rhodomontades_. Certain it is, that they destroy their own purpose, and are clearly not the effect, in this respect, of a regulated practice, and a habit of imposition. The real truth seems to be, that had _Falstaff_, loose and unprincipled as he is, been born a Coward and bred a Soldier, he must, naturally, have been a great _Braggadocio_, a true _miles gloriosus_. But in such case he should have been exhibited active and young; for it is plain that age and corpulency are an excuse for Cowardice, which ought not to be afforded him. In the present case, wherein he was not only involved in suspicious circumstances, but wherein he seems to have felt some conscious touch of infirmity, and having no candid construction to expect from his laughing companions, he bursts at once, and with all his might, into the most unweighed and preposterous fictions, determined to put to proof on this occasion his boasted talent of _swearing truth out of England_. He tried it here, to its utmost extent, and was unfortunately routed on his own ground; which indeed, with such a mine beneath his feet, could not be otherwise. But without this, he had mingled in his deceits so much whimsical humour and fantastic exaggeration that he must have been detected; and herein appears the admirable address of _Shakespeare_, who can shew us _Falstaff_ in the various light, not only of what he is, but what he would have been under one single variation of character,—the want of natural Courage; whilst with an art not enough understood, he most effectually preserves the real character of _Falstaff_ even in the moment he seems to depart from it, by making his lyes too extravagant for practised imposition; by grounding them more upon humour than deceit; and turning them, as we shall next see, into a fair and honest proof of general Courage, by appropriating them to the concealment only of a single exception. And hence it is, that we see him draw so deeply and so confidently upon his former credit for Courage and atchievment: “_I never dealt better in my life,—thou know’st my old ward, Hal_,” are expressions which clearly refer to some known feats and defences of his former life. His exclamations against Cowardice, his reference to his own manhood, “_Die when thou wilt, old __JACK__, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring_”: These, and various expressions such as these, would be absurdities not impositions, Farce not Comedy, if not calculated to conceal some defect supposed unknown to the hearers; and these hearers were, in the present case, his constant companions, and the daily witnesses of his conduct. If before this period he had been a known and detected Coward, and was conscious that he had no credit to lose, I see no reason why he should fly so violently from a familiar ignominy which had often before attacked him; or why falshoods, seemingly in such a case neither calculated for or expecting credit, should be censured, or detected, as lyes or imposition.

That the whole transaction was considered as a mere jest, and as carrying with it no serious imputation on the Courage of _Falstaff_, is manifest, not only from his being allowed, when the laugh was past, to call himself, without contradiction in the personated character of _Hal_ himself, “valiant _Jack Falstaff, and the more __VALIANT__ being, as he is_, old Jack Falstaff,” but from various other particulars, and, above all, from the declaration, which the Prince makes on that very night, of his intention of procuring this _fat rogue a Charge of foot_;—a circumstance, doubtless, contrived by _Shakespeare_ to wipe off the seeming dishonour of the day: And from this time forward we hear of no imputation arising from this transaction; it is born and dies in a convivial hour; it leaves no trace behind, nor do we see any longer in the character of _Falstaff_ the boasting or braggadocio of a Coward.

Tho’ I have considered _Falstaff_’s character as relative only to one single quality, yet so much has been said, that it cannot escape the reader’s notice that he is a character made up by _Shakespeare_ wholly of incongruities;—a man at once young and old, enterprizing and fat, a dupe and a wit, harmless and wicked, weak in principle and resolute by constitution, cowardly in appearance and brave in reality; a knave without malice, a lyar without deceit; and a knight, a gentleman, and a soldier, without either dignity, decency, or honour: This is a character, which, though it may be de-compounded, could not, I believe, have been formed, nor the ingredients of it duly mingled, upon any receipt whatever: It required the hand of _Shakespeare_ himself to give to every particular part a relish of the whole, and of the whole to every particular part;—alike the same incongruous, identical _Falstaff_, whether to the grave Chief Justice he vainly talks of his youth, and offers to _caper for a thousand_; or cries to Mrs. _Doll_, “_I am old, I am old_,” though she is seated on his lap, and he is courting her for busses. How _Shakespeare_ could furnish out sentiment of so extraordinary a composition, and supply it with such appropriated and characteristic language, humour and wit, I cannot tell; but I may, however, venture to infer, and that confidently, that he who so well understood the uses of incongruity, and that laughter was to be raised by the opposition of qualities in the same man, and not by their agreement or conformity, would never have attempted to raise mirth by shewing us Cowardice in a Coward unattended by Pretence, and softened by every excuse of age, corpulence, and infirmity: And of this we cannot have a more striking proof than his furnishing this very character, on one instance of real terror, however excusable, with boast, braggadocio, and pretence, exceeding that of all other stage Cowards the whole length of his superior wit, humour, and invention.

