Poins. "Now my good sweet lord, ride with us tomorrow; I have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, PETO, and GADSHILL shall rob those men that we have already waylaid; yourself and I will not be there; and when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head from off my shoulders."

This is giving strong surety for his words; perhaps he thought the case required it: "But how," says the Prince, "shall we part with them in setting forth?" Poins is ready with his answer; he had matured the thought, and could solve every difficulty:—"They could set out before, or after; their horses might be tied in the wood; they could change their visors; and he had already procured cases of BUCKRAM to inmask their outward garments." This was going far; it was doing business in good earnest. But if we look into the Play we shall be better able to account for this activity; we shall find that there was at least as much malice as jest in Poins's intention. The rival situations of Poins and Falstaff had produced on both sides much jealousy and ill will, which occasionally appears, in Shakespeare's manner, by side lights, without confounding the main action; and by the little we see of this Poins, he appears to be an unamiable, if not a very brutish and bad, character.—But to pass this;—the Prince next says, with a deliberate and wholesome caution, "I doubt they will be too hard for us." Poins's reply is remarkable; "Well, for TWO of them, I know them to be as true bred Cowards as ever turned back; and for the THIRD, if he fights longer than he sees cause, I will forswear arms." There is in this reply a great deal of management: There were four persons in all, as Poins well knew, and he had himself, but a little before, named them,—Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill; but now he omits one of the number, which must be either Falstaff, as not subject to any imputation in point of Courage; and in that case Peto will be the third;—or, as I rather think, in order to diminish the force of the Prince's objection, he artfully drops Gadshill, who was then out of town, and might therefore be supposed to be less in the Prince's notice; and upon this supposition Falstaff will be the third, who will not fight longer than he sees reason. But on either supposition, what evidence is there of a pre-supposed Cowardice in Falstaff? On the contrary, what stronger evidence can we require that the Courage of Falstaff had to this hour, through various trials, stood wholly unimpeached, than that Poins, the ill-disposed Poins, who ventures, for his own purposes, to steal, as it were, one of the four from the notice and memory of the Prince, and who shews himself, from worse motives, as skilfull in diminishing as Falstaff appears afterwards to be in increasing of numbers, than that this very Poins should not venture to put down Falstaff in the list of Cowards; though the occasion so strongly required that he should be degraded. What Poins dares do however in this sort, he does. "As to the third," for so he describes Falstaff (as if the name of this Veteran would have excited too strongly the ideas of Courage and resistance), "if he fights longer than he sees reason, I will forswear arms." This is the old trick of cautious and artful malice: The turn of expression, or the tone of voice does all; for as to the words themselves, simply considered, they might be now truly spoken of almost any man who ever lived, except the iron-headed hero of Sweden.—But Poins however adds something, which may appear more decisive; "The virtue of this jest will be the incomprehensible lyes which this fat rogue will tell when we meet at supper; how thirty at least he fought with; and what wards, what blows, what extremities, he endured: And in the reproof of this lies the jest":—Yes, and the malice too.—This prediction was unfortunately fulfilled, even beyond the letter of it; a completion more incident, perhaps, to the predictions of malice than of affection. But we shall presently see how far either the prediction, or the event, will go to the impeachment of Falstaff's Courage.—The Prince, who is never duped, comprehends the whole of Poins's views. But let that pass.

In the next scene we behold all the parties at Gads-Hill in preparation for the robbery. Let us carefully examine if it contains any intimation of Cowardice in Falstaff. He is shewn under a very ridiculous vexation about his horse, which is hid from him; but this is nothing to the purpose, or only proves that Falstaff knew no terror equal to that of walking eight yards of uneven ground. But on occasion of Gadshill's being asked concerning the number of the travellers, and having reported that they were eight or ten, Falstaff exclaims, "Zounds! will they not rob us!" If he had said more seriously, "I doubt they will be too hard for us,"—he would then have only used the Prince's own words upon a less alarming occasion. This cannot need defence. But the Prince, in his usual stile of mirth, replies, "What a Coward, Sir John Paunch!" To this one would naturally expect from Falstaff some light answer; but we are surprized with a very serious one;—"I am not indeed JOHN OF GAUNT your grandfather, but yet no COWARD, HAL." This is singular: It contains, I think, the true character of Falstaff; and it seems to be thrown out here, at a very critical conjuncture, as a caution to the audience not to take too sadly what was intended only (to use the Prince's words) "as argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever after." The whole of Falstaff's past life could not, it should seem, furnish the Prince with a reply, and he is, therefore, obliged to draw upon the coming hope. "Well," says he, mysteriously, "let the event try"; meaning the event of the concerted attack on Falstaff; an event so probable, that he might indeed venture to rely on it.—But the travellers approach: The Prince hastily proposes a division of strength; that he with Poins should take a station separate from the rest, so that if the travellers should escape one party, they might light on the other: Falstaff does not object, though he supposes the travellers to be eight or ten in number. We next see Falstaff attack these travellers with alacrity, using the accustomed words of threat and terror;—they make no resistance, and he binds and robs them.

