What then upon the whole shall be said but that _Shakespeare_ has made certain Impressions, or produced certain effects, of which he has thought fit to conceal or obscure the cause? How he has done this, and for what special ends, we shall now presume to guess.—Before the period in which _Shakespeare_ wrote, the fools and Zanys of the stage were drawn out of the coarsest and cheapest materials: Some essential folly, with a dash of knave and coxcomb, did the feat. But _Shakespeare_, who delighted in difficulties, was resolved to furnish a richer repast, and to give to one eminent buffoon the high relish of wit, humour, birth, dignity, and Courage. But this was a process which required the nicest hand, and the utmost management and address: These enumerated qualities are, in their own nature, productive of _respect_; an Impression the most opposite to laughter that can be. This Impression then, it was, at all adventures, necessary to with-hold; which could not perhaps well be without dressing up these qualities in fantastic forms, and colours not their own; and thereby cheating the eye with shews of baseness and of folly, whilst he stole as it were upon the palate a richer and a fuller _goût_. To this end, what arts, what contrivances, has he not practised! How has he steeped this singular character in bad habits for fifty years together, and brought him forth saturated with every folly and with every vice not destructive of his essential character, or incompatible with his own primary design! For this end, he has deprived _Falstaff_ of every good principle; and for another, which will be presently mentioned, he has concealed every bad one. He has given him also every infirmity of body that is not likely to awaken our compassion, and which is most proper to render both his better qualities and his vices ridiculous: he has associated levity and debauch with _age_, corpulence and inactivity with _courage_, and has roguishly coupled the gout with _Military honours_, and a _pension_ with the _pox_. He has likewise involved this character in situations, out of which neither wit nor Courage can extricate him with honour. The surprize at _Gads-Hill_ might have betrayed a hero into flight, and the encounter with _Douglas_ left him no choice but death or stratagem. If he plays an after-game, and endeavours to redeem his ill fortune by lies and braggadocio, his ground fails him; no wit, no evasion will avail: Or is he likely to appear respectable in his person, rank, and demeanor, how is that respect abated or discharged! _Shakespeare_ has given him a kind of state indeed; but of what is it composed? Of that fustian cowardly rascal _Pistol_, and his yoke-fellow of few words, the equally deed-less _Nym_; of his cup-bearer the fiery _Trigon_, whose zeal burns in his nose, _Bardolph_; and of the boy, who bears the purse with _seven groats and two-pence_;—a boy who was given him on purpose to set