Hazlitt's interpretation of Falstaff is worth comparing with that of
Maurice Morgann in "An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John
Falstaff," although Hazlitt does not allude to Morgann's essay and is
supposed to have had no knowledge of it. "To me then it appears that the
leading quality in Falstaff's character, and that from which all the rest
take their colour, is a high degree of wit and humour, accompanied with
great natural vigour and alacrity of mind.... He seems, by nature, to have
had a mind free of malice or any evil principle; but he never took the
trouble of acquiring any _good_ one. He found himself esteemed and beloved
with all his faults; nay _for_ his faults, which were all connected with
humour, and for the most part grew out of it. As he had, possibly, no
vices but such as he thought might be openly confessed, so he appeared
more dissolute thro' ostentation. To the character of wit and humour, to
which all his other qualities seem to have conformed themselves, he
appears to have added a very necessary support, _that_ of the profession
of a _Soldier_.... Laughter and approbation attend his greatest excesses;
and being governed visibly by no settled bad principle or ill design, fun
and humour account for and cover all. By degrees, however, and thro'
indulgence, he acquires bad habits, becomes an humourist, grows enormously
corpulent, and falls into the infirmities of age; yet never quits, all the
time, one single levity or vice of youth, or loses any of that
cheerfulness of mind which had enabled him to pass thro' this course with
ease to himself and delight to others; and thus, at last, mixing youth and
age, enterprize and corpulency, wit and folly, poverty and expence, title
and buffoonery, innocence as to purpose, and wickedness as to practice;
neither incurring hatred by bad principle, or contempt by cowardice, yet
involved in circumstances productive of imputation in both; a butt and a
wit, a humourist and a man of humour, a touchstone and a laughing stock, a
jester and a jest, has Sir _John Falstaff_, taken at that period of life
in which we see him, become the most perfect comic character that perhaps
ever was exhibited." (Nichol Smith's "Eighteenth Century Essays on
Shakespeare," 226-7.)
P. 88. _we behold_. Cf. Colossians, ii, 9; "in him dwelleth all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily."
_lards the lean earth_. 1 "Henry IV," ii, 2, 116.
_into thin air_. "Tempest," iv, 1, 150.
_three fingers deep_. Cf. 1 "Henry IV," iv, 2, 80: "three fingers on the
ribs."
P. 89. _it snows_. Chaucer's Prologue to the "Canterbury Tales," 345.
_ascends me_. 2 "Henry IV," iv, 3, 105.
_a tun of man_. 1 "Henry IV," ii, 4, 493.
P. 91. _open, palpable_. Cf. 1 "Henry IV," ii, 4, 248: "These lies are
like their father that begets them; gross as a mountain, open, palpable."
_By the lord_. Ibid., i, 2, 44.
_But Hal_. Ibid., i, 2, 91.