if the travellers should escape one party, they might light on the other: _Falstaff_ does not object, though he supposes the travellers to be eight or ten in number. We next see _Falstaff_ attack these travellers with alacrity, using the accustomed words of threat and terror;—they make no resistance, and he binds and robs them. Hitherto I think there has not appeared the least _trait_ either of boast or fear in _Falstaff_. But now comes on the concerted transaction, which has been the source of so much dishonour. _As they are sharing the booty_ (says the stage direction) _the Prince and __POINS__ set upon them, they all run away; and __FALSTAFF__ after a blow or two runs away too, leaving the booty behind them._—“_Got with much ease,_” says the Prince, as an event beyond expectation, “_Now merrily to horse._”—Poins adds, as they are going off, “_How the rogue roared!_” This observation is afterwards remembered by the Prince, who, urging the jest to _Falstaff_, says, doubtless with all the licence of exaggeration,—“_And you, __FALSTAFF__, carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still ran and roared, as I ever heard bull-calf._” If he did roar for mercy, it must have been a very inarticulate sort of roaring; for there is not a single word set down for _Falstaff_ from which this roaring may be inferred, or any stage direction to the actor for that purpose: But, in the spirit of mirth and derision, the lightest exclamation might be easily converted into the roar of a bull-calf. We have now gone through this transaction considered simply on its own circumstances, and without reference to any future boast or imputation. It is upon these circumstances the case must be tried, and every colour subsequently thrown upon it, either by wit or folly, ought to be discharged. Take it, then, as it stands hitherto, with reference only to its own preceding and concomitant circumstances, and to the unbounded ability of _Shakespeare_ to obtain his own ends, and we must, I think, be compelled to confess that this transaction was never intended by _Shakespeare_ to detect and expose the false pretences of a real Coward; but, on the contrary, to involve a man of allowed Courage, though in other respects of a very peculiar character, in such circumstances and suspicions of Cowardice as might, by the operation of those peculiarities, produce afterwards much temporary mirth among his familiar and intimate companions: Of this we cannot require a stronger proof than the great attention which is paid to the decorum and truth of character in the stage direction already quoted: It appears, from thence, that it was not thought _decent_ that _Falstaff_ should run at all, until he had been deserted by his companions, and had even afterwards exchanged blows with his assailants;—and thus, a just distinction is kept up between the natural Cowardice of the three associates and the accidental Terror of _Falstaff_.