FALSTAFF

If Shakspeare's fondness for the ludicrous sometimes led to faults in his

tragedies (which was not often the case) he has made us amends by the

character of Falstaff. This is perhaps the most substantial comic

character that ever was invented. Sir John carries a most portly presence

in the mind's eye; and in him, not to speak it profanely, "we behold the

fulness of the spirit of wit and humour bodily." We are as well acquainted

with his person as his mind, and his jokes come upon us with double force

and relish from the quantity of flesh through which they make their way,

as he shakes his fat sides with laughter, or "lards the lean earth as he

walks along." Other comic characters seem, if we approach and handle them,

to resolve themselves into air, "into thin air;" but this is embodied and

palpable to the grossest apprehension: it lies "three fingers deep upon

the ribs," it plays about the lungs and the diaphragm with all the force

of animal enjoyment. His body is like a good estate to his mind, from

which he receives rents and revenues of profit and pleasure in kind,

according to its extent, and the richness of the soil. Wit is often a

meagre substitute for pleasurable sensation; an effusion of spleen and

petty spite at the comforts of others, from feeling none in itself.

Falstaff's wit is an emanation of a fine constitution; an exuberance of

good-humour and good-nature; an overflowing of his love of laughter and

good-fellowship; a giving vent to his heart's ease, and over-contentment

with himself and others. He would not be in character, if he were not so

fat as he is; for there is the greatest keeping in the boundless luxury of

his imagination and the pampered self-indulgence of his physical

appetites. He manures and nourishes his mind with jests, as he does his

body with sack and sugar. He carves out his jokes, as he would a capon or

a haunch of venison, where there is _cut and come again_; and pours out

upon them the oil of gladness. His tongue drops fatness, and in the

chambers of his brain "it snows of meat and drink." He keeps up perpetual

holiday and open house, and we live with him in a round of invitations to

a rump and dozen.--Yet we are not to suppose that he was a mere

sensualist. All this is as much in imagination as in reality. His

sensuality does not engross and stupify his other faculties, but "ascends

me into the brain, clears away all the dull, crude vapours that environ

it, and makes it full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes." His

imagination keeps up the ball after his senses have done with it. He seems

to have even a greater enjoyment of the freedom from restraint, of good

cheer, of his ease, of his vanity, in the ideal exaggerated description

which he gives of them, than in fact. He never fails to enrich his

discourse with allusions to eating and drinking, but we never see him at

table. He carries his own larder about with him, and he is himself "a tun

of man." His pulling out the bottle in the field of battle is a joke to

shew his contempt for glory accompanied with danger, his systematic

adherence to his Epicurean philosophy in the most trying circumstances.

Again, such is his deliberate exaggeration of his own vices, that it does

not seem quite certain whether the account of his hostess's bill, found in

his pocket, with such an out-of-the-way charge for capons and sack with

only one halfpenny-worth of bread, was not put there by himself as a trick

to humour the jest upon his favourite propensities, and as a conscious

caricature of himself. He is represented as a liar, a braggart, a coward,

a glutton, etc. and yet we are not offended but delighted with him; for he

is all these as much to amuse others as to gratify himself. He openly

assumes all these characters to shew the humourous part of them. The

unrestrained indulgence of his own ease, appetites, and convenience, has

neither malice nor hypocrisy in it. In a word, he is an actor in himself

almost as much as upon the stage, and we no more object to the character

of Falstaff in a moral point of view than we should think of bringing an

excellent comedian, who should represent him to the life, before one of

the police offices. We only consider the number of pleasant lights in

which he puts certain foibles (the more pleasant as they are opposed to

the received rules and necessary restraints of society) and do not trouble

ourselves about the consequences resulting from them, for no mischievous

consequences do result. Sir John is old as well as fat, which gives a

melancholy retrospective tinge to the character; and by the disparity

between his inclinations and his capacity for enjoyment, makes it still

more ludicrous and fantastical.

The secret of Falstaff's wit is for the most part a masterly presence of

mind, an absolute self-possession, which nothing can disturb. His

repartees are involuntary suggestions of his self-love; instinctive

evasions of everything that threatens to interrupt the career of his

triumphant jollity and self-complacency. His very size floats him out of

all his difficulties in a sea of rich conceits; and he turns round on the

pivot of his convenience, with every occasion and at a moment's warning.

His natural repugnance to every unpleasant thought or circumstance, of

itself makes light of objections, and provokes the most extravagant and

licentious answers in his own justification. His indifference to truth

puts no check upon his invention, and the more improbable and unexpected

his contrivances are, the more happily does he seem to be delivered of

them, the anticipation of their effect acting as a stimulus to the gaiety

of his fancy. The success of one adventurous sally gives him spirits to

undertake another; he deals always in round numbers, and his exaggerations

and excuses are "open, palpable, monstrous as the father that begets

them." His dissolute carelessness of what he says discovers itself in the

first dialogue with the Prince.

"_Falstaff._ By the lord, thou say'st true, lad; and is not mine

hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?

