Characters of Shakespeare's Plays Part 4

Regan. Good sir, to the purpose. [Trumpets within]

Lear. Who put my man i' the stocks?

Cornwall. What trumpet's that?

Enter Steward Regan. I know't, my sister's; this approves her letter, That she would soon be here.--Is your lady come?

Lear. This is a slave, whose easy-borrow'd pride Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows:-- Out, varlet, from my sight!

Cornwall. What means your grace?

Lear. Who stock'd my servant? Regan, I have good hope Thou did'st not know on't.--Who comes here? O heavens, Enter Gonerill.

If you do love old men, if your sweet sway Allow obedience, if yourselves are old, Make it your cause; send down, and take my part!-- Art not asham'd to look upon this beard?-- [To Gonerill.] O, Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?

Gonerill. Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended? All's not offence, that indiscretion finds, And dotage terms so.

Lear. O, sides, you are too tough! Will you yet hold?--How came my man i' the stocks?

Cornwall. I set him there, sir: but his own disorders Deserv'd much less advancement.

Lear. You! did you?

Regan. I pray you, father, being weak, seem so. If, till the expiration of your month, You will return and sojourn with my sister, Dismissing half your train, come then to me; I am now from home, and out of that provision Which shall be needful for your entertainment.

Lear. Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd? No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose To be a comrade with the wolf and owl-- To wage against the enmity o' the air, Necessity's sharp pinch!--Return with her! Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took Our youngest born, I could as well be brought To knee his throne, and squire-like pension beg To keep base life afoot.--Return with her! Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter To this detested groom. [Looking on the Steward.]

Gonerill. At your choice, sir.

Lear. Now, I pr'ythee, daughter, do not make me mad; I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell: We'll no more meet, no more see one another:-- But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter; Or, rather, a disease that's in my flesh, Which I must needs call mine: thou art a bile, A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle, In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee: Let shame come when it will, I do not call it: I did not bid the thunder-bearer shoot, Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove: Mend when thou canst; be better, at thy leisure: I can be patient; I can stay with Regan, I, and my hundred knights.

Regan. Not altogether so, sir; I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided For your fit welcome: Give ear, sir, to my sister; For those that mingle reason with your pa.s.sion Must be content to think you old, and so-- But she knows what she does.

Lear. Is this well spoken now?

Regan. I dare avouch it, sir: What, fifty followers? Is it not well? What should you need of more? Yea, or so many? Sith that both charge and danger Speak 'gainst so great a number? How, in one house, Should many people, under two commands, Hold amity? Tis hard; almost impossible.

Gonerill. Why might you not, my lord, receive attendance From those that she calls servants, or from mine?

Regan. Why not, my lord? If then they chanc'd to slack you, We would control them: if you will come to me (For now I spy a danger) I entreat you To bring but five-and-twenty; to no more Will I give place, or notice.

Lear. I gave you all-- Regan. And in good time you gave it.

Lear. Made you my guardians, my depositaries; But kept a reservation to be follow'd With such a number: what, must I come to you With five-and-twenty, Regan! said you so?

Regan. And speak it again, my lord; no more with me.

Lear. Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd, When others are more wicked; not being the worst, Stands in some rank of praise:--I'll go with thee; [To Gonerill.] Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty, And thou art twice her love.

Gonerill. Hear me, my lord; What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five, To follow in a house, where twice so many Have a command to tend you?

Regan. What need one?

Lear. O, reason not the need: our basest beggars Are in the poorest thing superfluous: Allow not nature more than nature needs, Man's life is cheap as beast's: thou art a lady; If only to go warm were gorgeous, Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st; Which scarcely keeps thee warm.--But, for true need-- You heavens, give me that patience which I need! You see me here, you G.o.ds; a poor old man, As full of grief as age; wretched in both! If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts Against their father, fool me not so much To bear it tamely; touch me with n.o.ble anger! O, let no woman's weapons, water-drops, Stain my man's cheeks!--No, you unnatural hags, I will have such revenges on you both, That all the world shall--I will do such things-- What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be The terrors of the earth. You think, I'll weep: No, I'll not weep:-- I have full cause of weeping; but this heart Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws, Or e'er I'll weep:--O, fool, I shall go mad! [Exeunt Lear, Gloster, Kent, and Fool.]

If there is anything in any author like this yearning of the heart, these throes of tenderness, this profound expression of all that can be thought and felt in the most heart-rending situations, we are glad of it; but it is in some author that we have not read.

