on honor, so far from detracting from his reputation, it seems to me to
place him on an equality with that modern English hero who said that
his body trembled at the thought of the perils into which his spirited
soul was about to plunge him. Falstaff did not _court_ death. “God keep
lead out of me,” is his reasonable remark; “I need no more weight than
mine own bowels!” But the man who makes this prayer and comment was not
afraid to encounter death. “_I have led_ my ragamuffins where they are
peppered.” He went then at their head. That there was hot work in front
of him is proved by what follows. “There’s but three of my hundred and
fifty left alive; and they are for the town’s end, to beg during life!”
A hundred and forty-seven men killed out of a hundred and fifty-one;
of the four who survived, three are illustriously mutilated; while the
bold soul who led them on is alone unscathed! Why, it reminds us of
Windham and the Redan. It is Thermopylæ, with Leonidas surviving to
tell his own story.
His discretion is not to be taken as disproving his valor. He fought
Douglas, remember, and did not run away from him. He found the Scot too
much for him, it is true; and quietly dropped down, as if dead. What
then? When the Muscovite general fell back so hurriedly from Eupatoria,
how did he describe the movement? “Having accomplished,” he said, “all
that was expected, the Russians _withdrew out of range_.” So, Sir John,
with respect to Douglas.
Nor would _some_ Muscovite officers and gentlemen object to another
action of Falstaff’s. The knight it will be remembered with regret,
stabs the body of Hotspur, as the gallant Northumbrian lies dead, or
wounded, upon the field. Now, by this we may see that Russia is not
only some four centuries behind us in civilization. The barbarous
act of Falstaff was committed a score of times over on the field of
Inkerman. Many a gallant, breathing, but helpless English soldier,
received the mortal thrust which they could not parry, from the
hands of the Chevalier Ivan Falstaff, who fought under the doubtful
inspiration of St. Sergius. And, moreover, there were men in authority
there who virtually remarked to these heroes what Prince Henry does to
Sir John,
“If a lie may do thee grace,
I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have.”
That _our_ Falstaff bore himself with credit on the field, is made
clear in spite of the incident of Hotspur. I do not pause to point out
the bearing of Morton’s answer, when Northumberland asks him, “Didst
thou come from Shrewsbury?”--“I _ran_ from Shrewsbury, my noble lord,”
is the reply; confessing that he ran from a foe, among whom Falstaff
was a leader: I am more content to rest on the verdict of so dignified
yet unwilling a witness as the Lord Chief Justice. It is quite
conclusive. “Your day’s service at Shrewsbury,” says my lord, “hath a
little gilded over your night’s exploit at Gadshill.” Nothing can be
more satisfactory. The bravery of Falstaff was the talk of the town.
When peace has come, or that Sir John has received permission to return
home, on urgent private affairs, he enters a little into dissipation,
it is true. He is not, however, guilty of such excess as to materially
injure his health; otherwise his page would not have brought him so
satisfactory a message from his doctor. He may, perhaps, be also open
to the charge of being too easily taken by such white bait as he might
find in the muslin of Eastcheap. Heroes, however, have usually very
inflammable hearts. When Nelson was ashore, he immediately fell in love.
In spite of a trifle of rioting, the overflowing of animal spirits,
Falstaff is governed by the laws of good society. Jokes are fired at
him incessantly, but he takes them with good-humor, and repays them
with interest. “I am not only witty in myself,” he says, “but the
cause that wit is in other men.” Gregoire and La Bruyere expressly
define the great rule of conversation to be that, while you exhibit
your own powers, you should endeavor to elicit and encourage those of
your companions. What they put down as a canon, Sir John had already,
and long before, put in excellent practice. He had wit enough to foil
the Chief Justice, but he left to his lordship ample opportunity to
exhibit his own ability; and then the compliment to the great judicial
dignitary, that he was not yet clean past his youth, although he had
in him some relish of the saltness of time--this, combined with the
benevolent recommendation that his lordship would have a reverend care
of his health, robs the latter personage of any prejudice he might
have entertained against the knight. Indeed, it would be difficult
to conceive how the religiously-minded Lord Chief Justice could have
entertained prejudice against a gallant old gentleman who had lost his
voice with “hollaing” (his men to the charge), “and singing of anthems.”
