Once again, Sir John, though he could err, yet he was ashamed of his offence. Otherwise, would he have confessed, as he did, when recounting how the mock fairies had tormented him, “I was three or four times in the thought they were not fairies, but the _guiltiness of my mind_, the sudden surprise of my powers drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief.” How exquisitely is this said! How does it raise the knight above the broad farce of most of the other characters! How infinitely superior is he to the two dolts of husbands who, after hearing the confession of guilty intention against the honor of their wives, invite him to spend a jolly evening in company with themselves and the ladies. And so they-- “Every one go home, And laugh this sport o’er by a wintry fire, Sir John and all.” This may be accounted too gross for probability; but worse than this is in the memory of our yet surviving fathers. There was, within such a memory, a case tried before Sir Elijah Impey, in which Talleyrand was the defendant, against whom a husband brought an action, the great statesman having robbed him of his wife. The action was brought to the ordinary issue; and a few weeks subsequently, plaintiff, defendant, judge, and lady, dined together in the Prince’s residence at Paris. Of Stage Falstaffs, Quin, according to all accounts, must have been the best, provided only that he had a sufficiency of claret in him, and the house an overflowing audience. Charles Kemble, I verily believe, must have been the worst of stage Falstaffs. At least, having seen him in the character, I can conscientiously assert that I can not imagine a poorer Sir John. He dressed the character well; but as for its “flavor,” it was as if you had the two oyster-shells, _minus_ the fat and juicy oyster. What a galaxy of actors have shined or essayed to shine in this joyous but difficult part! In Charles the Second’s days, Cartwright and Lacy, by their acting in the first part of Henry IV., made Shakespeare popular, when the fashion at Court was against him. Betterton acted the same part in 1700, at Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the Haymarket. Four years later, he played the Knight in the “Merry Wives;” and in 1730, at Drury Lane, he and Mills took the part alternately, and set dire dissension among the play-goers, as to their respective merits. Popular as Betterton was in this character, after he had grown too stout for younger heroes, his manner of playing it was not original; and his imitation was at second-hand. Ben Jonson had seen it played in Dublin by Baker, a stone-mason. He was so pleased with the representation, that he described the manner of it, on his return to London, to Betterton, who, docile and modest as usual, acknowledged that the mason’s conception was better than his own, and adopted the Irish actor’s manner, accordingly.