The scene in the storm, where he is exposed to all the fury of the elements, though grand and terrible, is not so fine, but the moralizing scenes with Mad Tom, Kent, and Gloster, are upon a par with the former. His exclamation in the supposed trial-scene of his daughters, 'See the little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see they bark at me,' his issuing his orders, 'Let them anatomize Regan, see what breeds about her heart,' and his reflection when he sees the misery of Edgar, 'Nothing but his unkind daughters could have brought him to this,' are in a style of pathos, where the extremest resources of the imagination are called in to lay open the deepest movements of the heart, which was peculiar to Shakespeare. In the same style and spirit is his interrupting the Fool who asks, 'whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman', by answering 'A king, a king!'

The indirect part that Gloster takes in these scenes where his generosity leads him to relieve Lear and resent the cruelty of his daughters, at the very time that he is himself instigated to seek the life of his son, and suffering under the sting of his supposed ingrat.i.tude, is a striking accompaniment to the situation of Lear. Indeed, the manner in which the threads of the story are woven together is almost as wonderful in the way of art as the carrying on the tide of pa.s.sion, still varying and unimpaired, is on the score of nature. Among the remarkable instances of this kind are Edgar's meeting with his old blind father; the deception he practises upon him when he pretends to lead him to the top of Dover-cliff--'Come on, sir, here's the place,' to prevent his ending his life and miseries together; his encounter with the perfidious Steward whom he kills, and his finding the letter from Gonerill to his brother upon him which leads to the final catastrophe, and brings the wheel of Justice 'full circle home' to the guilty parties. The bustle and rapid succession of events in the last scenes is surprising. But the meeting between Lear and Cordelia is by far the most affecting part of them. It has all the wildness of poetry, and all the heartfelt truth of nature. The previous account of her reception of the news of his unkind treatment, her involuntary reproaches to her sisters, 'Shame, ladies, shame,' Lear's backwardness to see his daughter, the picture of the desolate state to which he is reduced, 'Alack,'tis he; why he was met even now, as mad as the vex'd sea, singing aloud,' only prepare the way for and heighten our expectation of what follows, and a.s.suredly this expectation is not disappointed when through the tender care of Cordelia he revives and recollects her.

Cordelia. How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty!

Lear. You do me wrong, to take me out o' the grave: Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears Do scald like molten lead.

Cordelia. Sir, do you know me?

Lear. You are a spirit I know: when did you die?

Cordelia. Still, still, far wide!

Physician. He's scarce awake; let him alone awhile.

Lear. Where have I been? Where am I?--Fair daylight?-- I am mightily abus'd.--I should even die with pity, To see another thus.--I know not what to say.-- I will not swear these are my hands:--let's see; I feel this pin p.r.i.c.k. 'Would I were a.s.sur'd Of my condition.

Cordelia. O, look upon me, sir, And hold your hands in benediction o'er me:-- No, sir, you must not kneel.

Lear. Pray, do not mock me: I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward; Not an hour more, nor less: and, to deal plainly, I fear, I am not in my perfect mind. Methinks, I shou'd know you, and know this man; Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant What place this is; and all the skill I have Remembers not these garments; nor I know not Where I did lodge last night: do not laugh at me; For, as I am a man, I think this lady To be my child Cordelia.

Cordelia. And so I am, I am!

Almost equal to this in awful beauty is their consolation of each other when, after the triumph of their enemies, they are led to prison.

Cordelia. We are not the first, Who, with best meaning, have incurr'd the worst. For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down; Myself could else out-frown false fortune's frown.-- Shall we not see these daughters, and these sisters?

Lear. No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison: We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage: When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down, And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded b.u.t.terflies, and hear poor rogues Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too-- Who loses, and who wins; who's in, who's out;-- And take upon us the mystery of things, As if we were G.o.d's spies: and we'll wear out, In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones, That ebb and flow by the moon.

Edmund. Take them away.

Lear. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, The G.o.ds themselves throw incense.

The concluding events are sad, painfully sad; but their pathos is extreme. The oppression of the feelings is relieved by the very interest we take in the misfortunes of others, and by the reflections to which they give birth. Cordelia is hanged in prison by the orders of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d Edmund, which are known too late to be countermanded, and Lear dies broken-hearted, lamenting over her.

Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life: Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life. And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never!-- Pray you, undo this b.u.t.ton: thank you, sir.--- He dies, and indeed we feel the truth of what Kent says on the occasion-- Vex not his ghost: O, let him pa.s.s! he hates him, That would upon the rack of the rough world Stretch him out longer.

Yet a happy ending has been contrived for this play, which is approved of by Dr. Johnson and condemned by Schlegel. A better authority than either, on any subject in which poetry and feeling are concerned, has given it in favour of Shakespeare, in some remarks on the acting of Lear, with which we shall conclude this account.

The Lear of Shakespeare cannot be acted. The contemptible machinery with which they mimic the storm which he goes out in, is not more inadequate to represent the horrors of the real elements than any actor can be to represent Lear. The greatness of Lear is not in corporal dimension, but in intellectual; the explosions of his pa.s.sions are terrible as a volcano: they are storms turning up and disclosing to the bottom that rich sea, his mind, with all its vast riches. It is his mind which is laid bare. This case of flesh and blood seems too insignificant to be thought on; even as he himself neglects it. On the stage we see nothing but corporal infirmities and weakness, the impotence of rage; while we read it, we see not Lear, but we are Lear;--we are in his mind, we are sustained by a grandeur, which baffles the malice of daughters and storms; in the aberrations of his reason, we discover a mighty irregular power of reasoning, immethodized from the ordinary purposes of life, but exerting its powers, as the wind blows where it listeth, at will on the corruptions and abuses of mankind. What have looks or tones to do with that sublime identification of his age with that of THE HEAVENS THEMSELVES, when in his reproaches to them for conniving at the injustice of his children, he reminds them that "they themselves are old!" What gesture shall we appropriate to this? What has the voice or the eye to do with such things? But the play is beyond all art, as the tamperings with it show: it is too hard and stony; it must have love-scenes, and a happy ending. It is not enough that Cordelia is a daughter, she must shine as a lover too. Tate has put his hook in the nostrils of this Leviathan, for Garrick and his followers, the showmen of the scene, to draw it about more easily. A happy ending!--as if the living martyrdom that Lear had gone through,--the flaying of his feelings alive, did not make a fair dismissal from the stage of life the only decorous thing for him. If he is to live and be happy after, if he could sustain this world's burden after, why all this pudder and preparation--why torment us with all this unnecessary sympathy? As if the childish pleasure of getting his gilt robes and sceptre again could tempt him to act over again his misused station--as if at his years and with his experience anything was left but to die.' [Footnote: See an article, called 'Theatralia', in the second volume of the Reflector, by Charles Lamb.]

Four things have struck us in reading LEAR: 1. That poetry is an interesting study, for this reason, that it relates to whatever is most interesting in human life. Whoever therefore has a contempt for poetry, has a contempt for himself and humanity.

2. That the language of poetry is superior to the language of painting; because the strongest of our recollections relate to feelings, not to faces.

3. That the greatest strength of genius is shown in describing the strongest pa.s.sions: for the power of the imagination, in works of invention, must be in proportion to the force of the natural impressions, which are the subject of them.

4. That the circ.u.mstance which balances the pleasure against the pain in tragedy is, that in proportion to the greatness of the evil, is our sense and desire of the opposite good excited; and that our sympathy with actual suffering is lost in the strong impulse given to our natural affections, and carried away with the swell-ing tide of pa.s.sion, that gushes from and relieves the heart.

RICHARD II.

RICHARD II is a play little known compared with RICHARD III, which last is a play that every unfledged candidate for theatrical fame chooses to strut and fret his hour upon the stage in; yet we confess that we prefer the nature and feeling of the one to the noise and bustle of the other; at least, as we are so often forced to see it acted. In RICHARD II the weakness of the king leaves us leisure to take a greater interest in the misfortunes of the man. 'After the first act, in which the arbitrariness of his behaviour only proves his want of resolution, we see him staggering under the unlooked-for blows of fortune, bewailing his loss of kingly power; not preventing it, sinking under the aspiring genius of Bolingbroke, his authority trampled on, his hopes failing him, and his pride crushed and broken down under insults and injuries, which his own misconduct had provoked, but which he has not courage or manliness to resent. The change of tone and behaviour in the two compet.i.tors for the throne according to their change of fortune, from the capricious sentence of banishment pa.s.sed by Richard upon Bolingbroke, the suppliant offers and modest pretensions of the latter on his return, to the high and haughty tone with which he accepts Richard's resignation of the crown after the loss of all his power, the use which he makes of the deposed king to grace his triumphal progress through the streets of London, and the final intimation of his wish for his death, which immediately finds a servile executioner, is marked throughout with complete effect and without the slightest appearance of effort. The steps by which Bolingbroke mounts the throne are those by which Richard sinks into the grave. We feel neither respect nor love for the deposed monarch; for he is as wanting in energy as in principle: but we pity him, for he pities himself. His heart is by no means hardened against himself, but bleeds afresh at every new stroke of mischance, and his sensibility, absorbed in his own person, and unused to misfortune, is not only tenderly alive to its own sufferings, but without the fort.i.tude to bear them. He is, however, human in his distresses; for to feel pain, and sorrow, weakness, disappointment, remorse and anguish, is the lot of humanity, and we sympathize with him accordingly. The sufferings of the man make us forget that he ever was a king.