Hitherto I think there has not appeared the least trait either of boast or fear in Falstaff. But now comes on the concerted transaction, which has been the source of so much dishonour. As they are sharing the booty (says the stage direction) the Prince and POINS set upon them, they all run away; and FALSTAFF after a blow or two runs away too, leaving the booty behind them.—"Got with much ease," says the Prince, as an event beyond expectation, "Now merrily to horse."—Poins adds, as they are going off, "How the rogue roared!" This observation is afterwards remembered by the Prince, who, urging the jest to Falstaff, says, doubtless with all the licence of exaggeration,—"And you, FALSTAFF, carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still ran and roared, as I ever heard bull-calf." If he did roar for mercy, it must have been a very inarticulate sort of roaring; for there is not a single word set down for Falstaff from which this roaring may be inferred, or any stage direction to the actor for that purpose: But, in the spirit of mirth and derision, the lightest exclamation might be easily converted into the roar of a bull-calf.

We have now gone through this transaction considered simply on its own circumstances, and without reference to any future boast or imputation. It is upon these circumstances the case must be tried, and every colour subsequently thrown upon it, either by wit or folly, ought to be discharged. Take it, then, as it stands hitherto, with reference only to its own preceding and concomitant circumstances, and to the unbounded ability of Shakespeare to obtain his own ends, and we must, I think, be compelled to confess that this transaction was never intended by Shakespeare to detect and expose the false pretences of a real Coward; but, on the contrary, to involve a man of allowed Courage, though in other respects of a very peculiar character, in such circumstances and suspicions of Cowardice as might, by the operation of those peculiarities, produce afterwards much temporary mirth among his familiar and intimate companions: Of this we cannot require a stronger proof than the great attention which is paid to the decorum and truth of character in the stage direction already quoted: It appears, from thence, that it was not thought decent that Falstaff should run at all, until he had been deserted by his companions, and had even afterwards exchanged blows with his assailants;—and thus, a just distinction is kept up between the natural Cowardice of the three associates and the accidental Terror of Falstaff.

Hitherto, then, I think it is very clear that no laughter either is, or is intended to be, raised upon the score of Falstaff's Cowardice. For after all, it is not singularly ridiculous that an old inactive man of no boast, as far as appears, or extraordinary pretensions to valour, should endeavour to save himself by flight from the assault of two bold and vigorous assailants. The very Players, who are, I think, the very worst judges of Shakespeare, have been made sensible, I suppose from long experience, that there is nothing in this transaction to excite any extraordinary laughter; but this they take to be a defect in the management of their author, and therefore I imagine it is, that they hold themselves obliged to supply the vacancy, and fill it up with some low buffoonery of their own. Instead of the dispatch necessary on this occasion, they bring Falstaff, stuffing and all, to the very front of the stage; where, with much mummery and grimace, he seats himself down, with a canvas money-bag in his hand, to divide the spoil. In this situation he is attacked by the Prince and Poins, whose tin swords hang idly in the air and delay to strike till the Player Falstaff, who seems more troubled with flatulence than fear, is able to rise: which is not till after some ineffectual efforts, and with the assistance (to the best of my memory) of one of the thieves, who lingers behind, in spite of terror, for this friendly purpose; after which, without any resistance on his part, he is goaded off the stage like a fat ox for slaughter by these stony-hearted drivers in buckram. I think he does not roar;—perhaps the player had never perfected himself in the tones of a bull-calf. This whole transaction should be shewn between the interstices of a back scene: The less we see in such cases, the better we conceive. Something of resistance and afterwards of celerity in flight we should be made witnesses of; the roar we should take on the credit of Poins. Nor is there any occasion for all that bolstering with which they fill up the figure of Falstaff; they do not distinguish betwixt humourous exaggeration and necessary truth. The Prince is called starveling, dried neat's tongue, stock-fish, and other names of the same nature. They might with almost as good reason search the glass-houses for some exhausted stoker to furnish out a Prince of Wales of sufficient correspondence to this picture.