_P. Henry._ As the honey of Hibla, my old lad of the castle; and is

not a buff-jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?

_Falstaff._ How now, how now, mad wag, what in thy quips and thy

quiddities? what a plague have I to do with a buff-jerkin?

_P. Henry._ Why, what a pox have I to do with mine hostess of the

tavern?"

In the same scene he afterwards affects melancholy, from pure satisfaction

of heart, and professes reform, because it is the farthest thing in the

world from his thoughts. He has no qualms of conscience, and therefore

would as soon talk of them as of anything else when the humour takes him.

"_Falstaff._ But Hal, I pr'ythee trouble me no more with vanity. I

would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to

be bought: an old lord of council rated me the other day in the

street about you, sir; but I mark'd him not, and yet he talked very

wisely, and in the street too.

_P. Henry._ Thou didst well, for wisdom cries out in the street, and

no man regards it.

_Falsfaff._ O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to

corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm unto me, Hal; God forgive

thee for it. Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing, and now I am,

if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I

must give over this life, and I will give it over, by the Lord; an I

do not, I am a villain. I'll be damned for never a king's son in

Christendom.

_P. Henry._ Where shall we take a purse to-morrow, Jack?

_Falstaff._ Where thou wilt, lad, I'll make one; an I do not, call me

villain, and baffle me.

_P. Henry._ I see good amendment of life in thee, from praying to

purse-taking.

_Falstaff._ Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal. 'Tis no sin for a man to

labour in his vocation."

Of the other prominent passages, his account of his pretended resistance

to the robbers, "who grew from four men in buckram into eleven" as the

imagination of his own valour increased with his relating it, his getting

off when the truth is discovered by pretending he knew the Prince, the

scene in which in the person of the old king he lectures the prince and

gives himself a good character, the soliloquy on honour, and description

of his new-raised recruits, his meeting with the chief justice, his abuse

of the Prince and Poins, who overhear him, to Doll Tearsheet, his

reconciliation with Mrs. Quickly who has arrested him for an old debt, and

whom he persuades to pawn her plate to lend him ten pounds more, and the

scenes with Shallow and Silence, are all inimitable. Of all of them, the

scene in which Falstaff plays the part, first, of the King, and then of

Prince Henry, is the one that has been the most often quoted. We must

quote it once more in illustration of our remarks.

"_Falstaff._ Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy

time, but also how thou art accompanied: for though the camomile, the

more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is

wasted, the sooner it wears. That thou art my son, I have partly thy

mother's word, partly my own opinion; but chiefly, a villainous trick

of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip that doth

warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point;--Why,

being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of

heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries? A question not to be

ask'd. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses? a

question to be ask'd. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often

heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch:

this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the

company thou keepest: for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in

drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words

only, but in woes also:--and yet there is a virtuous man, whom I have

often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.

_P. Henry._ What manner of man, an it like your majesty?

_Falstaff._ A goodly portly man, i'faith, and a corpulent; of a

cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I

think, his age some fifty, or, by'r-lady, inclining to threescore;

and now I do remember me, his name is Falstaff: if that man should be

lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks.

If then the fruit may be known by the tree, as the tree by the fruit,

then peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff: him

keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet,

tell me, where hast thou been this month?

_P. Henry._ Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and

I'll play my father.

_Falstaff._ Depose me? if thou dost it half so gravely, so

majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a

rabbit-sucker, or a poulterer's hare.

_P. Henry._ Well, here I am set.

_Falstaff._ And here I stand:--judge, my masters.

_P. Henry._ Now, Harry, whence come you?

_Falstaff._ My noble lord, from Eastcheap.

_P. Henry._ The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.

_Falstaff._ S'blood, my lord, they are false:--nay, I'll tickle ye

for a young prince, i'faith.

_P. Henry._ Swearest thou, ungracious boy? henceforth ne'er look on

me. Thou art violently carried away from grace: there is a devil

haunts thee, in the likeness of a fat old man; a tun of man is thy

companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that

bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swoln parcel of dropsies, that

huge bombard of sack, that stuft cloak-bag of guts, that roasted

Manning-tree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice,

that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years?

wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? wherein neat and

cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? wherein cunning, but in

craft? wherein crafty, but in villainy? wherein villainous, but in

all things? wherein worthy, but in nothing?

_Falstaff._ I would, your grace would take me with you; whom means

your grace?

_P. Henry._ That villainous, abominable mis-leader of youth,

Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan.

_Falstaff._ My lord, the man I know.

_P. Henry._ I know thou dost.

_Falstaff._ But to say, I know more harm in him than in myself, were

to say more than I know. That he is old (the more the pity) his

white hairs do witness it: but that he is (saving your reverence) a

whore-master, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God

help the wicked! if to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old

host that I know is damned: if to be fat be to be hated, then

Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto,

banish Bardolph, banish Poins: but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack

Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore

more valiant, being as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy

Harry's company; banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.

_P. Henry._ I do, I will.

[_Knocking; and Hostess and Bardolph go out. Re-enter_