An Old Friend With a New Face

THIS is the day of rehabilitation ; the day when the Muse of History is proved to have been no better for all these years then a doited auld wife telling foolish tales for the bewilderment of youthful brains, and the misleading of honest folks’ judgment. Nero is no longer a monster of cruelty, but a courtly and virtuous young Roman afflicted in after years with moral mania; Henry VIII. is a model husband and a rare sweet prince, terribly plagued by a sad set of hussies who forced him into short and easy methods of divorce repugnant to his better nature, but rendered imperative by the necessities of the case ; Mary, Queen of the Bloody Memory, was a saintly lady, eminently pitiful and charitable ; Lucrezia Borgia was a model for her kind to study ; there was no siege of Troy, no frail fair Helen and too bewitching Paris ; the tales of early Rome were mere moonshine, and the Wolf was as mythic as the doves of Venus, or Minerva’s owl. In fact the Muse has played us all false, and has imposed upon us without mercy, and the main business of the critic nowadays is to cancel her past verdicts and overrule her admitted conclusions.

Now here is Falstaff, Shakespeare’s Plump Jack, whose character has always stood as that of a coward, boastful, arrogant, contemptible, yet withal possessing a certain something, whether we call it goodness of heart or transparency of nature, which we cannot help loving, — well, even Falstaff’s courage once found a vindicator in one Mr. Maurice Morgann, whose ingenious essay, though published nearly a century ago, is so little known that we are introducing what is substantially a new book to our readers by this notice and analysis. And if the conclusions arrived at are questionable and the hypotheses maintained but shaky, the cleverness with which a doubtful cause is advocated is very remarkable ; and — who knows ?—Mr. Maurice Morgann may have had a keener perception of the truth than has the world in general, and his view of Falstaff’s character may be the correct one, while ours is only the incrustation of prejudice on early false impression.

Maurice Morgann ought to have a little attraction for Americans, for he was secretary to the embassy for ratifying the peace in 1783, and the intended legislator for Canada; thus having had some lines of relation with the new country, if but slender and temporary ones ; and we find a slight reminiscence thereof in one of his anecdotes of how “in the last war, some Indians of America, perceiving a line of Highlanders to keep their station under every disadvantage, and under a fire which they could not effectually return, were so miserably mistaken in our points of honor as to conjecture, from observation on the habit and stability of those troops, that they were indeed the women of England who wanted courage to run away.”

Cowardice, says our author, is not the impression which Shakespeare meant to be conveyed by the whole of the character of Falstaff. Certainly some of his actions look like cowardice, as when he counterfeits death at the battle of Shrewsbury on being attacked by Douglas, and when he runs away from the Prince and Poins at Gadshill. But to take the battle first, though it comes second in the play, what was Falstaff, with “ more flesh than another man,” to do in single combat with one so much stronger than himself, one so fiery and desperate as Douglas ? “I' blood, ’t was time to counterfeit, on that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too,” he says in his soliloquy, as he lifts up his head after the Prince has bidden him farewell forever, as he thought, in those well-known words, —

Is not the better part of valor discretion ? as he says ; and what would honor have done for him? " Can honor set to a leg ? No. Or an arm ? No. Or take away the grief of a wound ? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery, then ? No, What is honor ? A word. What is in that word honor ? Air. A trim reckoning ! Who bath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it ? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then ? Yes, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why ? Detraction will not suffer it : therefore, I’ll none of it; honor is a mere scutcheon, and so ends my chatechism.” And if he fell as if dead while still living, he fell, not as a coward, but as a buffoon, and fortified his stratagem by a jest. “ Counterfeit ? I lie. I am no counterfeit ; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man ; but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed.” So that saving his life by seeming to lose it, was no proof of cowardice as we mean by cowardice, but an act of smartness, of humor, of discretion, which ought, according to Morgann, to raise the old knight in our estimation. It was a choice, as he puts it, of “ a point of honor or a point of drollery. It would not be a question. Falstaff falls, Douglas is cheated, and the world laughs.” As he valued himself so did he plainly expect to be valued by others, and by the virtue of his wit to save himself from censure.

If affecting death to avoid being slain was no proof of cowardice, neither was running away from the Prince and Poins at Gadshill, after the robbery, if Morgann’s views are to be accepted. We will give the full extract as it stands in this quaint and clever book, partly for the old - time flavor clinging to the manner of the speech employed, and partly because it is so subtilely reasoned.

