The affection which Shakespeare displayed in dealing with Prince Hal did not blind him to the fault of his father who confesses (Part II., King Henry IV., Act iv.)— God knows, my son, By what by-paths and indirect crook'd ways I met this crown. How I came by the crown, O God! forgive. Shakespeare has already (in the First Part of Henry IV., Act I., Scene iii.) prepared us for the noble change which his favourite Prince Hal had purposed. Surrounded by and interchanging loose jests with Falstaff and Poins, he makes him say after loose conversation with them I know you all, and will awhile uphold Who doth permit the base contagious clouds So when this loose behaviour I throw off, I'll so offend, to make offence a skill; Redeeming time when men least think I will. Bearing in mind the Prince's motives thus announced beforehand, we see the fitness of his reply to his father's mockery (Henry IV., Act Iv., Scene 5.) Harry the Fifth is crowned: up vanity! Down royal state! all you sage counsellors, hence! And to the English court assemble now From every region apes of idleness! Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum: O my poor kingdom. . We see also the fitness (remembering the Prince's soliloquy just quoted) of his reply to his father's lamentation If I do feign, O let me in my present wildness die, And never live to show the incredulous world The father and son being reconciled, the dying king declares O my son, God put it in thy mind to take it hence, That thou might'st win the more thy father's love, Pleading so wisely in excuse of it. Nor Tempting as the subject is, it would swell these pages to too great bulk if an attempt were made to depict fully in them the abounding drollery and wit of Falstaff. can it be necessary. The praise of it has been "writ large" in English literature from the days of Shakespeare until now. Henry IV. was piratically printed in London in 1598, with a title page drawing attention to the "humorous conceits of Sir John Falstaff," and other editions followed. Never was such a pair as the humorous Prince Hal and the Fat Knight. "Falstaff the inimitable!" says burly Jonson, perforce shaking his own vast sides. "Antiquity," says Thomas Campbell, "has nothing like him, and the world will never look upon his like again." "We oftener laugh with than at him," says Mackenzie, "for his humour is infinite and his wit admirable." "His lies, his vanity, and his cowardice, too gross to deceive" (says Cumberland), "were to be so ingenious as to give delight; his cunning evasions, his witty resources, his mock solemnity, his vapouring self-consequence, were to furnish a continual feast for his royal companion. He was not only to be witty himself, but the cause of wit in other people--a whetstone for raillery-a buffoon whose very person was a jest. Compounded of these humours, Shakespeare produced the character of Sir John Falstaff, a character which neither ancient nor modern comedy has ever equalled, which was so much the favourite of its author as to be introduced into three several plays, and which is likely to be the idol of the English stage as long as it shall speak the language of Shakespeare.” Perhaps the best way to embody in these pages the character of Falstaff as drawn by Shakespeare is to extract a few passages from the plays. The following scene occurs at the Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap. What can exceed the humour, yet the abasement, shown by Falstaff, when Prince Henry upbraids him for running away at Gadshill, where, after the carriers had been robbed by Falstaff and others, Prince Henry and Poins attack them, and seize the booty-the virtue of the jest, according to Poins, who persuades the Prince to join him in it, being the incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we meet at supper? The Prince and Poins reach the tavern long before Falstaff, who of course imagines that they ran thither long before the robbery. In he comes, fat, hot, and as savage as his cowardice permits, because of the lost booty. Enter FALSTAFF, GADSHILL, BARDOLPH and PETO. Poins.-Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been? A Falstaff-A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance, too! marry, and amen!-Give me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew netherstocks, and mend them, and foot them too. plague of all cowards! Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue extant? [He drinks. P. Henry. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter? pitifulhearted Titan, that melted at the sweet tale of the sun! if thou didst, then behold that compound. Falstaff. You rogue, here's lime in this sack, too: there is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man. Yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it: a villainous coward.--Go thy ways, old Jack die when thou wilt; if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a herring. There live not three good men unhanged in England: and one of them is fat and grows old. God help the while!-a bad world, I say! I would I were a weaver! I could sing psalms, or anything. A plague of all cowards, I say still. P. Henry. How now, woolsack, what mutter you? Falstaff. A king's son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom, with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You a Prince of Wales! P. Henry. Why, you round man! what's the matter? Falstaff.-Are you not a coward? Answer me to that; and Poins there? canst. Poins.-Zounds, ye fat paunch, an' ye call me coward, I'll stab thee. Falstaff.-I call thee coward! I'll see thee damned ere I call thee coward: but I would give a thousand pounds I could run as fast as thou You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back. Call you that, backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! give me them that will face me. Give me a cup of sack: I am a rogue if I drunk to-day. P. Henry.—0, villain! thy lips are scarce wiped since thou drunk'st last. Falstaff.—All's one for that. A plague of all cowards, I say still. [He drinks. P. Henry.-What's the matter? Falstaff.-What's the matter? there be four of us here have ta’en a thousand pounds this morning. P. Henry. Where is it, Jack? where is it? Falstaff-Where is it? taken from us it is: a hundred upon poor four of us. P. Henry.-What, a hundred, man? Falstaff.-I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them two hours together. I have 'scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet: four through the hose: my buckler cut through and through: my sword hacked like a handsaw-ecce signum. I never dealt better since I was a man: all would not do. A plague of all cowards!—Let them speak: if they speak more or less than truth, they are villains, and the sons of darkness. P. Henry-Speak, sirs; how was it? Gadshill. We four set upon some dozen,--- Peto.-No, no, they were not bound. Falstaff.—You rogue, they were bound, every man of them: or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew. Gadshill. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us, Falstaff. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other. Falstaff.---All! I know not what ye call all but if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish. If there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then I am no two-legged creature. P. Henry.-Pray God, you have not murdered some of them. Falstaff.-Nay, that's past praying for: I have peppered two of them two I am sure I have paid; two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal,-If I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward-here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me, P. Henry.-What, four? thou said'st but two, even now. Poins.-Ay, he said four. Falstaff. These four came all afront and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target, thus. P. Henry.-Seven? why, there were but four, even now. Falstaff-In buckram. Poins.-Ay, four, in buckram suits. Falstaff.-Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else. P. Henry.-Prithee, let him alone, we shall have more anon. P. Henry.-Ay, and mark thee too, Jack. E |