aggerate," says Carlyle, "but only in laughter. His laughter seems to pour from him in floods." This is the charm that the Prince finds in Falstaff: this is the spell by which he holds him: he could make him "laugh till his face was like a wet cloak ill laid up!" "When a man has created such a character as Falstaff," says Bagehot, "without a capacity for laughter, then a blind man may succeed in describing colors. Intense animal spirits are the single sentiment-if they be a sentiment-of the entire character. If most men were to save up all the gayety of their whole. lives, it would come to about the gayety of one speech in Falstaff. A morose man might have amassed many jokes, might have observed many details of jovial society, might have conceived a Sir John, marked by rotundity of body; but could hardly have imagined what we call his rotundity of mind." Thus, then, this point is, I think, pretty clearly made out: that the Prince, loving wit and humor wherever he found them, or curiously observing dulness and stupidity, was fond of mingling familiarly with the people, and talking freely and easily with them; and in this the Poet simply presented in the Prince a faithful portrait of himself.* *While this work is passing through the press, I have had a glance at Mr. Donnelly's long-promised book, "The Great Cryptogram." Will the reader believe his own eyes, when I tell him, that Mr. Donnelly gravely maintains, that because Falstaff, in the robbery scene, exclaims, "On, bacons, on!" and the name Francis is, in the scene between the Prince and the pot-boy, repeated twenty times, Francis Bacon must have written the plays! Surely this is profundity beyond example. Shakespearean criticism with a vengeance! I think this discovery is about as good as that of the man who said he knew who had written Shakespeare's plays; he had seen the name at the end of the book; his name was "Finis"! I shall have something to say of this Donnelly business in a subsequent chapter. CHAPTER VI. 66 LOOK HERE UPON THIS PICTURE, AND THEN ON THIS!" ERE is another conversation between the Prince and Poins, which, if it do not show the former as a man of the people, familiar with the ways and thoughts of the people, loving the common things of the people, even "small beer," and, notwithstanding his rank, enjoying to the full all the common pleasures of the people, then is there no such man in literature. There is something, indeed, so quietly like the man Shakespeare all over this scene, that it mightily fortifies my supposition that the Poet simply drew his own in the character of the Prince : SCENE II. London: A street. Enter Prince HENRY and POINS. Prince. Trust me, I am exceeding weary. not Poins. Is it come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood. Prince. 'Faith it does me, though it discolors the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer? Poins. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied, as to remember so weak a composition. Prince. Belike, then, my appetite was princely got; for, by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature, small beer. But, indeed, these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace it is to me to remember thy name? or to know thy face to-morrow? or to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast; namely, these, and those that were thy peachcolored ones? or to bear the inventory of thy shirts: as, one for superfluity, and one other for use?—but that the tennis-court keeper knows better than I, for it is a low ebb of linen with thee, when thou keep'st not racket there; as thou hast not done a great while, because the rest of thy low-countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland; and God knows whether those that bawl out the ruins of thy linen shall inherit His kingdom; but the midwives say, the children are not in the fault, whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily strengthened. Poins. How ill it follows, after you have labored so hard, you should talk so idly!-Tell me, how many good young princes would do so, their fathers being so sick as yours at this time is? Prince. Poins. thing. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins? Prince. It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine. Poins. Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell. Prince. Marry, I tell thee,—it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick; albeit I could tell to thee (as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend), I could be sad, and sad indeed too. Poins. Very hardly, upon such a subject. Prince. By this hand, thou think'st me as far in the devil's book as thou and Falstaff, for obduracy and persistency. Let the end try the man. But I tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick; and keeping such vile company as thou art hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow. Poins. The reason? Prince. What would'st thou think of me if I should weep? Poins. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite. Prince. It would be every man's thought; and thou art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks. Never a man's thought in the world keeps the roadway better than thine think me a hypocrite indeed. : every man would. And what accites your most worshipful thought to think so? |