Prefume not, that I am the thing I was: So will I thofe that kept me company. on to the end of the chapter. Thus the poet copies nature with great skill, and shows us how apt men are to fall back into their old cuftoms, when the change is not made by degrees, and brought into a habit, but determined of at once, on the motives of honour, interest, or reason. WARBURTON. 2 Not to come near our perfon by ten mile.] Mr. Rowe obferves, that many readers lament to fee Falstaff so hardly used by his old friend. But if it be confidered, that the fat knight has never uttered one fentiment of generofity, and with all his power of exciting mirth, has nothing in him that can be esteemed, no great pain will be fuffered from the reflection that he is compelled to live honeftly, and maintained by the King, with a promife of advancement when he shall deserve it. I think the poet more blameable for Poins, who is always represented as joining fome virtues with his vices, and is therefore treated by the Prince with apparent diftinction, yet he does nothing in the time of action; and though after the bustle is over he is again a favourite, at laft vanishes without notice. Shakspeare certainly loft him by heedleffness, in the multiplicity of his characters, the variety of his action, and his eagerness to end the play. JOHNSON. The difmiffion of Falstaff was founded on an hiftorical fact. Stowe fays, that " King Henry, after his coronation, called unto him all those young lords and gentlemen that 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, fhould abide with him in his court; and to all that would persevere in their former like converfation, he gave exprefs commandment, upon pain of their heads, never after that day to come in his prefence." For competence of life, I will allow you; Give you advancement.-Be it your charge, my lord, To fee perform'd the tenor of our word. Set on. [Exeunt King, and his Train. FAL. Mafter Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. SHAL. Ay, marry, fir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. This circumftance was originally mentioned by Hall, and is thus recorded by Holinfhed, who was certainly Shakspeare's hiftorian: "Immediately after that he was invested kyng, and had receyved the crowne, he determined with himselfe to putte upon him the fhape of a new man, turning infolence and wildnefs into gravitie and foberneffe: and whereas he had paffed his youth in wanton paftime and riotous miforder, with a forte of mifgoverned mates, and unthriftie playfeers, he now banished them from his prefence, (not unrewarded nor yet unpreferred,) inhibiting them upon a great payne, not once to approche, lodge or fojourne within ten miles of his courte or manfion and in their places he elected and chose men of gravitie, witte, and hygh policie, by whofe wife counfell he might at all times rule to his honoure;-whereas if he fhould have reteined the other luftie companions aboute him, he doubted leaft they might have allured him into fuch lewde and lighte partes, as with them before tyme he had youthfully used."-Our author might have found the fame circumstance in the anonymous play of King Henry V: 66 your former life grieves me, "And makes me to abandon and abolish your company for ever: "And therefore not upon pain of death to approche my prefence, "By ten miles' space; then, if I heare well of you, "Otherwife looke for no more favour at my hands, FAL. That can hardly be, mafter Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I fhall be fent for in private to him: look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement; I will be the man yet, that shall make you great. SHAL. I cannot perceive how; unless you give me your doublet, and ftuff me out with ftraw. I befeech you, good fir John, let me have five hundred my thousand. of FAL. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard, was but a colour. SHAL. A colour, I fear, that you will die in, fir John. FAL. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, lieutenant Pistol ;-come, Bardolph :-I shall be fent for foon at night. Re-enter Prince JOHN, the Chief Juftice, Officers, &c. CH.JUST. GO, carry fir John Falstaff to the Fleet; 3 Take all his company along with him. FAL. My lord, my lord, CH. JUST. I cannot now fpeak: I will hear you foon. Take them away. 3 to the Fleet;] I do not fee why Falstaff is carried to the Fleet. We have never loft fight of him fince his difmiffion from the King; he has committed no new fault, and therefore incurred no punishment; but the different agitations of fear, anger, and furprize in him and his company, made a good scene to the eye; and our author, who wanted them no longer on the ftage, was glad to find this method of sweeping them away. JOHNSON, PIST. Si fortuna me tormenta, pero me contenta. [Exeunt FAL. SHAL. PIST. BARD. Page, and Officers. P. JOHN. I like this fair proceeding of the king's: He hath intent, his wonted followers Shall all be very well provided for; But all are banifh'd, till their conversations CH. JUST. And fo they are. P. JOHN. The king hath call'd his parliament, my lord. CH. JUST. He hath. P. JOHN. I will lay odds,-that, ere this year expire, We bear our civil fwords, and native fire, As far as France: I heard a bird so fing, 4 [Exeunt.5 I heard a bird fo fing,] This phrafe, which I fuppose to be proverbial, occurs in the ancient ballad of The Rifing in the North: "I heare a bird fing in mine eare, "That I muft either fight or flee." STEEVENS. 5 I fancy every reader, when he ends this play, cries out with Defdemona, "O moft lame and impotent conclufion!" As this play was not, to our knowledge, divided into Acts by the author, I could be content to conclude it with the death of Henry the Fourth: "In that Jerufalem fhall Harry die." Thefe fcenes, which now make the fifth A&t of Henry the Fourth, might then be the firft of Henry the Fifth; but the truth is, that they do not unite very commodiously to either play. When thefe plays were reprefented, I believe they ended as they are now ended in the books; but Shakspeare feems to have defigned that the whole feries of action, from the beginning of Richard the Second, to the end of Henry the Fifth, fhould be confidered by the reader as one work, upon one plan, only broken into parts by the neceffity of exhibition. None of Shakspeare's plays are more read than the First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth. Perhaps no author has ever, in two plays, afforded fo much delight. The great events are interefting, for the fate of kingdoms depends upon them; the flighter occurrences are diverting, and, except one or two, fufficiently probable; the incidents are multiplied with wonderful fertility of invention, and the characters diverfified with the utmoft nicety of difcernment, and the profoundest skill in the nature of man. The Prince, who is the hero both of the comick and tragick part, is a young man of great abilities and violent paffions, whofe fentiments are right, though his actions are wrong; whofe virtues are obfcured by negligence, and whose understanding is diffipated by levity. In his idle hours he is rather loose than wicked; and when the occafion forces out his latent qualities, he is great without effort, and brave without tumult. The trifler is roused into a hero, and the hero again reposes in the trifler. The character is great, original, and juft. Percy is a rugged foldier, cholerick and quarrelfome, and has only the foldier's virtues, generofity and courage. But Falstaff unimitated, unimitable Falstaff, how fhall I defcribe thee? thou compound of fense and vice; of sense which may be admired, but not esteemed; of vice which may be defpifed, but hardly detefted. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with thofe faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief and a glutton, a coward and a boafter, always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous, and infult the defencelefs. At once obfequious and malignant, he fatirizes in their abfence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the prince only as an agent of vice, but of this familiarity he is so proud, as not only to be fupercilious and haughty with common men, but to think his intereft of importance to the Duke of Lancafter. Yet the man thus corrupt, thus defpicable, makes himself neceffary to the prince that defpifes him, by the moft pleafing of all qualities, perpetual gaiety; by an unfailing power of exciting laughter, which is the more freely indulged, as his wit is not of the fplendid or ambitious kind, but confifts in eafy fcapes and fallies of levity, which make fport, but raise no envy. It must be observed, that he is ftained with no enormous or fanguinary crimes, fo that his licentioufnefs is not fo offenfive but that it may be borne for his mirth. The moral to be drawn from this representation is, that no |