The right a.s.sumed by sovereign power to trifle at its will with the happiness of others as a matter of course, or to remit its exercise as a matter of favour, is strikingly shown in the sentence of banishment so unjustly p.r.o.nounced on Bolingbroke and Mowbray, and in what Bolingbroke says when four years of his banishment are taken off, with as little reason: How long a time lies in one little word! Four lagging winters and four wanton springs End in a word: such is the breath of kings.

A more affecting image of the loneliness of a state of exile can hardly be given than by what Bolingbroke afterwards observes of his having 'sighed his English breath in foreign clouds'; or than that conveyed in Mowbray's complaint at being banished for life.

The language I have learned these forty years, My native English, now I must forego; And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up, Or being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony. I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, Too far in years to be a pupil now.-- How very beautiful is all this, and at the same time how very ENGLISH too!

RICHARD II may be considered as the first of that series of English historical plays, in which 'is hung armour of the invincible knights of old', in which their hearts seem to strike against their coats of mail, where their blood tingles for the fight, and words are but the harbingers of blows. Of this state of accomplished barbarism the appeal of Bolingbroke and Mowbray is an admirable specimen. Another of these 'keen encounters of their wits', which serve to whet the talkers' swords, is where Aumerle answers in the presence of Bolingbroke to the charge which Bagot brings against him of being an accessory in Gloster's death.

Fitzwater. If that thy valour stand on sympathies, There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine; By that fair sun that shows me where thou stand'st I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it, That thou wert cause of n.o.ble Gloster's death. If thou deny'st it twenty times thou liest, And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.

Aumerle. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see the day, Fitzwater. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.

Aumerle. Fitzwater, thou art d.a.m.n'd to h.e.l.l for this.

Percy. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true, In this appeal, as thou art all unjust; And that thou art so, there I throw my gage To prove it on thee, to th' extremest point Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar'st.

Aumerle. And if I do not, may my hands rot off, And never brandish more revengeful steel Over the glittering helmet of my foe. Who sets me else? By heav'n, I'll throw at all. I have a thousand spirits in my breast, To answer twenty thousand such as you.

Surrey. My lord Fitzwater, I remember well The very time Aumerle and you did talk.

Fitzwater. My lord, 'tis true: you were in presence then; And you can witness with me, this is true.

Surrey. As false, by heav'n, as heav'n itself is true.

Fitzwater, Surrey, thou liest.

Surrey. Dishonourable boy, That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword, That it shall render vengeance and revenge, Till thou the lie-giver and that lie rest In earth as quiet as thy father's skull. In proof whereof, there is mine honour's p.a.w.n: Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.

Fitzwater. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse: If I dare eat or drink or breathe or live, I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness, And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies, And lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith, To tie thee to thy strong correction. As I do hope to thrive in this new world, Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.

The truth is, that there is neither truth nor honour in all these n.o.ble persons: they answer words with words, as they do blows with blows, in mere self-defence: nor have they any principle whatever but that of courage in maintaining any wrong they dare commit, or any falsehood which they find it useful to a.s.sert. How different were these n.o.ble knights and 'barons bold' from their more refined descendants in the present day, who instead of deciding questions of right by brute force, refer everything to convenience, fashion, and good breeding! In point of any abstract love of truth or justice, they are just the same now that they were then.