We next come to the scene of Falstaff's braggadocioes. I have already wandered too much into details; yet I must, however, bring Falstaff forward to this last scene of trial in all his proper colouring and proportions. The progressive discovery of Falstaff's character is excellently managed.—In the first scene we become acquainted with his figure, which we must in some degree consider as a part of his character; we hear of his gluttony and his debaucheries, and become witnesses of that indistinguishable mixture of humour and licentiousness which runs through his whole character; but what we are principally struck with, is the ease of his manners and deportment, and the unaffected freedom and wonderful pregnancy of his wit and humour. We see him, in the next scene, agitated with vexation: His horse is concealed from him, and he gives on this occasion so striking a description of his distress, and his words so labour and are so loaded with heat and vapour, that, but for laughing, we should pity him; laugh, however, we must at the extreme incongruity of a man, at once corpulent and old, associating with youth in an enterprize demanding the utmost extravagance of spirit, and all the wildness of activity: And this it is which make his complaints so truly ridiculous. "Give me my horse!" says he, in another spirit than that of Richard; "Eight yards of uneven ground," adds this Forrester of Diana, this enterprising gentleman of the shade, "is threescore and ten miles A-FOOT with me."—In the heat and agitation of the robbery, out comes more and more extravagant instances of incongruity. Though he is most probably older and much fatter than either of the travellers, yet he calls them, Bacons, Bacon-fed, and gorbellied knaves: "Hang them," says he, "fat chuffs, they hate us youth: What! young men, must live:—You are grand Jurors, are ye? We'll jure ye, i' faith." But, as yet, we do not see the whole length and breadth of him: This is reserved for the braggadocio scene. We expect entertainment, but we don't well know of what kind. Poins, by his prediction, has given us a hint: But we do not see or feel Falstaff to be a Coward, much less a boaster; without which even Cowardice is not sufficiently ridiculous; and therefore it is, that on the stage we find them always connected. In this uncertainty on our part, he is, with much artful preparation, produced.—His entrance is delayed to stimulate our expectation; and, at last, to take off the dullness of anticipation, and to add surprize to pleasure, he is called in, as if for another purpose of mirth than what we are furnished with: We now behold him, fluctuating with fiction, and labouring with dissembled passion and chagrin: Too full for utterance, Poins provokes him by a few simple words, containing a fine contrast of affected ease,—"Welcome, JACK, where hast thou been?" But when we hear him burst forth, "A plague on all Cowards! Give me a cup of sack. Is there no virtue extant!"—We are at once in possession of the whole man, and are ready to hug him, guts, lyes and all, as an inexhaustible fund of pleasantry and humour. Cowardice, I apprehend, is out of our thought; it does not, I think, mingle in our mirth. As to this point, I have presumed to say already, and I repeat it, that we are, in my opinion, the dupes of our own wisdom, of systematic reasoning, of second thought, and after reflection. The first spectators, I believe, thought of nothing but the laughable scrape which so singular a character was falling into, and were delighted to see a humourous and unprincipled wit so happily taken in his own inventions, precluded from all rational defence, and driven to the necessity of crying out, after a few ludicrous evasions, "No more of that, HAL, if thou lov'st me."

I do not conceive myself obliged to enter into a consideration of Falstaff's lyes concerning the transaction at Gad's-Hill. I have considered his conduct as independent of those lyes; I have examined the whole of it apart, and found it free of Cowardice or fear, except in one instance, which I have endeavoured to account for and excuse. I have therefore a right to infer that those lyes are to be derived, not from Cowardice, but from some other part of his character, which it does not concern me to examine: But I have not contented myself hitherto with this sort of negative defence; and the reader I believe is aware that I am resolute (though I confess not untired) to carry this fat rogue out of the reach of every imputation which affects, or may seem to affect, his natural Courage.