“ Though the robbery of Gadshill and the supposed cowardice of Falstaff on that occasion are yet to be considered, yet I must previously declare that I think the discussion of this question to be now unessential to the re-establishment of Falstaff’s reputation as a man of courage. For, supposing we should grant, in form, that Falstaff was suprised with fear, in this single instance, that he was off his guard, and even acted like a coward, what will follow, but that Falstaff, like greater heroes, had his weak moment and was not exempted from pains and surprises ? If a single exception can destroy a general character, Hector was a coward and Anthony a poltroon. But for these seeming contradictions of character we shall seldom be at a loss to account, if we carefully refer to circumstance and situation. In the present instance Falstaff had done an illegal act ; the exertion was over, and he had unbent his mind in security. The spirit of enterprise and the animating spirit of hope were withdrawn ; in this situation he is unexpectedly attacked ; he had no time to recall his thoughts or bend his mind to action. He is now acting in the profession and in the habits of a soldier ; he is associated with known cowards ; his assailants are vigorous, sudden, and bold ; he is conscious of guilt; he has dangers to dread of every form, present and future ; prisons and gibbets, as well as sword and fire ; he is surrounded with darkness ; and the sheriff, the hangman, and the whole posse comitatus may be at his heels ; without a moment for reflection, is it wonderful that ‘ he should run and roar ? ’ ”

Not at all wonderful under any aspect, but surely a little telling against the theory of bravery and the denial of cowardice which Morgann has labored so hard to prove. But there is no easier riding than a favorite hobby, and the best hunter ever foaled does not take his fences in more gallant style than that in which a hobby clears discrepancies and tops all difficulties. The very speech in which Poins reassures the Prince, when the double robbery is mooted between them, and which has always been taken to bear on Falstaff’s cowardice, is here read as proof of his courage. “ But I doubt they will be too hard upon us,” says the Prince, with a deliberate and wholesome caution. Poins answers, “ Well, for two of them I know them to be as true-bred cowards as ever turned back, and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I ’ll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be the incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we meet at supper; how thirty, at least, he fought with; what words, what blows, what extremities he endured ; and in the reproof of this lies the jest.”

There were four against the Prince and Poins ; of these Bardolph and Peto are the cowards, Gadshill is dropped out of notice, so that it is Falstaff who will not fight longer than he sees reason. In which case, how does not fighting longer than there is reason for good blows show Falstaff as a coward ?

“ On the contrary, what stronger evidence can we require, that the courage of Falstaff had, to this hour, through serious trials, stood wholly unimpeached, than that Poins, the ill-disposed Poins, who ventures, for his own purposes, to steal, as it were, one of the four from the notice and memory of the Prince, and who shows himself, from worse motives, as skilful in diminishing as Falstaff appears afterwards in increasing of numbers, than that this very Poins would not venture to put down Falstaff in the list of cowards ; though the occasion so strongly required that he should be degraded. What Poins dares do, however, in this sort, he does. ‘ As to the third,' for so he describes Falstaff (as if the name of this veteran would have excited too strongly the ideas of courage and resistance) ‘ if he fights longer than he sees reason, I will forswear arms.' This is the old trick of cautious and artful malice ; the turn of expression, or the tone of voice, does all ; for, as to the words themselves, simply considered, they might be now truly spoken of almost any man who ever lived, except the iron-headed hero of Sweden.”

Morgann gets over the whole scene in like manner. When they are all walking on the “ road by Gadshill,” and this man of the same name, Gadshi11, their scout, or “ setter,” comes in to tell them of the money of the King’s, coming down the hill and going to the the king’s exchequer, guarded by the “ eight or ten men,” who were only four after all ; and Falstaff exclaims, “ Zounds ! will they not rob us ? ” his apologist finds nothing more in this than in what the prince had said not long before: “ I doubt they will be too hard for us.” And when the Prince cries, “ in his usual style of mirth,” “ What ! a coward, Sir John Paunch ? ” “ To this,” says Morgann, “ one would naturally expect from Falstaff some light answer ; but we are are surprised with a very serious one. ‘ I am not indeed John of Gaunt your grandfather, but yet no coward, Hal! ’ ” “ Well, we leave that to the proof,” said the Prince. And the proof was not long in coming. For though the thieves bound the true men without much trouble or ado, the Prince and Poins had even less in robbing the thieves. As Hal says, “ got with much ease,” when he and his comrade gather up the booty, and prepare merrily to take horse and away to London to await the fat knight at the Boar’s Head in Eastcheap. But Morgann insists on it that Falstaff’s flight is nothing to the purpose ; for that he did not run at all, until deserted by his companions, nor until he had exchanged blows with his assailants; and that at the worst “it is not singularly ridiculous that an old, inactive man, of no boast, as far as appears, or extraordinary pretensions to valor, should endeavor to save himself by flight from the assault of two bold and vigorous assailants.” Just so he saved himself, later, from Douglas by the counterfeit of death.

