mid rise
high unto heaven,' it is not everybody has fully realised his
psychological enormity, his nationality; the tendency has been to look
upon him rather as a man than as a type. I do not contend that it is
desirable to magnify type at the expense of personality; far from it,
for the personal quality is ever more appealing than the typical, but
one should not ignore the generalities which hide in the individual,
especially when they are evident. It is remarkable that Dr Johnson
should have so completely avoided this side of Falstaff's character, so
remarkable that I quote in full his appreciation of the fat Knight[5]:--

[Footnote 5: Following on the second part of _King Henry IV._, Dr
Johnson's edition, 1765.]

'But Falstaff, unimitated, unimitable Falstaff! how shall I
describe thee? thou compound of sense and vice; of sense which may
be admired, but not esteemed; of vice which may be despised, but
hardly detested. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and
with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief
and a glutton, a coward and a boaster; always ready to cheat the
weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous, and insult
the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirises in
their absence 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 supercilious and haughty with
common men, but to think his interest of importance to the Duke of
Lancaster. Yet the man thus corrupt, thus despicable, makes
himself necessary to the prince that despises him, by the most
pleasing 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 splendid or ambitious kind, but consists in easy
scapes and sallies of levity, which make sport, but raise no envy.
It must be observed, that he is stained with no enormous or
sanguinary crimes, so that his licentiousness is not so offensive
but that it may be borne for his mirth.'

A judgment such as this one is characteristic of Johnson; it is
elaborate, somewhat prejudiced, and very narrow. Johnson evidently saw
Falstaff as a mere man, perhaps as one whose ghost he would willingly
have taught to smoke a churchwarden at the 'Cheshire Cheese.' He saw
in him neither he