The first observation then which strikes us, as to his braggadocioes, is, that they are braggadocioes after the fact. In other cases we see the Coward of the Play bluster and boast for a time, talk of distant wars, and private duels, out of the reach of knowledge and of evidence; of storms and stratagems, and of falling in upon the enemy pell-mell and putting thousands to the sword; till, at length, on the proof of some present and apparent fact, he is brought to open and lasting shame; to shame I mean as a Coward; for as to what there is of lyar in the case, it is considered only as accessory, and scarcely reckoned into the account of dishonour.—But in the instance before us, every thing is reversed: The Play opens with the Fact; a Fact, from its circumstances as well as from the age and inactivity of the man, very excusable and capable of much apology, if not of defence. This Fact is preceded by no bluster or pretence whatever;—the lyes and braggadocioes follow; but they are not general; they are confined and have reference to this one Fact only; the detection is immediate; and after some accompanying mirth and laughter, the shame of that detection ends; it has no duration, as in other cases; and, for the rest of the Play, the character stands just where it did before, without any punishment or degradation whatever.

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 gout. 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 Antaeus, 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).

In a conversation, etc. The authority for this conversation is Dryden, who had recorded it as early as 1668 in his Essay of Dramatic Poesy, at the conclusion of the magnificent eulogy of Shakespeare. He had also spoken of it to Charles Gildon, who, in his Reflections on Mr. Rymer's Short View of Tragedy (1694), had given it with greater fulness of detail. Each of the three accounts contains certain particulars lacking in the other two, but they have unmistakably a common source. Dryden probably told the story to Rowe, as he had already told it to Gildon. The chief difficulty is the source, not of Rowe's information, but of Dryden's. As Jonson was present at the discussion, it must have taken place by 1637. It is such a discussion as prompted Suckling's Session of the Poets (1637), wherein Hales and Falkland figure. It cannot be dated "before 1633" (as in Ingleby's Centurie of Prayse, pp. 198-9). The Lord Falkland mentioned in Gildon's account is undoubtedly the second lord, who succeeded in 1633, and died in 1643. Dryden may have got his information from Davenant.

8. Pope condensed the passage thus: "Mr. Hales, who had sat still for some time, told 'em, That if Shakespear had not read the Ancients, he had likewise not stollen anything from 'em; and that if he would produce," etc.

9. Johnson did indeed take a large liberty. The concluding portion of this paragraph from these words is omitted by Pope.

The Menaechmi was translated by "W. W.," probably William Warner. It was licensed in June, 1594, and published in 1595, but, as the preface states, it had been circulated in manuscript before it was printed. The Comedy of Errors, which was acted by 1594, may have been founded on the Historie of Error, which was given at Hampton Court in 1576-7, and probably also at Windsor in 1582-3. See Farmer's Essay, p. 200,

This passage dealing with Rymer is omitted by Pope. He retains of this paragraph only the first two lines ( ... "Shakespear's Works") and the last three ("so I will only take," etc.).

Thomas Rymer, the editor of the Foedera, published his Short View of Tragedy in 1693. The criticism of Othello and Julius Caesar contained therein he had promised as early as 1678 in his Tragedies of the Last Age. His "sample of Tragedy," Edgar or the British Monarch, appeared in 1678.

11. Falstaff's Billet-Doux ... expressions of love in their way, omitted by Pope.

12. The Merchant of Venice was turned into a comedy, with the title the Jew of Venice, by George Granville, Pope's "Granville the polite," afterwards Lord Lansdowne. It was acted at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1701. The part of the Jew was performed by Dogget. Betterton played Bassanio. See Genest's English Stage, ii. 243, etc.

is a little too much (line 13). Pope reads is too much.

Difficile est, etc. Horace, Ars poetica, 128.

All the world, etc. As you like it, ii. 7. 139.

13. She never told her love, etc. Twelfth Night, ii. 4. 113-118: line 116, "And with a green and yellow melancholy" is omitted.

Pope omits a passage or two in (line 34).

ornament to the Sermons. Cf. Addison, Spectator, No. 61: "The greatest authors, in their most serious works, made frequent use of punns. The Sermons of Bishop Andrews, and the Tragedies of Shakespear, are full of them."