What then upon the whole shall be said but that _Shakespeare_ has made certain Impressions, or produced certain effects, of which he has thought fit to conceal or obscure the cause? How he has done this, and for what special ends, we shall now presume to guess.—Before the period in which _Shakespeare_ wrote, the fools and Zanys of the stage were drawn out of the coarsest and cheapest materials: Some essential folly, with a dash of knave and coxcomb, did the feat. But _Shakespeare_, who delighted in difficulties, was resolved to furnish a richer repast, and to give to one eminent buffoon the high relish of wit, humour, birth, dignity, and Courage. But this was a process which required the nicest hand, and the utmost management and address: These enumerated qualities are, in their own nature, productive of _respect_; an Impression the most opposite to laughter that can be. This Impression then, it was, at all adventures, necessary to with-hold; which could not perhaps well be without dressing up these qualities in fantastic forms, and colours not their own; and thereby cheating the eye with shews of baseness and of folly, whilst he stole as it were upon the palate a richer and a fuller _goût_. To this end, what arts, what contrivances, has he not practised! How has he steeped this singular character in bad habits for fifty years together, and brought him forth saturated with every folly and with every vice not destructive of his essential character, or incompatible with his own primary design! For this end, he has deprived _Falstaff_ of every good principle; and for another, which will be presently mentioned, he has concealed every bad one. He has given him also every infirmity of body that is not likely to awaken our compassion, and which is most proper to render both his better qualities and his vices ridiculous: he has associated levity and debauch with _age_, corpulence and inactivity with _courage_, and has roguishly coupled the gout with _Military honours_, and a _pension_ with the _pox_. He has likewise involved this character in situations, out of which neither wit nor Courage can extricate him with honour. The surprize at _Gads-Hill_ might have betrayed a hero into flight, and the encounter with _Douglas_ left him no choice but death or stratagem. If he plays an after-game, and endeavours to redeem his ill fortune by lies and braggadocio, his ground fails him; no wit, no evasion will avail: Or is he likely to appear respectable in his person, rank, and demeanor, how is that respect abated or discharged! _Shakespeare_ has given him a kind of state indeed; but of what is it composed? Of that fustian cowardly rascal _Pistol_, and his yoke-fellow of few words, the equally deed-less _Nym_; of his cup-bearer the fiery _Trigon_, whose zeal burns in his nose, _Bardolph_; and of the boy, who bears the purse with _seven groats and two-pence_;—a boy who was given him on purpose to set him off, and whom he walks _before_, according to his own description, “_like a sow that had overwhelmed all her litter but one_.”

But it was not enough to render _Falstaff_ ridiculous in his figure, situations, and equipage; _still_ his respectable qualities would have come forth, at least occasionally, to spoil our mirth; or they might have burst the intervention of such slight impediments, and have every where shone through: It was necessary then to go farther, and throw on him that substantial ridicule, which only the incongruities of real vice can furnish; of vice, which was to be so mixed and blended with his frame as to give a durable character and colour to the whole.

But it may here be necessary to detain the reader a moment in order to apprize him of my further intention; without which, I might hazard that good understanding, which I hope has hitherto been preserved between us.

I have ’till now looked only to the Courage of _Falstaff_, a quality which, having been denied, in terms, to belong to his constitution, I have endeavoured to vindicate to the Understandings of my readers; the Impression on their Feelings (in which all Dramatic truth consists) being already, as I have supposed, in favour of the character. In the pursuit of this subject I have taken the general Impression of the whole character pretty much, I suppose, like other men; and, when occasion has required, have so transmitted it to the reader; joining in the common Feeling of _Falstaff_’s pleasantry, his apparent freedom from ill principle, and his companionable wit and good humour: With a stage character, in the article of exhibition, we have nothing more to do; for in fact what is it but an Impression; an appearance, which we are to consider as a reality, and which we may venture to applaud or condemn as such, without further inquiry or investigation? But if we would account for our Impressions, or for certain sentiments or actions in a character, not derived from its apparent principles, yet appearing, we know not why, natural, we are then compelled to look farther, and examine if there be not something more in the character than is _shewn_; something inferred, which is not brought under our special notice: In short, we must look to the art of the writer, and to the principles of human nature, to discover the hidden causes of such effects.—Now this is a very different matter.—The former considerations respected the Impression only, without regard to the Understanding; but this question relates to the Understanding alone. It is true that there are but few Dramatic characters which will bear this kind of investigation, as not being drawn in exact conformity to those principles of general nature to which we must refer. But this is not the case with regard to the characters of _Shakespeare_; they are struck out _whole_, by some happy art which I cannot clearly comprehend, out of the general mass of things, from the block as it were of nature: And it is, I think, an easier thing to give a just draught of man from these Theatric forms, which I cannot help considering as originals, than by drawing from real life, amidst so much intricacy, obliquity, and disguise. If therefore, for further proofs of _Falstaff_’s Courage, or for the sake of curious speculation, or for both, I change my position, and look to causes instead of effects, the reader must not be surprized if he finds the former _Falstaff_ vanish like a dream, and another, of more disgustful form, presented to his view; one whose final punishment we shall be so far from regretting, that we ourselves shall be ready to consign him to a severer doom.