Brave! there can be no question touching his bravery. And if he does
really rust a little at home, and impose a little upon the weakness of
the Hostess and other ladies, whom he weekly woos to marry, and who
find his gallantry and saucy promises irresistible; he is ever ready
for service. He does not look for unlimited absence from scenes of
danger. If he led his company of three hundred and a half to death, and
comes out scot-free himself, he is by no means prepared to hang about
town, inactive for the remainder of the campaign. When he is appointed
on perilous enterprise with Prince John of Lancaster, he simply
remarks, with a complacency which is doubtless warranted by truth,
“There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust
upon it. Well, I can not last for ever;” and, with this remark buckled
on to some satirical wit which he points at the Lord Chief Justice, he
sets forth cheerily on his mission, the gout in his toe, and in his
purse not more than seven groats and twopence. He has a rouse and a
riot at the Boar’s Head before he starts; but nothing more disreputable
seems to have occurred than one might hear of at a modern club, before
some old naval lion is hiccupped on to deeds of daring. Besides, the
knight is no hypocrite; and he will not be accounted virtuous, like
many of his contemporaries, by “making courtesy and saying nothing.”
Not, on the other hand, that even in his moments of jolly relaxation,
he would be unseemly noisy. He can troll a merry catch, but, as he says
to a vulgarly roystering blade, “Pistol, I would be quiet.” It has been
thought unseemly that he should quarrel with and even roughly chastise
the “ancient” with whom he had been on such very intimate terms. But
such things happen in the best society. At the famous Reform Club
dinner, Sir James gave permission to Sir Charles to go and make war;
but, since that time, Sir Charles, with words, instead of rapiers, has
been poking his iron into the ribs of Sir James, after the fashion of
Falstaff and Pistol.
And so, as I have said, Sir John girds him for the battle. If he did
in his youth, hear the chimes at midnight, in company with Master
Shallow, the lean, but light-living barrister of Clement’s Inn, he did
not waste his vigor. So great indeed is his renown for this, and for
the bravery which accompanies it, that no sooner does the doughty Sir
John Colville of the Dale meet him in single combat, than Colville at
once surrenders. The very idea of such a hero being face to face with
him impels him to give up his sword at once. “I think you are Sir John
Falstaff, and in that thought yield me.” Was ever greater compliment
paid to mortal hero?
Of this achievement Prince John most ungenerously says, that it was
more the effect of Colville’s courtesy than Falstaff’s deserving. But,
as the latter remarks, the young sober-blooded boy of a prince does
not love the knight; and “that’s no marvel,” exclaims Falstaff, “he
drinks no wine.” The teetotaler of those days disparaged the deeds of
a man who increased the sum of his country’s glory. He was like a sour
Anglo-Quaker, sneering down the merit of a Crimean soldier. We do not,
however, go so far as Falstaff in his enthusiasm, when he exclaims
that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack. There is something
in the remark, nevertheless, as there is when Sir John subsequently
says in reference to his wits suffering by coming in dull contact with
obtuse Shallow. “It is certain,” says he, “that either wise bearing
or ignorant carriage is caught, as men take diseases, one of another;
_therefore_ let men take care of their company.” Victor Hugo has
manifestly condescended to plagiarize this sentiment, and has said in
one of his most remarkable works, that “On devient vieux à force de
regarder les vieux.”
And, to come to a conclusion, how unworthily is this gallant soldier,
merry companion, and profound philosopher, treated at last by an
old associate, Prince Hal, when king. Counting on the sacredness of
friendship, Sir John had borrowed from Master Shallow a thousand
pounds. He depended upon being able to repay it out of the new
monarch’s liberality, but when he salutes the sovereign--very
inopportunely, I confess--the latter, with a cold-hearted and shameless
ingratitude, declares that he does not know the never-to-be-forgotten
speaker. King Henry V. does indeed promise--
“For competence of life, I will allow you;
That lack of moans enforce yon not to evil;”
and departs, after intimating that the knight must not reside within
ten miles of court, and that royal favor will be restored to the
banished man, if merit authorize it.