14. Pope omits former (line 5).

Caliban. Cf. Dryden's Preface to Troilus and Cressida (ed. W. P. Ker., i., p. 219) and the Spectator, Nos. 279 and 419. Johnson criticised the remark in his notes on the Tempest (ed. 1765, i., p. 21).

Note. Ld. Falkland, Lucius Gary (1610-1643), second Viscount Falkland; Ld. C. J. Vaughan, Sir John Vaughan (1603-1674), Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; John Selden (1584-1654), the jurist.

Among the particular beauties, etc. This passage, to the end of the quotation from Dryden's Prologue, is omitted by Pope.

16. Dorastus and Faunia, the alternative title of Robert Greene's Pandosto, or the Triumph of Time, 1588.

17. Pope omits tyrannical, cruel, and (line 36).

18. Plutarch. Rowe's statement that Shakespeare "copied" his Roman characters from Plutarch is—as it stands—inconsistent with the previous argument as to his want of learning. His use of North's translation was not established till the days of Johnson and Farmer.

Andre Dacier (1651-1722) was best known in England by his Essay on Satire, which was included in his edition of Horace (1681, etc.), and by his edition of the Poetics of Aristotle (1692). The former was used by Dryden in his Discourse concerning Satire, and appeared in English in 1692 and 1695; the latter was translated in 1705. In 1692 he brought out a prose translation, "with remarks," of the Oedipus and Electra of Sophocles. Rowe's reference is to Dacier's preface to the latter play, pp. 253, 254. Cf. his Poetics, notes to ch. xv., and the Spectator, No. 44.

19. But howsoever, etc. Hamlet, i. 5. 84.

20. Betterton's contemporaries unite in praise of his performance of Hamlet. Downes has an interesting note in his Roscius Anglicanus showing how, in the acting of this part, Betterton benefited by Shakespeare's coaching: "Sir William Davenant (having seen Mr. Taylor, of the Black Fryars Company, act it; who being instructed by the author, Mr. Shakespear) taught Mr. Betterton in every particle of it, gained him esteem and reputation superlative to all other plays" (1789, p. 29). But cf. the Rise and Progress of the English Theatre, appended to Colley Cibber's Apology, 1750, p. 516.

The epilogue for Betterton's "benefit" in 1709 was written by Rowe. Betterton died in 1710.

Since I had at first resolv'd ... said of him made good. This second criticism of Rymer is also omitted by Pope.

21. Ten in the hundred, etc. Reed, Steevens, and Malone have proved conclusively, if somewhat laboriously, that these wretched verses are not by Shakespeare. See also Halliwell-Phillips's Outlines, i., p. 326. It may be noted that ten per cent. was the regular rate of interest at this time.

21. as engrav'd in the plate. A poor full-page engraving of the Stratford monument faces this statement in Rowe's edition.

He had three daughters. Rowe is in error. Shakespeare had two daughters, and a son named Hamnet. Susannah was the elder daughter.

22. Pope omits tho' as I ... friendship and venture to (lines 10-12).

Caesar did never wrong, etc. Cf. Julius Caesar, iii. 1. 47, 48, when the lines read:

Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause Will he be satisfied.

23. Gerard Langbaine in his Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691) ascribes to Shakespeare "about forty-six plays, all which except three are bound in one volume in Fol., printed London, 1685" (p. 454). The three plays not printed in the fourth folio are the Birth of Merlin, or the Child has lost his Father, a tragi-comedy, said by Langbaine to be by Shakespeare and Rowley; John King of England his troublesome Reign; and the Death of King John at Swinstead Abbey. Langbaine thinks that the last two "were first writ by our Author, and afterwards revised and reduced into one Play by him: that in the Folio being far the better." He mentions also the Arraignment of Paris, but does not ascribe it to Shakespeare, as he has not seen it.

a late collection of poems,—Poems on Affairs of State, from the year 1620 to the year 1707, vol. iv.

Natura sublimis, etc. Horace, Epistles, ii. 1. 165.

The concluding paragraph is omitted by Pope.



John Dennis.