The characters of old John of Gaunt and of his brother York, uncles to the King, the one stern and foreboding, the other honest, good- natured, doing all for the best, and therefore doing nothing, are well kept up. The speech of the former, in praise of England, is one of the most eloquent that ever was penned. We should perhaps hardly be disposed to feed the pampered egotism of our countrymen by quoting this description, were it not that the conclusion of it (which looks prophetic) may qualify any improper degree of exultation.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of Majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-Paradise, This fortress built by nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war; This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall (Or as a moat defensive to a house) Against the envy of less happy lands: This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Fear'd for their breed and famous for their birth, Renown'd for their deeds, as far from home, For Christian service and true chivalry, As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son; This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leas'd out (I die p.r.o.nouncing it) Like to a tenement or pelting farm. England bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky sh.o.r.e beats back the envious surge Of wat'ry Neptune, is bound in with shame, With inky-blots and rotten parchment bonds. That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

The character of Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV, is drawn with a masterly hand:--patient for occasion, and then steadily availing himself of it, seeing his advantage afar off, but only seizing on it when he has it within his reach, humble, crafty, bold, and aspiring, encroaching by regular but slow degrees, building power on opinion, and cementing opinion by power. His disposition is first unfolded by Richard himself, who however is too self-willed and secure to make a proper use of his knowledge.

Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green, Observed his courtship of the common people; How he did seem to dive into their hearts, With humble and familiar courtesy, What reverence he did throw away on slaves; Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles, And patient under-bearing of his fortune, As 'twere to banish their affections with him. Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench; A brace of draymen bid G.o.d speed him well, And had the tribute of his supple knee, With thanks my countrymen, my loving friends; As were our England in reversion his, And he our subjects' next degree in hope.

Afterwards, he gives his own character to Percy, in these words: I thank thee, gentle Percy, and be sure I count myself in nothing else so happy, As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends; And as my fortune ripens with thy love, It shall be still thy true love's recompense.

We know how he afterwards kept his promise. His bold a.s.sertion of his own rights, his pretended submission to the king, and the ascendancy which he tacitly a.s.sumes over him without openly claiming it, as soon as he has him in his power, are characteristic traits of this ambitious and politic usurper. But the part of Richard himself gives the chief interest to the play. His folly, his vices, his misfortunes, his reluctance to part with the crown, his fear to keep it, his weak and womanish regrets, his starting tears, his fits of hectic pa.s.sion, his smothered majesty, pa.s.s in succession before us, and make a picture as natural as it is affecting. Among the most striking touches of pathos are his wish, 'O that I were a mockery king of snow to melt away before the sun of Bolingbroke', and the incident of the poor groom who comes to visit him in prison, and tells him how 'it yearned his heart that Bolingbroke upon his coronation day rode on Roan Barbary. We shall have occasion to return hereafter to the character of Richard II in speaking of Henry VI. There is only one pa.s.sage more, the description of his entrance into London with Bolingbroke, which we should like to quote here, if it had not been so used and worn out, so thumbed and got by rote, so praised and painted; but its beauty surmounts all these considerations.

d.u.c.h.ess. My lord, you told me you would tell the rest, When weeping made you break the story off Of our two cousins coming into London.

York. Where did I leave?

d.u.c.h.ess. At that sad stop, my lord, Where rude misgovern'd hands, from window tops, Threw dust and rubbish on king Richard's head.

York. Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know, With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course, While all tongues cried--G.o.d save thee, Bolingbroke! You would have thought the very windows spake, So many greedy looks of young and old Through cas.e.m.e.nts darted their desiring eyes Upon his visage; and that all the walls, With painted imag'ry, had said at once-- Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke! Whilst he, from one side to the other turning, Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck, Bespake them thus--I thank you, countrymen: And thus still doing thus he pa.s.s'd along.

d.u.c.h.ess. Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the while?

York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious: Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on Richard; no man cried G.o.d save him! No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home: But dust was thrown upon his sacred head! Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off-- His face still combating with tears and smiles, The badges of his grief and patience-- That had not G.o.d, for some strong purpose, steel'd The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted. And barbarism itself have pitied him.

HENRY IV.

IN TWO PARTS.

If Shakespeare'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 fullness 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 quant.i.ty 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 subst.i.tute 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 const.i.tution; 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 appet.i.tes. 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 descriptions 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 show his contempt for glory accompanied with danger, his systematic adherence to his Epicurean philosophy in the most trying circ.u.mstances. 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, &c., 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 a.s.sumes all these characters to show the humorous part of them. The unrestrained indulgence of his own ease, appet.i.tes, 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 circ.u.mstance 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 G.o.d 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.