“Be it your charge, my lord, to see performed the tenor of our word,”
says the King to the Chief Justice; and Falstaff, though sorely wounded
in feelings, is still not without hope. But see what a royal word,
or what _this_ royal word is! The Monarch has no sooner passed on
his way, than the Chief Justice fulfils its meaning, by ordering Sir
John Falstaff and all his company to be close-confined in the Fleet!
The great dignitary does this with as much hurried glee as we may
conjecture Lord Campbell would have had, in rendering the same service
to Miss Agnes Strickland, when the latter accused the judge of stealing
her story of Queen Eleanor of Provence.
However this may be, the royal ingratitude broke the proud heart in the
bosom of Sir John. He took to his bed, and never smiled again. “The
King has killed his heart,” is the bold assertion of Dame Quickly, at
a time when such an assertion might have cost her her liberty, if not
her life. How edifying too was his end! He did not “babble o’ green
fields.” Mr. Collier has proved this, to the satisfaction of all Exeter
Hall, who would deem such light talk trifling. But he died arguing
against “the whore of Babylon,” which should make him find favor even
with Dr. Cumming, for it is a proof of the knight’s Protestantism--and
“Would I were with him,” exclaims honest lieutenant Bardolph, with
more earnestness than reverence--“Would I were with him, wheresome’er
he is; either in heaven or in hell.” If this has a profane ring in
it, let us think of the small education and the hard life of him who
uttered it. There was more profanity and terrible blasphemy to boot,
in the assertion of Prince Menschikoff, after the death of the Czar
Nicholas, namely, “that his late august master might be seen in the
skies blessing his armies on their way to victory!” Decidedly, I prefer
Bardolph to Menschikoff, and Falstaff to both.
I am sorry that Queen Elizabeth had the bad taste to request
Shakespeare to represent “Falstaff in love.” The result is only an
Adelphi farce in five acts; in which the author, after all, has made
the knight far more respectable than that sorry fool, Ford. The
“Wives” themselves are not much stronger in virtue than Dorothea of
Eastcheap, unless Sir John himself was mistaken in them. Of Mrs. Ford,
who holds her husband’s purse-strings, he says, “I can construe the
action of her familiar style,” and he tells us what that manner was,
pretty distinctly. When he writes to Mrs. Page, he notices a common
liking which exists in both, in the words, “You love sack, and so
do I.” The “Wives,” for mere mischief’s sake, we will say, tempted
the gallant old soldier. In their presence he had left off swearing,
praised woman’s modesty, and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof
to all uncomeliness, that Mrs. Page thought, perhaps, that drinking
sack, and, in company with Mrs. Ford, talking familiarly with him,
would not tempt him to turn gallant toward them. This consequence
_did_ follow; and then the sprightly Wives, in place of bidding their
ridiculous husbands cudgel him, come to the conclusion that “the best
way was to entertain him with hope,” till his wickedly raised fire
should have “melted him in his own grease.” A dangerous process,
ladies, depend upon it!
Then, what a sorry cur is that Master Ford who puts Falstaff upon the
way to seduce his own wife! Had other end come of it than what did
result, is there a jury even in Gotham, that would have awarded Ford
a farthing’s-worth of separation. Falstaff is infinitely more refined
than Ford or Page. Neither of these noodles could have paid such
sparkling compliments as the knight pays to the lady. “Let the court
of France show me such another! I see how thine eyes would emulate the
diamond; thou hast the right-arched bent of the brow, that becomes the
ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance!” Why
this is a prose Anacreontic! And if the speaker of it could offend
once, he did not merit to be allured again by hope to a greater
punishment than he had endured for his first offence.
For one of the great characteristics of Falstaff is his own sense
of seemliness. When he was nearly drowned by being tossed from the
buck-basket into the river, his prevalent and uneasy idea was, how
disgusting he should look if he were to swell--a mountain of mummy!
The Mantelini of Mr. Dickens borrowed from Falstaff this aversion to a
“demmed damp body.” It is _not_ pleasant!
Once again, Sir John, though he could err, yet he was ashamed of his
offence. Otherwise, would he have confessed, as he did, when recounting
how the mock fairies had tormented him, “I was three or four times in
the thought they were not fairies, but the _guiltiness of my mind_,
the sudden surprise of my powers drove the grossness of the foppery
into a received belief.” How exquisitely is this said! How does it
raise the knight above the broad farce of most of the other characters!
