In spite of a trifle of rioting, the overflowing of animal spirits, Falstaff is governed by the laws of good society. Jokes are fired at him incessantly, but he takes them with good-humor, and repays them with interest. “I am not only witty in myself,” he says, “but the cause that wit is in other men.” Gregoire and La Bruyere expressly define the great rule of conversation to be that, while you exhibit your own powers, you should endeavor to elicit and encourage those of your companions. What they put down as a canon, Sir John had already, and long before, put in excellent practice. He had wit enough to foil the Chief Justice, but he left to his lordship ample opportunity to exhibit his own ability; and then the compliment to the great judicial dignitary, that he was not yet clean past his youth, although he had in him some relish of the saltness of time--this, combined with the benevolent recommendation that his lordship would have a reverend care of his health, robs the latter personage of any prejudice he might have entertained against the knight. Indeed, it would be difficult to conceive how the religiously-minded Lord Chief Justice could have entertained prejudice against a gallant old gentleman who had lost his voice with “hollaing” (his men to the charge), “and singing of anthems.” Brave! there can be no question touching his bravery. And if he does really rust a little at home, and impose a little upon the weakness of the Hostess and other ladies, whom he weekly woos to marry, and who find his gallantry and saucy promises irresistible; he is ever ready for service. He does not look for unlimited absence from scenes of danger. If he led his company of three hundred and a half to death, and comes out scot-free himself, he is by no means prepared to hang about town, inactive for the remainder of the campaign. When he is appointed on perilous enterprise with Prince John of Lancaster, he simply remarks, with a complacency which is doubtless warranted by truth, “There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it. Well, I can not last for ever;” and, with this remark buckled on to some satirical wit which he points at the Lord Chief Justice, he sets forth cheerily on his mission, the gout in his toe, and in his purse not more than seven groats and twopence. He has a rouse and a riot at the Boar’s Head before he starts; but nothing more disreputable seems to have occurred than one might hear of at a modern club, before some old naval lion is hiccupped on to deeds of daring. Besides, the knight is no hypocrite; and he will not be accounted virtuous, like many of his contemporaries, by “making courtesy and saying nothing.” Not, on the other hand, that even in his moments of jolly relaxation, he would be unseemly noisy. He can troll a merry catch, but, as he says to a vulgarly roystering blade, “Pistol, I would be quiet.” It has been thought unseemly that he should quarrel with and even roughly chastise