The reader will very easily apprehend that a character, which we might wholly disapprove of, considered as existing in human life, may yet be thrown on the stage into certain peculiar situations, and be compressed by external influences into such temporary appearances, as may render such character for a time highly acceptable and entertaining, and even more distinguished for qualities, which on this supposition would be accidents only, than another character really possessing those qualities, but which, under the pressure of the same situation and influences, would be distorted into a different form, or totally left in timidity and weakness. If therefore the character before us will admit of this kind of investigation, our Inquiry will not be without some dignity, considered as extending to the principles of human nature, and to the genius and arts of Him, who has best caught every various form of the human mind, and transmitted them with the greatest happiness and fidelity.

To return then to the vices of _Falstaff_.—We have frequently referred to them under the name of ill habits;—but perhaps the reader is not fully aware how very vicious he indeed is;—he is a robber, a glutton, a cheat, a drunkard, and a lyar; lascivious, vain, insolent, profligate, and profane:—A fine infusion this, and such as without very excellent cookery must have thrown into the dish a great deal too much of the _fumet_. It was a nice operation;—these vices were not only to be of a particular sort, but it was also necessary to guard them at both ends; on the _one_, from all appearance of malicious motive, and indeed from the manifestation of any ill principle whatever, which must have produced _disgust_,—a sensation no less opposite to laughter than is _respect_;—and, on the _other_, from the notice, or even apprehension, in the spectators, of _pernicious effect_; which produces _grief_ and _terror_, and is the proper province of Tragedy alone.

_Actions_ cannot with strict propriety be said to be either virtuous or vicious. These qualities, or attributes, belong to _agents_ only; and are derived, even in respect to _them_, from intention alone. The abstracting of qualities, and considering them as independent of any _subject_, and the applying of them afterwards to actions independent of the agent, is a double operation which I do not pretend, thro’ any part of it, to understand. All actions may most properly, in their own nature, I think, be called _neutral_; tho’ in common discourse, and in writing where perfection is not requisite, we often term them _vicious_, transferring on these occasions the attributive from the _agent_ to the _action_; and sometimes we call them _evil_, or of pernicious effect, by transferring, in like manner, the injuries incidentally arising from certain actions to the life, happiness, or interest of human beings, to the natural operation, whether moral or physical, of the _actions_ themselves: _One_ is a colour thrown on them by the _intention_, in which I think consists all moral turpitude, and the _other_ by effect: If therefore a Dramatic writer will use certain managements to keep vicious intention as much as possible from our notice, and make us sensible that no evil effect follows, he may pass off actions of very vicious motive, without much ill impression, as mere _incongruities_, and the effect of _humour_ only;—_words these_, which, as applied to human conduct, are employed, I believe, to cover a great deal of what may deserve much harder appellation.

The _difference_ between suffering an evil effect to take place, and of preventing such effect, from actions precisely of the same nature, is so great, that it is often _all the difference_ between Tragedy and Comedy. The Fine gentleman of the Comic scene, who so promptly draws his sword, and wounds, without killing, some other gentleman of the same sort; and _He_ of Tragedy, whose stabs are mortal, differ very frequently in no other point whatever. If our _Falstaff_ had really _peppered_ (as he calls it) _two rogues in buckram suits_, we must have looked for a very different conclusion, and have expected to have found _Falstaff_’s Essential prose converted into blank verse, and to have seen him move off, in slow and measured paces, like the City Prentice to the tolling of a Passing bell;—“_he would have become a cart as well as another, or a plague on his bringing up._”

