eeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but Lady Greensleeves?'

It is natural that such a temperament should, in the ordinary sense,
breed lies. Falstaff does and does not lie; like Tartarin he probably
suffers from mirage and, when attacked by highwaymen, truly sees them as
a hundred when, in fact, they are but two. But he is not certain, he is
too careless of detail, he readily responds when it is suggested he lies
and makes the hundred into a mere sixteen. Falstaff the artist is either
unconscious of exaggeration, therefore truthful, or takes a childish
pleasure in exaggerating; he is a giant, therefore may exaggerate, for
all things are small relatively to him. If the ocean could speak none
would reproach it if it said that fifty inches of rain had fallen into
its bosom within a single hour, for what would it matter? one inch or
fifty, what difference would that make to the ocean? Falstaff is as the
ocean; he can stand upon a higher pedestal of lies than can the mortal,
for it does not make him singular. Indeed it is this high pedestal of
grossness, lying, and falsity makes him great; no small man would dare
to erect it; Falstaff dares, for he is unashamed.

He is unashamed, and yet not quite unconscious. I will not dilate on the
glimmerings that pierce through the darkness of his vanity: if anything
they are injurious, for they drag him down to earth; Shakespeare
evidently realised that these glimmerings made Falstaff more human,
introduced them with intention, for he could not know that he was
creating a giant, a Laughter God, who should be devoid of mortal
attributes. But these flecks are inevitable, and perhaps normal in the
human conception of the extra-human: the Greek Gods and Demigods, too,
had their passions, their envies, and their tantrums. Falstaff bears
these small mortalities and bears them easily with the help of his
simple, sincere philosophy.

It is pitiful to think of Falstaff's death, in the light of his
philosophy. According to Mr Rowe,[6] 'though it be extremely natural,
"it" is yet as diverting as any part of his life.' I do not think so,
for hear Mrs Quickly, the wife of Pistol: 'Nay, sure, he's not in hell:
he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. A' made a
finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child; a' parted
just between twelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide: for after
I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play w