h every other
Moral quality to lose its hold on him in his old age; that is, at the time
of life in which he is represented to us; a period, as it should seem,
approaching to _seventy_.--The truth is that he had drollery enough to
support himself in credit without the point of honour, and had address
enough to make even the preservation of his life a point of drollery. The
reader knows I allude, tho' something prematurely, to his fictitious death
in the battle of Shrewsbury. This incident is generally construed to the
disadvantage of _Falstaff_: It is a transaction which bears the external
marks of Cowardice: It is also aggravated to the spectators by the idle
tricks of the Player, who practises on this occasion all the attitudes and
wild apprehensions of fear; more ambitious, as it should seem, of
representing a _Caliban_ than a _Falstaff_; or indeed rather a poor
unwieldy miserable Tortoise than either.--The painful Comedian lies spread
out on his belly, and not only covers himself all over with his robe as
with a shell, but forms a kind of round Tortoise-back by I know not what
stuffing or contrivance; in addition to which, he alternately lifts up,
and depresses, and dodges his head, and looks to the one side and to the
other, so much with the piteous aspect of that animal, that one would not
be sorry to see the ambitious imitator calipashed in his robe, and served
up for the entertainment of the gallery.--There is no hint for this mummery
in the Play: Whatever there may be of dishonour in _Falstaff_'s conduct,
he neither does or says any thing on this occasion which indicates terror
or disorder of mind: On the contrary, this very act is a proof of his
having all his wits about him, and is a stratagem, such as it is, not
improper for a buffoon, whose fate would be singularly hard, if he should
not be allowed to avail himself of his Character when it might serve him
in most stead. We must remember, in extenuation, that the executive, the
destroying hand of _Douglas_ was over him: "_It was time to counterfeit,
or that hot termagant Scot had paid him scot and lot too._" He had but one
choice; he was obliged to pass thro' the ceremony of dying either in jest
or in earnest; and we shall not be surprized at the event, when we
remember his propensities to the former.--Life (and especially the life of
_Falstaff_) might be a jest; but he could see no joke whatever in dying:
To be chopfallen was, with him, to lose both life and c