“But first to get me out of this accursed place. If I have not fifty silver marks by Wednesday, I am a dead man. I cannot longer endure the knowledge of thine unprotected state. Thou hast no great need of thy cramoisy velvet gown in thy secluded life. Lambert can dispose of it secretly in Sandwich, where we are not known. (Thou seest I am thoughtful to spare thee shame.) Let him also ride to Canterbury, with thy golden bracelets, and little Jack’s baptism cup and trencher. They will fetch together some ten silver marks. Thou canst borrow twenty marks from Dame Adlyn, the yeoman’s wife. In times like these, we must not be over nice; and I withdraw the prohibition I have laid on this good woman’s visits to Falstaff. Thou mayest even call her gossip at a pinch. Make up the rest as thou canst. Lambert himself must have saved money in our service. Promise him increase of wage (though, indeed, the last three years have been indifferently paid), and dwell upon a vassal’s duty to his lord. At any rate, I _must have the money_. When thou hast raised it, let Lambert gallop post to London, and spare no expense, in order that he may arrive not later than Wednesday, for the river is already frozen over, and if the frost holds, there are to be sports on the ice, with the king and all the princes present, which I would not miss for a barony. “I would answer thine inquiries about the blankets and under-clothing, but it is so cold in this detestable place, that I can no longer hold a pen. Happily thou art spared this. “I commend thee to the care of Heaven, my beloved wife. “Gilbert Falstaff, “Eques et armig.” * * This remarkable epistle (which is justly esteemed the gem of the Strongate Collection) appears rather to have owed its preservation to the fact of its being scrawled on the backs of leaves torn out of a costly illuminated chronicle of the period--the authorship of which is apocryphal,--than to any intrinsic merit of composition. This fact may be accepted as significant of the hereditary Falstaff character.--Ed. This Gilbert Falstaff was the tenth in lineal descent from Hundwulf Falstaff, the great Saxon leader who performed such signal service to William Duke of Normandy, on that prince’s memorable invasion of England, and of whose exploits and succession it behoves us here to speak.