a shotten herring_”: These, and various expressions such as these, would be absurdities not impositions, Farce not Comedy, if not calculated to conceal some defect supposed unknown to the hearers; and these hearers were, in the present case, his constant companions, and the daily witnesses of his conduct. If before this period he had been a known and detected Coward, and was conscious that he had no credit to lose, I see no reason why he should fly so violently from a familiar ignominy which had often before attacked him; or why falshoods, seemingly in such a case neither calculated for or expecting credit, should be censured, or detected, as lyes or imposition. That the whole transaction was considered as a mere jest, and as carrying with it no serious imputation on the Courage of _Falstaff_, is manifest, not only from his being allowed, when the laugh was past, to call himself, without contradiction in the personated character of _Hal_ himself, “valiant _Jack Falstaff, and the more __VALIANT__ being, as he is_, old Jack Falstaff,” but from various other particulars, and, above all, from the declaration, which the Prince makes on that very night, of his intention of procuring this _fat rogue a Charge of foot_;—a circumstance, doubtless, contrived by _Shakespeare_ to wipe off the seeming dishonour of the day: And from this time forward we hear of no imputation arising from this transaction; it is born and dies in a convivial hour; it leaves no trace behind, nor do we see any longer in the character of _Falstaff_ the boasting or braggadocio of a Coward.