Every incongruity in a rational being is a source of laughter, whether it respects manners, sentiments, conduct, or even dress, or situation;—but the greatest of all possible incongruity is vice, whether in the intention itself, or as transferred to, and becoming more manifest in action;—it is inconsistent with moral agency, nay, with rationality itself, and all the ends and purposes of our being.—Our author describes the natural ridicule of vice in his MEASURE _for_ MEASURE in the strongest terms, where, after having made the angels weep over the vices of men, he adds, that _with_ our spleens _they might laugh themselves quite mortal_. Indeed if we had a perfect discernment of the ends of this life only, and could preserve ourselves from sympathy, disgust, and terror, the vices of mankind would be a source of perpetual entertainment. The great difference between _Heraclitus_ and _Democritus_ lay, it seems, in their spleen only;—for a wise and good man must either laugh or cry without ceasing. Nor indeed is it easy to conceive (to instance in one case only) a more laughable, or a more melancholy object, than a human being, his nature and duration considered, earnestly and anxiously exchanging peace of mind and conscious integrity for gold; and for gold too, which he has often no occasion for, or dares not employ:—But _Voltaire_ has by one Publication rendered all _arguments_ superfluous: He has told us, in his _Candide_, the merriest and most diverting tale of frauds, murders, massacres, rapes, rapine, desolation, and destruction, that I think it possible on any other plan to invent; and he has given us _motive_ and _effect_, with every possible aggravation, to improve the sport. One would think it difficult to preserve the point of ridicule, in such a case, unabated by contrary emotions; but now that the feat is performed it appears of easy imitation, and I am amazed that our race of imitators have made no efforts in this sort: It would answer I should think in the way of profit, not to mention the moral uses to which it might be applied. The managements of _Voltaire_ consists in this, that he assumes a gay, easy, and light tone himself; that he never excites the reflections of his readers by making any of his own; that he hurries us on with such a rapidity of narration as prevents our emotions from resting on any particular point; and to gain this end, he has interwoven the conclusion of one fact so into the commencement of another, that we find ourselves engaged in new matter before we are sensible that we had finished the old; he has likewise made his crimes so enormous, that we do not sadden on any sympathy, or find ourselves partakers in the guilt.—But what is truly singular as to this book, is, that it does not appear to have been written for any moral purpose, but for That only (if I do not err) of satyrising Providence itself; a design so enormously profane, that it may well pass for the most ridiculous part of the whole composition.

But if vice, divested of disgust and terror, is thus in its own nature ridiculous, we ought not to be surprized if the very same vices which spread horror and desolation thro’ the Tragic scene should yet furnish the Comic with its highest laughter and delight, and that tears, and mirth, and even humour and wit itself, should grow from the same root of incongruity: For what is humour in the humourist, but incongruity, whether of sentiment, conduct, or manners? What in the man of humour, but a quick discernment and keen sensibility of these incongruities? And what is wit itself, without presuming however to give a complete definition where so many have failed, but a talent, for the most part, of marking with force and vivacity unexpected points of likeness in things supposed incongruous, and points of incongruity in things supposed alike: And hence it is that wit and humour, tho’ always distinguished, are so often coupled together; it being very possible, I suppose, to be a man of humour without wit; but I think not a man of wit without humour.

But I have here raised so much new matter, that the reader may be out of hope of seeing this argument, any more than the tale of _Tristram_, brought to a conclusion: He may suppose me now prepared to turn my pen to a moral, or to a dramatic Essay, or ready to draw the line between vice and virtue, or Comedy and Tragedy, as fancy shall lead the way;—But he is happily mistaken; I am pressing earnestly, and not without some impatience, to a conclusion. The principles I have now opened are necessary to be considered for the purpose of estimating the character of _Falstaff_, considered as relatively to human nature: I shall then reduce him with all possible dispatch to his Theatric condition, and restore him, I hope, without injury, to the stage.

There is indeed a vein or two of argument running through the matter that now surrounds me, which I might open for my own more peculiar purposes; but which, having resisted much greater temptations, I shall wholly desert. It ought not, however, to be forgotten, that if _Shakespeare_ has used arts to abate our respect of _Falstaff_, it should follow by just inference, that, without such arts, his character would have grown into a _respect_ inconsistent with laughter; and that yet, without Courage, he could not have been respectable at all;—that it required nothing less than the union of ability and Courage to support his other more accidental qualities with any tolerable coherence. Courage and Ability are first principles of Character, and not to be destroyed whilst the united frame of body and mind continues whole and unimpaired; they are the pillars on which he stands firm in spight of all his vices and disgraces;—but if we should take Courage away, and reckon Cowardice among his other defects, all the intelligence and wit in the world could not support him through a single Play.

The effect of taking away the influence of this quality upon the manners of a character, tho’ the quality and the influence be assumed only, is evident in the cases of _Parolles_ and _Bobadil_. _Parolles_, at least, did not seem to want wit; but both these characters are reduced almost to non-entity, and, after their disgraces, walk only thro’ a scene or two, the mere mockery of their former existence. _Parolles_ was so changed, that neither the _fool_, nor the old lord _Le-feu_, could readily recollect his person; and his wit seemed to be annihilated with his Courage.

