led Prince Henry to Eastcheap sustained him and helped to put courage into the hearts of his soldiery on the eve of the great contest at Agincourt.

If Hal's follies need an apology, that apology is provided in the person of Falstaff. And Falstaff, by virtue of his age and his huge irresponsible humour, is precisely such a person as can never be the young Prince's boon companion and hail-fellow-well-met. At the best of his wit, Prince Henry is only one of the minnows that play about the Triton. The Prince's comrade is Poins, and Shakespeare, had he pleased, could have raised the part of Poins into that of a more dazzling Mercutio, who might have become a real misleader of youth. But the part of Poins is comparatively insignificant; he and Hal are little more in relation to Falstaff than picadors who prick to its highest efforts the humour of their great antagonist in the encounters of mirth. Falstaff is a wonder and a delight to Prince Henry; but he has not given away his heart to that monarch of the tavern, nor perhaps has he given away his heart to any man. His largess in later days is universal, like as the sun', but King Henry V is a king who has no favourite.

King Henry IV, bowed down by the weight of responsibility, is for ever labouring to meet the necessity of the hour. Falstaff, burdened with years and 'a tun of man', lives in a fortunate region where responsibility is unknown and the word necessity' has never once been heard. His is the absolute freedom; the weary weight of all this unintelligible world has never touched him. Age cannot wither him nor custom stale his infinite variety. What is poverty for him who has all Golconda in his wit? What is defeat, when he rises unsubduable to some more dazzling victory? He is a knight who can never be baffled, and whose prowess in his proper province is as splendid as that of his lean and heroic fellow of La Mancha. All dissonances are turned to triumphant march-music by Falstaff, all incongruities are har monized. A play in ten acts is required to contain

him, and, as Mr. Walter Raleigh has said, there seems no reason why he should not go on for ever.

The most genial piece of eighteenth-century Shakespearean criticism is An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff by Maurice Morgann. The writer was at one time under-secretary of state to the Earl of Shelburne, and, though the fact has not, I believe, been hitherto recorded in print, he seems to have contemplated an edition of Shakespeare, making notes, with such a view, in at least one volume of the plays which is now in my possession. Morgann desired to #prove that Falstaff is no coward by temperament or instinct, while yet he can act a cowardly part on calculation of its advantages. His 'Essay' dismounts the great machine Falstaff, takes it to pieces as far as this can be done by genial analysis, and puts it together again-with the pulse of the machine, humour, at the centre, as we see it in action on the stage. But few critics who have felt the mighty attraction of Sir John and have been drawn into the fascination of his atmosphere, have failed to write happily of the man and his genius. He manures and nourishes his mind with jests,' says Hazlitt, 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". And the critic goes on to speak of Falstaff's masterly presence of mind, his absolute self-possession, =which nothing can disturb.

And yet at the close of the play Shakespeare inflicts a mortal wound upon the hero of the tavern in whom he has made us delight. After his joyous and triumphant hours with Justice Shallow and Master Silence, the blow comes of a sudden; the stroke is given by the hand of Prince Hal himself, now the crowned King of England-et tu, Brute-and Falstaff, however gallantly he may try to pass it off, is for the first time disconcerted. Irresponsible humour is humbled and

run

slain by remorseless fact. 'The king hath bad humours on the knight; that's the even of it,' as Nym afterwards testifies, and the great knight's heart, as Pistol has it, 'is fracted and corroborate.' Falstaff has to listen to an edifying lecture—

I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers; How ill white hairs become a fool and jester; and, giving no opportunity for a reply, the King with his train sweeps past. Presently enters the Chief Justice, and in presence of the cold-blooded John of Lancaster, Falstaff is disgraced and carried to the Fleet. What is it to him, who could always shift for himself, that competence of life is allowed him at a distance of ten miles from the royal presence? What is left for him but to fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, and make a finer end an it had been any christom child?

Dr. Bradley has published an admirable lecture on The Rejection of Falstaff', and finds himself forced to the conclusion that Shakespeare has missed what he aimed at; that in this scene he has overshot the mark: He created so extraordinary a being, and fixed him so firmly on his intellectual throne, that when he sought to dethrone him he could not. The moment comes when we are to look on Falstaff in a serious light, and the comic hero is to figure as a baffled schemer; but we cannot make the required change, either in our attitude or in our sympathies. We wish Henry a glorious reign and much joy of his crew of hypocritical politicians, lay and clerical; but our hearts go with Falstaff to the Fleet, or, if necessary, to Arthur's bosom or wheresomever he is.'

And yet perhaps Hazlitt is a safer guide when, declaring that he could never forgive the Prince's treatment of Falstaff, he adds the words 'though perhaps Shakespeare knew what was best, according to the history, the nature of the times, and of the man Perhaps Shakespeare meant that our hearts should go with Falstaff to the Fleet, and meant also that our

sense of what is right and inevitable should follow Henry to a region where a Falstaff became impossible. What can Henry do but save himself from the magic of that great magician? Banish Jack he must, and as to the Fleet no word is spoken by Henry. Why may we not charitably suppose that John of Lancaster has added a new treachery to the damnable treachery by which he has betrayed the rebel leaders, and has rounded the Chief Justice in the ear? That Shakespeare himself never discarded from his sympathies his incomparable jester is clear enough from the tear and the smile with which he recounts the story of his death.

The stage Falstaff of Shakespeare's day is said to have been the actor Lowin, then a youth, but this is probably an error; he certainly took the part at a later date. Betterton, in Restoration days, appeared at different times both as Hotspur and as Falstaff, and was successful in both characters. The greatest eighteenth-century Falstaff was Quin, though he seems to have been run close by Henderson. Once we are reminded by Mr. Frank Marshall-the part of Falstaff was incongruously assumed by a woman, Mrs. Webb, whose ample figure suited the part. The experiment at the Haymarket in 1786 was made on the occasion of her benefit night, and was not repeated.

William Kenrick, a miscellaneous writer of the eighteenth century, had the audacity to attempt a continuation of King Henry IV. In 1760 his Falstaff's Wedding was published. Six years later an abridgement of his play was given once at Drury Lane. Garrick declined to risk a second performance of the piece.

RUMOUR, the Presenter.

KING HENRY THE FOURTH.

HENRY, Prince of Wales; afterwards

King Henry the Fifth.

THOMAS, Duke of Clarence,
JOHN OF LANCASTER,

HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER,

EARL OF WARWICK,

EARL OF WESTMORELAND,

His Sons.

EARL OF SURREY,

GOWER,

HARCOURT,

BLUNT,

Of the King's party.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE of the King's Bench.

A Servant of the Chief Justice.

EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND,

RICHARD SCROOP, Archbishop

SHALLOW and SILENCE, Country Justices.

DAVY, Servant to Shallow.

MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, and BULLCALF, Recruits. FANG and SNARE, Sheriff's Officers.

A Porter.

A Dancer, Speaker of the Epilogue.

LADY NORTHUMBERLAND.

LADY PERCY.

MISTRESS QUICKLY, Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap.
DOLL TEARSHEET.

Lords and Attendants; Officers, Soldiers, Messenger, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, &c.

SCENE.-England.