Every object is reflected on his mind by the eye of cheerfulness, and his whole mental composition exhibits an absolute ineptitude to pain. To a disposition so happy, Falstaff unites a fancy rich in an infinite variety of imagery, which, with the facility of will, his ingenuity weaves into the most ludicrous combinations. The jest is ever ready on his lips; his thoughts are jests; and his brilliant wit pours them forth with peculiar happiness of expression, in the uninterrupted course of casual conversation. The harmonious union of the various qualities of Falstaff, is perhaps the secret of that charm, which has constituted the knight a continual and universal favourite.

Falstaff is particularly rich in humour in the first part of Henry the Fourth. In the early scenes of the second part he is a little in the back ground*, especially with my Lord Chief Justice; but he resumes his wonted splendour in the company of Shallow and Silence. The caricature of the Justice, the remarks on the "semblable coherence" of Shallow and his servants, and the eulogy on wine, are not inferior to any former displays of his comic powers.t

The dismissal of Falstaff, as one of Henry's dissolute companions, is conformable to Holinshed and the old play; but his commitment to the Fleet is an act of severity volunteered by Shakspeare. If the knight's imprisonment, when he looked for an appointment of honour and emolument, was used as a means of mirth, the effort failed completely. The destruction of a hope which the king himself had created, was not a subject for laughter: tenderness, and not insult, should have been mingled with a cup of the utmost bitterness. The effect of Falstaff's disappointment was death; the king had "killed his heart."* Shakspeare certainly intended Henry's conduct to stand beyond the reach of question; he would surely, therefore, have done wisely to omit an expression which represents the end of Falstaff as so truly pitiable. A reference to Stowe in this case would have been eminently useful to him: the prince's companions are there disposed of in a manner gratifying to the feelings of humanity, and consistent with the claims of justice. "After his coronation, King Henry called unto him all those young lords and gentlemen who were the followers of his young acts, to every one of whom he gave rich gifts; and

then commanded that as many as would change their manners, as he intended to do, should abide with him in his court; and to all that would persevere in their former like conversation, he gave express commandment, upon pain of their heads, never after that day to come in his presence."

Here are, indeed, materials for a noble scene, in which Henry might have appeared with a splendour superadded to his present lustre.*

Whatever pains the creation of Shallow and Silence cost Shakspeare, he was amply compensated by the pleasing variety which they communicate by their presence to the closing scenes of Henry the Fourth. As his historical subject drew towards a close, and the Chronicles failed to supply a succession of incidents suitable to the purposes of the drama, the demands on the dramatist's invention were reiterated. Whilst the prince, Poins, and Falstaff are almost continually on the stage, Bardolph and Pistol are judiciously placed in the back ground, and as judiciously propelled when the reformation of Henry, the death of Falstaff, and the loss of Poins, left the scene vacant. But they poorly compensate us for our loss.

*Note B.

Bardolph, like his master, is a liar, a thief, and a coward; but, unlike his master, he has no wit but in his nose: furnish him in this corporeal particular like other men, and he would immediately sink into a duller companion than most people. Whilst selecting incidents for Bardolph's character, the poet was not unmindful of the vrai-semblance of his picture of the wars in France. "A soldier," says Holinshed, "took a pir out of a church, for which he was apprehended, and the king not once removed till the box was restored, and the offender strangled." Such is the crime, and such the end of Bardolph.* Before finally parting with him it should be mentioned, that the trick he relates Falstaff to have devised for giving himself and companions the appearance of men fresh from fight is copied from the old play.

"Every day when I went into the field,

I would take a straw and thrust it into my nose,
And make my nose bleed."

Pistol is a far more effective personage than his fellow. He makes no despicable show as a swaggering, pompous braggadocio in his cir

* Henry V. Act III. sc. 6.

+ Part I. Act II. sc. 4. "Yea and to tickle our noses with spear grass, to make them bleed."

cumscribed sphere of action in the second part of Henry the Fourth; and his increased importance in Henry the Fifth justifies the experiment of expanding his character. The ridiculous scene with the French soldier* would have been omitted with advantage; but Shakspeare was led astray by a piece of farce equally (it would be hard to say more) absurd between Dericke and a Frenchman, in the old play.

The boaster and coward Nym is accurately discriminated from Pistol. They may be quoted in illustration of the different appearance given to the same qualities by the personal characters of their possessors.

The honourable and amiable, but ludicrous Fluellen, likewise emanated from the imagination of Shakspeare. The Welshman's garrulity, however, is not all assigned to him at random, several trifling particulars being interwoven in his "pibble pabble," which were noted by the poet in his perusal of Holinshed.

When Fluellen complains that "th'athvesary is dight himself four yards under the countermines; by Chesher, I think, 'a will plow up all, if there is not better directions,"-Shakspeare had in view the historian's account of the

* Henry V. Act IV. sc. 4.