Let it not be here objected that _Falstaff_ is universally considered as a Coward;—we do indeed call him so; but that is nothing, if the character itself does not act from any consciousness of this kind, and if our Feelings take his part, and revolt against our understanding.

As to the arts by which _Shakespeare_ has contrived to obscure the vices of _Falstaff_, they are such as, being subservient only to the mirth of the Play, I do not feel myself obliged to detail.

But it may be well worth our curiosity to inquire into the composition of _Falstaff_’s character.—Every man we may observe has two characters; that is, every man may be seen externally, and from without;—or a section may be made of him, and he may be illuminated from within.

Of the external character of _Falstaff_, we can scarcely be said to have any steady view. _Jack Falstaff_ we are familiar with, but _Sir John_ was better known, it seems, _to the rest of Europe_, than to his intimate companions; yet we have so many glimpses of him, and he is opened to us occasionally in such various points of view, that we cannot be mistaken in describing him as a man of birth and fashion, bred up in all the learning and accomplishments of the times;—of ability and Courage equal to any situation, and capable by nature of the highest affairs; trained to arms, and possessing the tone, the deportment, and the manners of a gentleman;—but yet these accomplishments and advantages seem to hang loose on him, and to be worn with a slovenly carelessness and inattention: A too great indulgence of the qualities of humour and wit seems to draw him too much one way, and to destroy the grace and orderly arrangement of his other accomplishments;—and hence he becomes strongly marked for one advantage, to the injury, and almost forgetfulness in the beholder, of all the rest. Some of his vices likewise strike through, and stain his Exterior;—his modes of speech betray a certain licentiousness of mind; and that high Aristocratic tone which belonged to his situation was pushed on, and aggravated into unfeeling insolence and oppression. “_It is not a confirmed brow_,” says the Chief Justice, “_nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level consideration_”: “_My lord_,” answers _Falstaff_, “_you call honourable boldness impudent sauciness. If a man will court’sie and say nothing, he is virtuous: No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your suitor. I say to you I desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the King’s affairs._” “_You speak_,” replies the Chief Justice, “_as having power to do wrong._”—His whole behaviour to the Chief Justice, whom he despairs of winning by flattery, is singularly insolent; and the reader will remember many instances of his insolence to others: Nor are his manners always free from the taint of vulgar society;—“_This is the right fencing grace, my lord_,” says he to the Chief Justice, with great impropriety of manners, “_tap for tap, and so part fair_”: “_Now the lord lighten thee,_” is the reflection of the Chief Justice, “_thou art a very great fool._”—Such a character as I have here described, strengthened with that vigour, force, and alacrity of mind, of which he is possessed, must have spread terror and dismay thro’ the ignorant, the timid, the modest, and the weak: Yet is he however, when occasion requires, capable of much accommodation and flattery;—and in order to obtain the protection and patronage of the great, so convenient to his vices and his poverty, he was put under the daily necessity of practising and improving these arts; a baseness which he compensates to himself, like other unprincipled men, by an increase of insolence towards his inferiors.—There is also a natural activity about _Falstaff_ which, for want of proper employment, shews itself in a kind of swell or bustle, which seems to correspond with his bulk, as if his mind had inflated his body, and demanded a habitation of no less circumference: Thus conditioned he rolls (in the language of _Ossian_) like a _Whale of Ocean_, scattering the smaller fry; but affording, in his turn, noble contention to _Hal_ and _Poins_; who, to keep up the allusion, I may be allowed on this occasion to compare to the Thresher and the Sword-fish.

To this part of _Falstaff_’s character, many things which he does and says, and which appear unaccountably natural, are to be referred.

We are next to see him _from within_: And here we shall behold him most villainously unprincipled and debauched; possessing indeed the same Courage and ability, yet stained with numerous vices, unsuited not only to his primary qualities, but to his age, corpulency, rank, and profession;—reduced by these vices to a state of dependence, yet resolutely bent to indulge them at any price. These vices have been already enumerated; they are many, and become still more intolerable by an excess of unfeeling insolence on one hand, and of base accommodation on the other.

But what then, after all, is become of _old Jack_? Is this the jovial delightful companion—_Falstaff_, the favourite and the boast of the Stage?—by no means. But it is, I think however, the _Falstaff_ of Nature; the very stuff out of which the _Stage Falstaff_ is composed; nor was it possible, I believe, out of any other materials he could have been formed. From this disagreeable draught we shall be able, I trust, by a proper disposition of light and shade, and from the influence of compression of external things, to produce _plump Jack_, the life of humour, the spirit of pleasantry, and the soul of mirth.

