The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [2714]
Falstaff's lyes, which go more directly to his vindication.—That they are confined to one scene and one occasion only, we are not now at a loss to account for;—but what shall we say to their extravagance? The lyes of Parolles and Bobadill are brought into some shape; but the fictions of Falstaff are so preposterous and incomprehensible, that one may fairly doubt if they ever were intended for credit; and therefore, if they ought to be called lyes, and not rather humour; or, to compound the matter, humourous rhodomontades. Certain it is, that they destroy their own purpose, and are clearly not the effect, in this respect, of a regulated practice, and a habit of imposition. The real truth seems to be, that had Falstaff, loose and unprincipled as he is, been born a Coward and bred a Soldier, he must, naturally, have been a great Braggadocio, a true miles gloriosus. But in such case he should have been exhibited active and young; for it is plain that age and corpulency are an excuse for Cowardice, which ought not to be afforded him. In the present case, wherein he was not only involved in suspicious circumstances, but wherein he seems to have felt some conscious touch of infirmity, and having no candid construction to expect from his laughing companions, he bursts at once, and with all his might, into the most unweighed and preposterous fictions, determined to put to proof on this occasion his boasted talent of swearing truth out of England. He tried it here, to its utmost extent, and was unfortunately routed on his own ground; which indeed, with such a mine beneath his feet, could not be otherwise. But without this, he had mingled in his deceits so much whimsical humour and fantastic exaggeration that he must have been detected; and herein appears the admirable address of Shakespeare, who can shew us Falstaff in the various light, not only of what he is, but what he would have been under one single variation of character,—the want of natural Courage; whilst with an art not enough understood, he most effectually preserves the real character of Falstaff even in the moment he seems to depart from it, by making his lyes too extravagant for practised imposition; by grounding them more upon humour than deceit; and turning them, as we shall next see, into a fair and honest proof of general Courage, by appropriating them to the concealment only of a single exception. And hence it is, that we see him draw so deeply and so confidently upon his former credit for Courage and atchievment: “I never dealt better in my life,—thou know'st my old ward, Hal,” are expressions which clearly refer to some known feats and defences of his former life. His exclamations against Cowardice, his reference to his own manhood, “Die when thou wilt, old Jack, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring”: These, and various expressions such as these, would be absurdities not impositions, Farce not Comedy, if not calculated to conceal some defect supposed unknown to the hearers; and these hearers were, in the present case, his constant companions, and the daily witnesses of his conduct. If before this period he had been a known and detected Coward, and was conscious that he had no credit to lose, I see no reason why he should fly so violently from a familiar ignominy which had often before attacked him; or why falshoods, seemingly in such a case neither calculated for or expecting credit, should be censured, or detected, as lyes or imposition.
That the whole transaction was considered as a mere jest, and as carrying with it no serious imputation on the Courage of Falstaff, is manifest, not only from his being allowed, when the laugh was past, to call himself, without contradiction in the personated character of Hal himself, “valiant Jack Falstaff, and the more valiant being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff,” but from various other particulars, and, above all, from the declaration, which the Prince makes on that very night, of his intention of procuring this fat rogue a Charge of foot;—a circumstance, doubtless,