How infinitely superior is he to the two dolts of husbands who, after
hearing the confession of guilty intention against the honor of their
wives, invite him to spend a jolly evening in company with themselves
and the ladies. And so they--
“Every one go home,
And laugh this sport o’er by a wintry fire,
Sir John and all.”
This may be accounted too gross for probability; but worse than this
is in the memory of our yet surviving fathers. There was, within such
a memory, a case tried before Sir Elijah Impey, in which Talleyrand
was the defendant, against whom a husband brought an action, the great
statesman having robbed him of his wife. The action was brought to the
ordinary issue; and a few weeks subsequently, plaintiff, defendant,
judge, and lady, dined together in the Prince’s residence at Paris.
Of Stage Falstaffs, Quin, according to all accounts, must have been the
best, provided only that he had a sufficiency of claret in him, and
the house an overflowing audience. Charles Kemble, I verily believe,
must have been the worst of stage Falstaffs. At least, having seen him
in the character, I can conscientiously assert that I can not imagine
a poorer Sir John. He dressed the character well; but as for its
“flavor,” it was as if you had the two oyster-shells, _minus_ the fat
and juicy oyster. What a galaxy of actors have shined or essayed to
shine in this joyous but difficult part! In Charles the Second’s days,
Cartwright and Lacy, by their acting in the first part of Henry IV.,
made Shakespeare popular, when the fashion at Court was against him.
Betterton acted the same part in 1700, at Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the
Haymarket. Four years later, he played the Knight in the “Merry Wives;”
and in 1730, at Drury Lane, he and Mills took the part alternately,
and set dire dissension among the play-goers, as to their respective
merits.
Popular as Betterton was in this character, after he had grown too
stout for younger heroes, his manner of playing it was not original;
and his imitation was at second-hand. Ben Jonson had seen it played
in Dublin by Baker, a stone-mason. He was so pleased with the
representation, that he described the manner of it, on his return to
London, to Betterton, who, docile and modest as usual, acknowledged
that the mason’s conception was better than his own, and adopted the
Irish actor’s manner, accordingly.
Chetwood does not tell us how Baker played, but he shows us how he
studied, namely in the streets, while overlooking the men who worked
under him. “One day, two of his men who were newly come to him, and
were strangers to his habits, observing his countenance, motion,
gesture, and his talking to himself, imagined their master was mad.
Baker, seeing them neglect their work to stare at him, bid them, in
a hasty manner, mind their business. The fellows went to work again,
but still with an eye to their master. The part Baker was rehearsing
was Falstaff; and when he came to the scene where Sir Walter Blunt was
supposed to be lying dead on the stage, gave a look at one of his new
paviors, and with his eye fixed upon him, muttered loud enough to be
heard, ‘Who have we here? Sir Walter Blunt! There’s honor for you.’ The
fellow who was stooping, rose on the instant, and with the help of his
companion, bound poor Baker hand and foot, and assisted by other people
no wiser than themselves, they carried him home in that condition, with
a great mob at their heels.”
Estcourt’s Falstaff was flat and trifling, yet with a certain
waggishness. That of Harper was droll, but low and coarse. The Falstaff
of Evans seems to have been in the amorous scenes, as offensive as
Dowton in Major Sturgeon; and the humor was misplaced. Accordingly,
when we read in old Anthony Aston, that “Betterton wanted the waggery
of Estcourt, the drollery of Harper, and the lasciviousness of Jack
Evans,” we are disposed to imagine that his Falstaff was none the worse
for this trial of wants.
Throughout the eighteenth century, the character did not lack brilliant
actors. In the first part of Henry IV., Mills played the character,
at Drury, in 1716. Booth had previously played it for one night, in
presence of Queen Anne. Bullock filled Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre,
with it, in 1721. Quin, in 1738, used to play the character in the two
parts of Henry IV. on successive nights, and eight years later his
Falstaff attracted crowds to “the Garden.” Barry played it against him
at Drury, in 1743 and 1747; but Barry was dull and void of impulse as
a school-boy repeating his task. In 1762, the part, at Drury, fell
to Yates, for whom the piece was brought out, with the character of
Hotspur omitted! To give more prominence to our knight, a scene was
left out. The public did not approve of the plan, for in the same year
Love, celebrated by Churchill for his humor, made his first appearance
at Drury, as Sir John, when Holland, the baker of Chiswick, played
Hotspur, with well-bred warmth. I will add, that though Quin drew
immense houses, yet when Harper, some years previously, played the
same part at Drury, with Booth in Hotspur, Wilks as the Prince, and
Cibber as Glendower, the combined excellence drew as great houses for
a much longer period. So that Harper’s Falstaff, although inferior to
Quin’s, was, as was remarked, more seen, yet less admired by the town.