24. Shakespear ... Tragick Stage. Contrast Rymer's Short View, p. 156: "Shakespear's genius lay for Comedy and Humour. In Tragedy he appears quite out of his element." Cf. Dennis's later statement, p. 40.

25. the very Original of our English Tragical Harmony. Cf. Dryden, Epistle Dedicatory of the Rival Ladies, ed. W. P. Ker, i., p. 6, and Bysshe, Art of English Poetry, 1702, p. 36. See Johnson's criticism of this passage, Preface, p. 140.

Such verse we make, etc. Dennis makes these two lines illustrate themselves.

26. Jack-Pudding. See the Spectator, No. 47. The term was very common at this time for a "merry wag." It had also the more special sense of "one attending on a mountebank," as in Etherege's Comical Revenge, iii. 4.

Coriolanus. Contrast Dennis's opinion of Coriolanus in his letter to Steele of 26th March, 1719: "Mr. Dryden has more than once declared to me that there was something in this very tragedy of Coriolanus, as it was writ by Shakespear, that is truly great and truly Roman; and I more than once answered him that it had always been my own opinion."

29. Poetical Justice. Dennis defended the doctrine of poetical justice in the first of the two additional letters published with the letters on Shakespeare. Addison had examined this "ridiculous doctrine in modern criticism" in the Spectator, No. 40 (April 16, 1711). Cf. Pope's account of Dennis's "deplorable frenzy" in the Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris (Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, x. 459).

30. Natura fieret. Horace, Ars poetica, 408.

a circular poet, i.e. a cyclic poet. This is the only example of this sense of circular in the New English Dictionary.

32. Hector speaking of Aristotle,—Troilis and Cressida, ii. 2. 166; Milo, id. ii. 3. 258; Alexander, Coriolanus v. 4. 23.

Plutarch. Though Dennis is right in his conjecture that Shakespeare used a translation, the absence of any allusion to North's Plutarch would show that he did not know of it. He is in error about Livy. Philemon Holland's translation had appeared in 1600.

33. Offenduntur enim, etc. Ars poetica, 248.

34. Caesar. Cf. the criticism of Julius Caesar in Sewell's preface to the seventh volume of Pope's Shakespeare, 1725.

36. Haec igitur, etc. Cicero, Pro M. Marcello, ix.

38. Julius Caesar. Dennis alludes to the version of Julius Caesar by John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, published in 1722. In the altered form a chorus is introduced between the acts, and the "play begins the day before Caesar's death, and ends within an hour after it." Buckinghamshire wrote also the Tragedy of Marcus Brutus.

39. Dryden, Preface to the Translation of Ovid's Epistles (1680) ad fin.: "That of OEnone to Paris is in Mr. Cowley's way of imitation only. I was desired to say that the author, who is of the fair sex, understood not Latin. But if she does not, I am afraid she has given us occasion to be ashamed who do" (Ed. W. P. Ker, i., p. 243). The author was Mrs. Behn.

Hudibras, i. 1, 661. But Hudibras has it slightly differently,—"Though out of languages in which," etc.

39. a Version of two Epistles of Ovid. The poems in the seventh volume of Rowe's edition of Shakespeare include Thomas Heywood's Amorous Epistle of Paris to Helen and Helen to Paris. They were attributed to Shakespeare, till Farmer proved their authorship (p. 203). Cf. Gildon, Essay on the Stage, 1710, p. vi.

40. Scriptor, etc. Ars poetica, 120.

41. The Menechmi. Dennis's "vehement suspicion" is justified. See above, note on p. 9.

Ben Johnson, "small Latin and less Greek" (Verses to the Memory of Shakespeare).

Milton, L'Allegro, 133: "Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child." The same misquotation occurs in Sewell's preface, 1725.

Dryden, Essay of Dramatic Poesy: "Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation" (ed. W. P. Ker, i., p. 80).

42. Colchus, etc. Ars poetica, 118.

Siquid tamen, etc. Id. 386. The form Maeci was restored about this time by Bentley.

43. Companies of Players. See Mr. Sidney Lee's Life of Shakespeare, p. 34.

we are told by Ben Johnson. See p. 22. But Heminge and Condell tell us so themselves in the preface to the Folio: "His mind and hand went together: and what he thought he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarce received from him a blot in his papers."

Vos, O. Ars poetica, 291.

