A character really possessing the qualities which are on the stage imputed to _Falstaff_, would be best shewn by its own natural energy; the least compression would disorder it, and make us feel for it all the pain of sympathy: It is the artificial condition of _Falstaff_ which is the source of our delight; we enjoy his distresses, we _gird at him_ ourselves, and urge the sport without the least alloy of compassion; and we give him, when the laugh is over, undeserved credit for the pleasure we enjoyed. If any one thinks that these observations are the effect of too much refinement, and that there was in truth more of chance in the case than of management or design, let him try his own luck;—perhaps he may draw out of the wheel of fortune a _Macbeth_, an _Othello_, a _Benedict_, or a _Falstaff_. Such, I think, is the true character of this extraordinary buffoon; and from hence we may discern for what special purposes _Shakespeare_ has given him talents and qualities, which were to be afterwards obscured, and perverted to ends opposite to their nature; it was clearly to furnish out a Stage buffoon of a peculiar sort; a kind of Game-bull which would stand the baiting thro’ a hundred Plays, and produce equal sport, whether he is pinned down occasionally by _Hal_ or _Poins_, or tosses such mongrils as _Bardolph_, or the Justices, sprawling in the air. There is in truth no such thing as totally demolishing _Falstaff_; he has so much of the invulnerable in his frame that no ridicule can destroy him; he is safe even in defeat, and seems to rise, like another _Antæus_, with recruited vigour from every fall; in this, as in every other respect, unlike _Parolles_ or _Bobadil_: They fall by the first shaft of ridicule, but _Falstaff_ is a butt on which we may empty the whole quiver, whilst the substance of his character remains unimpaired. His ill habits, and the accidents of age and corpulence, are no part of his essential constitution; they come forward indeed on our eye, and solicit our notice, but they are second natures, not _first_; mere shadows, we pursue them in vain; _Falstaff_ himself has a distinct and separate subsistence; he laughs at the chace, and when the sport is over, gathers them with unruffled feather under his wing: And hence it is that he is made to undergo not one detection only, but a series of detections; that he is not formed for one Play only, but was intended originally at least for two; and the author, we are told, was doubtful if he should not extend him yet farther, and engage him in the wars with _France_. This he might well have done, for there is nothing perishable in the nature of _Falstaff_: He might have involved him, by the vicious part of his character, in new difficulties and unlucky situations, and have enabled him, by the better part, to have scrambled through, abiding and retorting the jests and laughter of every beholder.