As for the famous bragging scene after, when of the original four poor travellers he makes a hundred, with some two or three and fifty for his own share, and multiplies the Prince and Poins, “ two rogues in buckram suits,” as they were, “ into four, seven, nine, eleven, with three misbegotten knaves in Kendal-green at the end of all, who came at his back and let drive at him before he knew where he was, — why, all this was only mirth and pleasantry and the habit of humorous lying; but in nowise the boasting of a coward who thinks only how he can best enwrap his cowardice in the seeming of courage. But even skilful Maurice Morgann has trouble farther on, and this is the way in which he gets out of it. But first of all we must give the speeches as set down in the play.

“ P. Hen. Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again ; and when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but this.

“ Poins. Mark, Jack.

“ P. Hen. We two saw you four set on four ; you bound them, and were masters of their wealth. Mark, now, how plain a tale shall put you down. Then did we two set on you four ; and with word outfaced you from your prize, and have it: yea, and can show it you here in the house ; and, Falstaff, you carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still ran and roared, as ever I heard bull-calf. What a slave art thou, to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then say it was in fight ! What truth, what device, what darting-hole canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame ?

“Poins. Come, let’s hear, Jack: what trick hast thou now ?

“Fal. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made me. Why, hear me, my masters ; was it for me to kill the heir apparent ? Should I turn upon the true Prince ? Why, thou knowest,

I am as valiant as Hercules ; but beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward upon instinct. I shall think the better of myself and thee during my life ; I, for a valiant lion, and thou, for a true prince. But, by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money. Hostess, clap to the doors ; watch to-night, pray to-morrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you ! What, shall we be merry ? Shall we have a play extempore ?

“ P. Hen. Content; and the argument shall be, thy running away.

“Fal. Sh ! no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me.”

All this seems self-evident enough as to what Shakespeare meant, but Morgann gets out of the net with wonderful dexterity ; he throws the whole burden on the fat knight’s lies, not his courage; on his boasted power of “swearing truth out of England,” not on his running away, roaring, after the feint of a blow or two ; and then he adds this remarkable bit of reasoning, surely as odd an instance of non sequiter as one could meet with !

“The real truth seems to be, that had Falstaff, loose and unprincipled as he was, been born a coward and bred a soldier, he must, naturally, have been a great braggadocio, a true Miles Gloriosus; but in such a case he should have been exhibited active and young; for it is plain that age and corpulency are an excuse for cowardice which ought not to be afforded him. Herein, appears the admirable address of Shakespeare, who can show us Falstaff in the various lights, not only of what he is, but of what he would have been under one single variation of character, — the want of natural courage; whilst, with an art not enough understood, he most effectually preserves the real character of Falstaff, even in the moment he seems to depart from it, by making his lies too extravagant for practised imposition ; by grounding them more upon humor than deceit ; and turning them into a fair and honest proof of general courage, by approximating them to the concealment only of a single exception ; and hence it is that we see him draw so deeply and so confidently upon his former credit for courage and achievement. ‘ I never dealt better in my life, — thou know’st my old ward, Hal,’ are expressions which clearly refer to some known feats and defences of his former life.”

There are many expressions scattered about both parts of this play which would help Morgann’s theory, and prove Sir John’s repute by no means that of a coward, but rather the reverse. When Hostess Quickly has him arrested, or, rather, when she orders Snare to the task, that officer’s frightened reply is, “ It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.” To which the Hostess bears sorrowful testimony of how “in good faith a’ cares not what mischief he doth if his weapon be out; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.” Doll Tearsheet asks him: “When wilt thou leave fighting o’ days and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven ?” Shallow remembers him as “Jack Falstaff,— now Sir John,'—a boy and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,” adding, “ I saw him break Skogan’s head at the court-gate, when he was a crack not thus high.” The Lord Chief Justice speaks of his “ day’s service at Shrewsbury,” as having “gilded his night’s exploit at Gadshill.” And there are other less important phrases, all of which tend to show that the old, fat, boastful knight — “Jack Falstaff with my familiars, John with my brothers and sisters, and Sir John with all Europe,” as he says of himself—was not reputed an absolute coward, whatever might be his sins and follies to which no denial could be given. Perhaps the quiet self-surrender of Sir John Colleville, on hearing who was his assailant, is the most expressive of all the illustrations that can be given. “ I think you are Sir John Falstaff,” says Colleville of the Dale, “ and in that thought yield me.”

Prince John of Lancaster, however, seems to think somewhat differently from this present theory of Falstaff’s courage,and his speech as the old knight comes up is not very flattering: —

Falstaff’s reply is in his old vein : — “ I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus. I never knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of valor. Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, a bullet ? have I, in my poor old motions, the expedition of thought ? I have speeded hither with the very extremest inch of possibility; I have foundered nine score and odd posts ; and here, travel-tainted as I am, have, in my pure and immaculate valor taken Sir John Colleville-of-the-Dale, a most furious knight and valiant enemy. But what of that ? he saw me, and yielded ; that I may justly say, with the hooknosed fellow of Rome, — I came, saw, and overcame.

