roic nor national qualities and would have scoffed at
the possibility of their existence, basing himself on his own remark to
Boswell: 'I despise those who do not see that I am right....'

But smaller men than Johnson have judged Falstaff in a small way. They
have concentrated on his comic traits, and considered very little
whether he might be dubbed either giant or Englishman: if Falstaff is a
diamond they have cut but one or two facets. Now the comic side of
Falstaff must not be ignored; if he were incapable of creating laughter,
if he could draw from us no more than a smile, as do the heroes of
Anatole France, of Sterne, or Swift, his gigantic capacity would be
affected. It is essential that he should be absurd; it is almost
essential that he should be fat, for it is an established fact that
humanity laughs gladly at bulk, at men such as Sancho Panza and Mr
Pickwick. It is likely that Shakespeare was aware of our instinct when
he caused Hal to call Falstaff 'this bed-presser, this
horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh.' In the mathematics of the
stage fat = comedy, lean = tragedy; I do not believe that Hamlet was
flesh-burdened, even though 'scant of breath.'

Fat was, however, but Falstaff's prelude to comedy. He needed to be what
he otherwise was, coarse, salaciously-minded, superstitious, blustering,
cowardly, and lying; he needed to be a joker, oft-times a wit, and
withal a sleepy drunkard, a butt for pranks. His coarseness is comic,
but not revolting, for it centres rather on the human body than on the
human emotion; he does not habitually scoff at justice, generosity or
faithfulness, even though he be neither just, nor generous, nor
faithful: his brutality is a brutality of word rather than thought, one
akin to that of our poorer classes. Had Falstaff not had an air of the
world and a custom of courts he would have typified the lowest classes
of our day and perhaps stood below those of his own time. His is the
coarseness of the drunkard, a jovial and not a maudlin drunkard; when
sober he reacts against his own brutality, vows to '... purge and leave
sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.'

Falstaff led his life by a double thread. Filled with the joy of living,
as he understood it, limited by his desires for sack and such as Doll
Tearsheet, he was bound too by his stupidity. He was stupid, though
crafty, as is a cat, an instinctive animal; none but a stupid man could
have taken seriously the mo