t account
of _Falstaff_. He _remembers him a Page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of
Norfolk_: "_He broke,_" says he, "_Schoggan's head at the Court-Gate when
he was but a crack thus high._" _Shallow_, throughout, considers him as a
great Leader and Soldier, and relates this fact as an early indication
only of his future Prowess. _Shallow_, it is true, is a very ridiculous
character; but he picked up these Impressions somewhere; and he picked up
none of a contrary tendency.--I want at present only to prove that
_Falstaff_ stood well in the report of common fame as to this point; and
he was now near seventy years of age, and had passed in a Military line
thro' the active part of his life. At this period common fame may be well
considered as the _seal_ of his character; a seal which ought not perhaps
to be broke open on the evidence of any future transaction.

But to proceed. _Lord Bardolph_ was a man of the world, and of sense and
observation. He informs _Northumberland_, erroneously indeed, that _Percy_
had beaten the King at Shrewsbury. "_The King,_" according to him, "_was
wounded; the Prince of Wales and the two Blunts slain, certain Nobles_,
whom he names, _had escaped by flight, and the Brawn Sir John Falstaff was
taken prisoner._" But how came _Falstaff_ into this list? Common fame had
put him there. He is singularly obliged to Common fame.--But if he had not
been a Soldier of repute, if he had not been brave as well as fat, if he
had been _mere brawn_, it would have been more germane to the matter if
this lord had put him down among the baggage or the provender. The fact
seems to be that there is a real consequence about Sir _John Falstaff_
which is not brought forward: We see him only in his familiar hours; we
enter the tavern with _Hal_ and _Poins_; we join in the laugh and _take a
pride to gird at him_: But there may be a great deal of truth in what he
himself writes to the Prince, that tho' he be "_Jack Falstaff with his
Familiars, he is __SIR JOHN__ with the rest of Europe._" It has been
remarked, and very truly I believe, that no man is a hero in the eye of
his valet-de-chambre; and _thus_ it is, we are witnesses only of
_Falstaff_'s weakness and buffoonery; our acquaintance is with _Jack
Falstaff_, _Plump Jack_, and _Sir John Paunch_; but if we would look for
_Sir John Falstaff_, we must put on, as _Bunyan_ would have expressed it,
the spectacles of observation. With respect, for instance, to his Military
command a