To this end, _Falstaff_ must no longer be considered as a single independent character, but grouped, as we find him shewn to us in the Play;—his ability must be disgraced by buffoonery, and his Courage by circumstances of imputation; and those qualities be thereupon reduced into subjects of mirth and laughter:—His vices must be concealed at each end from vicious design and evil effect, and must thereupon be turned into incongruities, and assume the name of humour only;—his insolence must be repressed by the superior tone of _Hal_ and _Poins_, and take the softer name of spirit only, or alacrity of mind;—his state of dependence, his temper of accommodation, and his activity, must fall in precisely with the indulgence of his humours; that is, he must thrive best and flatter most, by being extravagantly incongruous; and his own tendency, impelled by so much activity, will carry him with perfect ease and freedom to all the necessary excesses. But why, it may be asked, should incongruities recommend _Falstaff_ to the favour of the Prince?—Because the Prince is supposed to possess a high relish of humour and to have a temper and a force about him, which, whatever was his pursuit, delighted in excess. This, _Falstaff_ is supposed perfectly to comprehend; and thereupon not only to indulge himself in all kinds of incongruity, but to lend out his own superior wit and humour against himself, and to heighten the ridicule by all the tricks and arts of buffoonery for which his corpulence, his age, and situation, furnish such excellent materials. This compleats the Dramatic character of _Falstaff_, and gives him that appearance of perfect good-nature, pleasantry, mellowness, and hilarity of mind, for which we admire and almost love him, tho’ we feel certain reserves which forbid our going that length; the true reason of which is, that there will be always found a difference between mere appearances and reality: Nor are we, nor can we be, insensible that whenever the action of external influence upon him is in whole or in part relaxed, the character restores itself proportionably to its more unpleasing condition.

A character really possessing the qualities which are on the stage imputed to _Falstaff_, would be best shewn by its own natural energy; the least compression would disorder it, and make us feel for it all the pain of sympathy: It is the artificial condition of _Falstaff_ which is the source of our delight; we enjoy his distresses, we _gird at him_ ourselves, and urge the sport without the least alloy of compassion; and we give him, when the laugh is over, undeserved credit for the pleasure we enjoyed. If any one thinks that these observations are the effect of too much refinement, and that there was in truth more of chance in the case than of management or design, let him try his own luck;—perhaps he may draw out of the wheel of fortune a _Macbeth_, an _Othello_, a _Benedict_, or a _Falstaff_.

Such, I think, is the true character of this extraordinary buffoon; and from hence we may discern for what special purposes _Shakespeare_ has given him talents and qualities, which were to be afterwards obscured, and perverted to ends opposite to their nature; it was clearly to furnish out a Stage buffoon of a peculiar sort; a kind of Game-bull which would stand the baiting thro’ a hundred Plays, and produce equal sport, whether he is pinned down occasionally by _Hal_ or _Poins_, or tosses such mongrils as _Bardolph_, or the Justices, sprawling in the air. There is in truth no such thing as totally demolishing _Falstaff_; he has so much of the invulnerable in his frame that no ridicule can destroy him; he is safe even in defeat, and seems to rise, like another _Antæus_, with recruited vigour from every fall; in this, as in every other respect, unlike _Parolles_ or _Bobadil_: They fall by the first shaft of ridicule, but _Falstaff_ is a butt on which we may empty the whole quiver, whilst the substance of his character remains unimpaired. His ill habits, and the accidents of age and corpulence, are no part of his essential constitution; they come forward indeed on our eye, and solicit our notice, but they are second natures, not _first_; mere shadows, we pursue them in vain; _Falstaff_ himself has a distinct and separate subsistence; he laughs at the chace, and when the sport is over, gathers them with unruffled feather under his wing: And hence it is that he is made to undergo not one detection only, but a series of detections; that he is not formed for one Play only, but was intended originally at least for two; and the author, we are told, was doubtful if he should not extend him yet farther, and engage him in the wars with _France_. This he might well have done, for there is nothing perishable in the nature of _Falstaff_: He might have involved him, by the vicious part of his character, in new difficulties and unlucky situations, and have enabled him, by the better part, to have scrambled through, abiding and retorting the jests and laughter of every beholder.