Shuter played it almost too “jollily” at the Garden, in 1774. But all
other Falstaffs were extinguished for a time, when Henderson, although
not physically qualified for the part, astonished the town with his
“old boy of the castle,” in 1777 at the Haymarket, and delighted them
two years later, at Covent Garden. At the latter house, eight years
subsequently, Ryder played it respectably, to Lewis’s Prince of Wales;
and in 1791, when the Drury Lane company were playing at the Haymarket,
Palmer represented Falstaff, and John Kemble mis-represented Hotspur.
King tried the knight at the same “little house,” in 1792, but King,
clever as he was, was physically incapable of representing Falstaff,
and he soon ceased to pretend to do so. The next representative was the
worst the world had yet seen--namely, Fawcett, who first attempted it
at the Garden, in 1795. Blisset appeared in it in 1803, and disappeared
also. From this time no new actor tried the Sir John, in the first
part of Henry IV., till 1824, when Charles Kemble made the Ghost of
Shakespeare very uneasy, by executing a part for which he was totally
unfit. He persevered, however, but the success of Elliston in the
part, two years later, settled the respective merits of two performers,
to the advantage of Robert William, as effectually as Grisi showed the
town that there was but one Norma, by playing it the night after the
fatal attempt made on the Druidess, by Jenny Lind.
The succession of actors who represented Falstaff, in the second part
of Henry IV., was as brilliant as that of the line of representatives
above noticed. Ten years after Betterton and Mills, in 1720, we have
Harper, and it is somewhat singular that when Mills resigned Falstaff
to Harper, he took the part of the King. Hulett, two years subsequently
played it at Covent Garden; and, after another two years, Quin made
Drury ecstatic with his fun. He held the part without a real rival,
and fifteen years later, in 1749, he was as attractive as ever in this
portion of the knight’s character, at Covent Garden. Shuter succeeded
him in the part at this theatre, in 1755; but in 1758, all London, that
is the play-goers of London, might be seen hurrying once more to Drury,
to witness lively Woodward’s _very_ old Falstaff played to Garrick’s
King. The Garden can not be said to have found a superior means of
attraction, when Shuter again represented Sir John, at the Garden, in
1761, on which occasion the parts of Shallow and Silence were omitted!
The object, however, was to shorten the piece, and the main attraction
was in the coronation pageant, at the conclusion, in honor of the then
young King and Queen, who were well worthy of the honor thus paid to
them.
Love and Holland, who played Falstaff and Hotspur, at Drury Lane, in
1762, played the Knight and the Prince of Wales, at the same house, two
years subsequently. Nine years after this, the Garden found a Prince in
Mrs. Lessingham, Shuter played Falstaff to her, but the travesty of the
former character was only in a slight degree less incongruous than that
made by Mrs. Glover, in the present century, who once, if not twice,
played the fat knight, for her own benefit. For the next eight or nine
years, the best Falstaff possessed by London was Henderson. He played
the part first at Drury, and afterward at Covent Garden. Since Quin,
there had been no better representative of Sir John; and even Palmer,
in 1788, could not bring the town from its allegiance to “admirable
Henderson.”
The Falstaffs of the present century, in the second part of this
historical play, have not achieved a greater triumph than Henderson.
Cooke, who played the obese cavalier, in 1804, was not equal to the
part; and Fawcett, in 1821, when the play was revived, with another
coronation pageant in honor of George IV., was farther from success
than Cooke. The managers at this period were wiser than those who “got
up” the play at the period of the accession of George III., for they
retained Shallow and Silence, and never were the illustrious two so
inimitably represented as, on this occasion, by Farren and Emery.