Poets lose half the Praise, etc. These lines are not by the Earl of Roscommon, but by Edmund Waller. They occur in Waller's prefatory verses to Roscommon's translation of Horace's Ars poetica.

Dennis's criticism of Jonson is apparently inspired by Rymer's remarks on Catiline (Short View, pp. 159-163). "In short," says Rymer, "it is strange that Ben, who understood the turn of Comedy so well, and had found the success, should thus grope in the dark and jumble things together without head or tail, without rule or proportion, without any reason or design."

44. Vir bonus, etc. Horace, Ars poetica, 445.

45. ad Populum Phalerae. Persius, iii. 30.

Milton. See Milton's prefatory note to Samson Agonistes.

46. Veneration for Shakespear. Cf. Dennis's letter to Steele, 26th March, 1719: "Ever since I was capable of reading Shakespear, I have always had, and have always expressed, that veneration for him which is justly his due; of which I believe no one can doubt who has read the Essay which I published some years ago upon his Genius and Writings."

Italian Ballad. Cf. Dennis's Essay on the Operas after the Italian Manner, 1706.



Alexander Pope.

48. His Characters. The same idea had been expressed by Gildon in his Essay on the Stage, 1710, p. li.: "He has not only distinguish'd his principal persons, but there is scarce a messenger comes in but is visibly different from all the rest of the persons in the play. So that you need not to mention the name of the person that speaks, when you read the play, the manners of the persons will sufficiently inform you who it is speaks." Cf. also Addison's criticism of Homer, Spectator, No. 273: "There is scarce a speech or action in the Iliad, which the reader may not ascribe to the person that speaks or acts, without seeing his name at the head of it."

50. To judge of Shakespear by Aristotle's rules. This comparison had appeared in Farquhar's Discourse upon Comedy: "The rules of English Comedy don't lie in the compass of Aristotle, or his followers, but in the Pit, Box, and Galleries. And to examine into the humour of an English audience, let us see by what means our own English poets have succeeded in this point. To determine a suit at law we don't look into the archives of Greece or Rome, but inspect the reports of our own lawyers, and the acts and statutes of our Parliaments; and by the same rule we have nothing to do with the models of Menander or Plautus, but must consult Shakespear, Johnson, Fletcher, and others, who by methods much different from the Ancients have supported the English Stage, and made themselves famous to posterity." Cf. also Rowe, p. 15: "it would be hard to judge him by a law he knew nothing of."—Is it unnecessary to point out that there are no "rules" in Aristotle? The term "Aristotle's rules" was commonly used to denote the "rules of the classical drama," which, though based on the Poetics, were formulated by Italian and French critics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

51. The Dates of his plays. Pope here controverts Rowe's statement, p. 4.

blotted a line. See note, p. 43. Though Pope here controverts the traditional opinion, he found it to his purpose to accept it in the Epistle to Augustus, ll. 279-281:

And fluent Shakespear scarce effac'd a line. Ev'n copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, The last and greatest art, the art to blot.

52. Pope's references to the early editions of the Merry Wives and other plays do not prove his assertions. Though an imperfect edition of the Merry Wives appeared in 1602, it does not follow that this was "entirely new writ" and transformed into the play in the Folio of 1623. The same criticism applies to what he says of Henry V., of which pirated copies appeared in 1600, 1602, and 1608. And he is apparently under the impression that the Contention of York and Lancaster and the early play of Hamlet were Shakespeare's own work.

53. Coriolanus and Julius Caesar. Pope replies tacitly to Dennis's criticism of these plays.

those Poems which pass for his. The seventh or supplementary volume of Rowe's and Pope's editions contained, in addition to some poems by Marlowe, translations of Ovid by Thomas Heywood. Like Rowe, Pope has some doubt as to the authorship of the poems, but on the score of the dedications he attributes to him Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece. Both editors ignored the Sonnets. It is doubtful how far Shakespeare was indebted to Ovid in his Venus and Adonis. He knew Golding's translation of the Metamorphoses (1565-67); but Venus and Adonis has many points in common with Lodge's Scillaes Metamorphosis which appeared in 1589. See, however, J. P. Reardon's paper in the "Shakespeare Society's Papers," 1847, iii. 143-6, where it is held that Lodge is indebted to Shakespeare.