But whatever we may be told concerning the intention of _Shakespeare_ to extend this character farther, there is a manifest preparation near the end of the second part of Henry IV. for his disgrace: The disguise is taken off, and he begins openly to pander to the excesses of the Prince, intitling himself to the character afterwards given him of being _the tutor and the feeder of his riots_. “_I will fetch off_,” says he, “_these Justices.—I will devise matter enough out of this __SHALLOW__ to keep the Prince in continual laughter the wearing out of six fashions.—If the young __DACE__ be a bait for the old __PIKE__,_” (speaking with reference to his own designs upon _Shallow_) “_I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him._”—This is shewing himself abominably dissolute: The laborious arts of fraud, which he practises on _Shallow_ to induce the loan of a thousand pound, create _disgust_; and the more, as we are sensible this money was never likely to be _paid back_, as we are told that _was_, of which the travellers had been robbed. It is true we feel no pain for _Shallow_, he being a very bad character, as would fully appear, if he were unfolded; but _Falstaff_’s deliberation in fraud is not on that account more excusable.—The event of the old King’s death draws him out almost into detestation.—“_Master __ROBERT SHALLOW__, chuse what office thou wilt in the land,—’tis thine.—I am fortune’s steward.—Let us take any man’s horses.—The laws of England are at my commandment.—Happy are they who have been my friends;—and woe to my __LORD CHIEF JUSTICE__._”—After this we ought not to complain if we see Poetic justice duly executed upon him, and that he is finally given up to shame and dishonour.

But it is remarkable that, during this process, we are not acquainted with the success of _Falstaff_’s designs upon _Shallow_ ’till the moment of his disgrace. “_If I had had time_,” says he to _Shallow_, as the King is approaching, “_to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pounds I borrowed of you_”;—and the first word he utters after this period is, “_Master __SHALLOW__, I owe you a thousand pounds_”: We may from hence very reasonably presume, that _Shakespeare_ meant to connect this fraud with the punishment of _Falstaff_, as a more avowed ground of censure and dishonour: Nor ought the consideration that this passage contains the most exquisite comic humour and propriety in another view, to diminish the truth of this observation.

But however just it might be to demolish _Falstaff_ in this way, by opening to us his bad principles, it was by no means _convenient_. If we had been to have seen a single representation of him only, it might have been proper enough; but as he was to be shewn from night to night, and from age to age, the disgust arising from the _close_ would by degrees have spread itself over the whole character; reference would be had throughout to his bad principles, and he would have become less acceptable as he was more known: And yet it was necessary to bring him, like all other stage characters, to some conclusion. Every play must be wound up by some event, which may shut in the characters and the action. If some _hero_ obtains a crown, or a mistress, involving therein the fortune of others, we are satisfied;—we do not desire to be afterwards admitted of his council, or his bed-chamber: Or if through jealousy, causeless or well founded, _another_ kills a beloved wife, and himself after,—there is no more to be said;—they are dead, and there an end; Or if in the scenes of Comedy, parties are engaged, and plots formed, for the furthering or preventing the completion of that great article Cuckoldom, we expect to be satisfied in the point as far as the nature of so nice a case will permit, or at least to see such a manifest _disposition_ as will leave us in no doubt of the event. By the bye, I cannot but think that the Comic writers of the last age treated this matter as of more importance, and made more bustle about it, than the temper of the present times will well bear; and it is therefore to be hoped that the Dramatic authors of the present day, some of whom, to the best of my judgment, are deserving of great praise, will consider and treat this business, rather as a common and natural incident arising out of modern manners, than as worthy to be held forth as the great object and sole end of the Play.

But whatever be the question, or whatever the character, the curtain must not only be dropt before the eyes, but over the minds of the spectators, and nothing left for further examination and curiosity.—But how was this to be done in regard to _Falstaff_? He was not involved in the fortune of the Play; he was engaged in no action which, as to him, was to be compleated; he had reference to no system, he was attracted to no center; he passes thro’ the Play as a lawless meteor, and we wish to know what course he is afterwards likely to take: He is detected and disgraced, it is true; but he lives by detection, and thrives on disgrace; and we are desirous to see him detected and disgraced again. The _Fleet_ might be no bad scene of further amusement;—he carries _all_ within him, _and what matter_ where, _if he be still the same_, possessing the same force of mind, the same wit, and the same incongruity. This, _Shakespeare_ was fully sensible of, and knew that this character could not be compleatly dismissed but by death.—“Our author,” says the Epilogue to the Second Part of Henry IV., “will continue the story with Sir _John_ in it, and make you merry with fair _Catherine_ of _France_; where, for any thing I know, _Falstaff_ shall dye of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions.” If it had been prudent in _Shakespeare_ to have killed _Falstaff_ with _hard opinion_, he had the means in his hand to effect it;—but dye, it seems, he must, in one form or another, and a _sweat_ would have been no unsuitable catastrophe. However we have reason to be satisfied as it is;—his death was worthy of his birth and of his life: “_He was born_,” he says, “_about three o’clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly._” But if he came into the world in the evening with these marks of age, he departs out of it in the morning in all the follies and vanities of youth;—“_He was shaked_” (we are told) “_of a burning quotidian tertian;—the young King had run bad humours on the knight;—his heart was fracted and corroborate; and a’ parted just between twelve and one, even at the turning of the tide, yielding the crow a pudding, and passing directly into __ARTHUR’S BOSOM__, if ever man went into the bosom of __ARTHUR__._”—So ended this singular buffoon; and with him ends an Essay, on which the reader is left to bestow what character he pleases: An Essay professing to treat of the Courage of _Falstaff_, but extending itself to his Whole character; to the arts and genius of his Poetic-Maker, SHAKESPEARE; and thro’ him sometimes, with ambitious aim, even to the principles of human nature itself.

