Tho’ I have considered _Falstaff_’s character as relative only to one single quality, yet so much has been said, that it cannot escape the reader’s notice that he is a character made up by _Shakespeare_ wholly of incongruities;—a man at once young and old, enterprizing 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 lyar without deceit; and a knight, a gentleman, and a soldier, without either dignity, decency, or honour: This is a character, which, though it may be de-compounded, 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;—alike the same incongruous, identical _Falstaff_, whether to the grave Chief Justice he vainly talks of his youth, and offers to _caper for a thousand_; or cries to Mrs. _Doll_, “_I am old, I am old_,” though she is seated on his lap, and he is courting her for busses. How _Shakespeare_ could furnish out sentiment of so extraordinary a composition, and supply it with such appropriated and characteristic language, humour and wit, I cannot tell; but I may, however, venture to infer, and that confidently, that he who so well understood the uses of incongruity, and that laughter was to be raised by the opposition of qualities in the same man, and not by their agreement or conformity, would never have attempted to raise mirth by shewing us Cowardice in a Coward unattended by Pretence, and softened by every excuse of age, corpulence, and infirmity: And of this we cannot have a more striking proof than his furnishing this very character, on one instance of real terror, however excusable, with boast, braggadocio, and pretence, exceeding that of all other stage Cowards the whole length of his superior wit, humour, and invention.