“ P. John. It was more of his courtesy that your deserving.”

Afterwards Falstaff himself confesses how little valor had had to do with his conquest. Prince John says, “ A famous rebel art thou, Colleville.”

“ Fal. And a famous true subject took him.

“ Fal. I know not how they sold themselves, but thou, like a kind fellow, gavest thyself away, and I thank thee for it.”

Lancaster’s rebukes, however, Morgann disposes of very summarily. He is a cold-blooded boy, as Falstaff calls him, “ a politician, as it should seem by nature ; bred up, moreover, in the school of Bolingbroke, his father, and tutored to betray ; with sufficient courage and ability, perhaps, but with too much of the knave in his composition, and too little of enthusiasm, ever to be a great and superior character. That such a youth as this should, even from the propensities of character alone, take any plausible occasion to injure a frank, unguarded man of wit and pleasure will not appear unnatural.”

With more in the same strain, all tending to the whitewashing of Sir John, and to the blackening of the young prince. That, too, was a fivebarred gate which the worthy Welshman’s hobby took quite cleverly, though the leap was a stiff one. Morgann sums up the old knight’s character thus: “ A man at once young and old, enterprising and fat, a dupe and a wit, harmless and wicked, weak in principle, and resolute by constitution, cowardly in appearance and brave in reality; a knave without malice, a liar without deceit; and a knight, a gentleman, and a soldier without either dignity, decency, or honor; this is a character, which, though it may be decompounded, could not, I believe, have been formed, nor the ingredients of it duly mingled, upon any receipt whatever; it required the hand of Shakespeare himself to give to every particular part a relish of the whole, and of the whole, to every particular part”

Another odd little volume, mentioned by Charles Lamb, but not to be had on every bookshelf, is a set of what the writer calls “ Original Letters, etc., of Sir John Falstaff and his friends; now first made public by a gentleman, a descendant of Dame Quickly, from genuine manuscripts which have been in the possession of the Quickly family near four hundred years.” This little volume was printed in 1796, and is dedicated to “ Master Samuel Irelaunde, right curteis and erudite Syre.” The frontispiece is a grotesque portrait of Falstaff dancing to Master Brook’s fiddling, with the motto, from the letters, “ I must dance, caper in the Sin like a Sun of Molass ; only my ascension will be heavier in regard ; I must rise without a crane, Master Brook.” The whole letters are very funny, if undeniably coarser than Shakespeare himself.

These letters are by Lamb’s friend, James White, and on the fly-leaf of the copy at the British Museum (London) is the following note, written in pencil by the hand of Mr. Watts, the erudite keeper of the Printed Books, or chief librarian. “ These letters are by James White, the friend of Charles Lamb. See Talfourd’s collection of Lamb’s Letters, Vol. I., page 12, of which I extract the following: ‘All that now remains of Jem (James White) is the celebration of the supper which he gave to the young chimney-sweeper in the Elia of his friend, and a thin duodecimo volume, which he published in 1796, under the title of Letters of Sir John Falstaff, etc.’ ”

Considering the affection between White and Lamb, and remembering Lamb’s famous essay of the roast pig, it does not strike us as strange that the editor explains how it is that some of the letters of the series “found by Mrs. Quickly, landlady of the Boar Tavern in Eastcheap in a private drawer, at the left hand corner of a walnuttree escritoire, the property of Sir John Falstaff after the good knight’s death,” had been destroyed by the Dame’s elderly maiden sister “who unfortunately for all the world and to my individual eternal sorrow and regret, of all the dishes in the culinary system, was fond of roast pig.” She, it seems, “absolutely made use of several no doubt invaluable letters to shade the jutting protuberances of that animal from disproportionate excoriation in its circuitous approaches to the fire.”

There is nothing quite fitting for quotation in these letters. They are smart, clever, and have caught the tone and manner of the times in which they are assumed to have been written, with great cleverness ; but they are coarse and broad, and as at the best they are only imitations they may pass. The last of the series is one from Captain Fluellen to Mrs. Quickly, speaking of Falstaff’s death, and ends thus: —

“ O’ my credit, there is three pounds, Sir John did get advance of me py way of possets, which is no petter than dross. Put that, look ’e, is a matter of affapility between us, that I ’ould not discuss to an own prother. He is dead, and I am three crowns in his debt, and there’s the finish. Got bless you, Mistress Quickly ! ”

Mrs. Lynn Linton.