contempt of the others, tho' they are all involved in similar
situations. The reader, I believe, would wonder extremely to find either
_Parolles_ or _Bobadil_ possess himself in danger: What then can be the
cause that we are not at all surprized at the gaiety and ease of
_Falstaff_ under the most trying circumstances; and that we never think of
charging _Shakespeare_ with departing, on this account, from the truth and
coherence of character? Perhaps, after all, the _real_ character of
_Falstaff_ may be different from his _apparent_ one; and possibly this
difference between reality and appearance, whilst it accounts at once for
our liking and our censure, may be the true point of humour in the
character, and the source of all our laughter and delight. We may chance
to find, if we will but examine a littleCharge of foot for a known Coward. But there was more it
seems in the case: We now find from this report, to which _Lord Bardolph_
had given full credit, that the world had its eye upon _Falstaff_ as an
officer of merit, whom it expected to find in the field, and whose fate in
the battle was an object of Public concern: His life was, it seems, very
material indeed; a thread of so much dependence, that _fiction_, weaving
the fates of Princes, did not think it unworthy, how coarse soever, of
being made a part of the tissue.

We shall next produce the evidence of the Chief Justice of England. He
inquires of his attendant, "_if the man who was then passing him was
__FALSTAFF__; he who was in question for the robbery._" The attendant
answers affirmatively,