NOTES.

Nicholas Rowe.

2. _Some Latin without question_, etc. This passage, down to the reference to the scene in _Henry V._, is omitted by Pope. _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, iv. 2, 95; _Titus Andronicus_, iv. 2, 20; _Henry V._, iii. 4.

3. _Deer-stealing._ This tradition—which was first recorded in print by Rowe—has often been doubted. See, however, Halliwell-Phillipps’s _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_, 1886, ii., p. 71, and Mr. Sidney Lee’s _Life of Shakespeare_, pp. 27, etc.

4. _the first Play he wrote._ Pope inserted here the following note: “The highest date of any I can yet find is _Romeo and Juliet_ in 1597, when the author was 33 years old, and _Richard the 2d_ and _3d_ in the next year, viz. the 34th of his age.” The two last had been printed in 1597.

_Mr. Dryden seems to think that Pericles_, etc. This sentence was omitted by Pope.

5. _the best conversations_, etc. Rowe here controverts the opinion expressed by Dryden in his _Essay on the Dramatic Poetry of the Last Age_: “I cannot find that any of them had been conversant in courts, except Ben Johnson; and his genius lay not so much that way as to make an improvement by it. Greatness was not then so easy of access, nor conversation so free, as now it is” (_Essays_, ed. W. P. Ker, i., p. 175).

_A fair Vestal._ _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, ii. 1, 158. In the original Rowe adds to his quotations from Shakespeare the page references to his own edition.

_The Merry Wives._ The tradition that the _Merry Wives_ was written at the command of Elizabeth had been recorded already by Dennis in the preface to his version of the play,—_The Comical Gallant, or the Amours of Sir John Falstaffe_ (1702): “This Comedy was written at her command, and by her direction, and she was so eager to see it acted, that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days; and was afterwards, as Tradition tells us, very well pleas’d at the Representation.” Cf. Dennis’s _Defence of a Regulated Stage_: “she not only commanded Shakespear to write the comedy of the _Merry Wives_, and to write it in ten day’s time,” etc. (_Original Letters_, 1721, i., p. 232).

_this part of Falstaff._ Rowe is here indebted apparently to the account of John Fastolfe in Fuller’s _Worthies of England_ (1662). But neither in it, nor in the similar passage on Oldcastle in the _Church History of Britain_ (1655, Bk. IV., Cent, XV., p. 168), does Fuller say that the name was altered at the command of the queen, on objection being made by Oldcastle’s descendants. This may have been a tradition at Rowe’s time, as there was then apparently no printed authority for it, but, as Halliwell-Phillips showed in his _Character of Sir John Falstaff_, 1841, it is confirmed by a manuscript of about 1625, preserved in the Bodleian. Cf. also Halliwell-Phillips’s _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_, 1886, ii., pp. 351, etc.; Richard James’s _Iter Lancastrense_ (Chetham Society, 1845, p. lxv.); and Ingleby’s _Shakespeare’s Centurie of Prayse_, 1879, pp. 164-5.

_name of Oldcastle._ Pope added in a footnote, “_See the Epilogue to_ Henry 4th.”

6. _Venus and Adonis._ The portion of the sentence following this title was omitted by Pope because it is inaccurate. _The Rape of Lucrece_ also was dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. The error is alluded to in Sewell’s preface to the seventh volume of Pope’s Shakespeare, 1725.

_Eunuchs._ Pope reads “Singers.”

The passage dealing with Spenser (p. 6, l. 34, to p. 7, l. 36) was omitted by Pope. But it is interesting to know Dryden’s opinion, even though it is probably erroneous. _Willy_ has not yet been identified.

8. _After this they were professed friends_, etc. This description of Ben Jonson, down to the words “with infinite labour and study could but hardly attain to,” was omitted by Pope, for reasons which appear in his Preface. See pp. 54, 55.

_Ben was naturally proud and insolent_, etc. Rowe here paraphrases and expands Dryden’s description in his _Discourse concerning Satire_ of Jonson’s verses to the memory of Shakespeare,—“an insolent, sparing, and invidious panegyric” (ed. W. P. Ker, ii., p. 18).