e shame of ignobly failing in an
ignoble undertaking: and Ford's jealousy, again, is made to scourge
himself with the very whip he has twisted for the scourging of its
object. Thus all the more prominent persons have to chew the ashes of
disappointment in turn; their plans being thwarted, and themselves
made ridiculous, just as they are on the point of grasping their
several fruitions. Falstaff, indeed, is the only one of them that
rises by falling, and extracts grace out of his disgraces. For in him
the grotesque and ludicrous is evermore laughing and chuckling over
itself: he makes comedies extempore out of his own shames and
infirmities; and is himself the most delighted spectator of the scenes
in which he figures as chief actor.

This observation and enjoyment of the comical as displayed in
himself, which forms one of Sir John's leading traits, and explains
much in him that were else inexplicable, is here seen however
labouring under something of an eclipse. The truth is, he is plainly
out of his sphere; and he shows a strange lapse from his wanted
sagacity in getting where he is: the good sense so conspicuous in his
behaviour on other occasions ought to have kept him from supposing for
a moment that he could inspire the passion of love in such a place;
nor, as before observed, does it seem likely that the Poet would have
shown him thus, but that he were moved thereto by something outside of
his own mind. For of love in any right or even decent sense Sir John
is essentially incapable. And Shakespeare evidently so regarded him:
he therefore had no alternative but either to commit a gross breach of
decorum or else to make the hero unsuccessful,--an alternative in
which the moral sanity of his genius left him no choice. So that in
undertaking the part of a lover the man must needs be a mark of
interest chiefly for what is practised upon him. For, if we may
believe Hazlitt, "wits and philosophers seldom shine in that
character"; and, whether this be true or not, it is certain that "Sir
John by no means comes off with flying colours." In fact, he is here
the dupe and victim of his own heroism, and provokes laughter much
more by what he suffers than by what he does.

But Falstaff, notwithstanding all these drawbacks, is still so far
himself, that "nought but himself can be his conqueror." If he be
overmatched, it is not so much by the strength or skill of his
antagonists as from his being persuaded, seemingly against hi