Of the four letters entrusted by Falstaff to his page for delivery--the contents of two only can be known with any degree of certainty. The missing epistles are those addressed respectively to Prince John of Lancaster, and Ralph Nevil, Earl of Westmoreland--nominal leaders of the second Royalist expedition which Sir John Falstaff had pledged himself to conduct (it will be seen how the pledge was redeemed) against the northern rebels. The loss of these letters is scarcely to be regretted. Being written on the eve of the setting forth of the expedition, they were doubtless mere official despatches--containing reasons for the writer’s not having taken the field as early as he was expected to--or some other device in warlike stratagem, and therefore of no interest to any but the student of military science. The two remaining epistles--which have been fortunately handed down to us--are of far higher importance, as throwing light upon the author’s condition in mind, body, and finances, at this critical period of his career; when, as has been shown, he was about to raise his mailed heel, a second time, to crush the serpent of Rebellion--which reptile had most unaccountably managed to wriggle away from him alive on the field of Shrewsbury. The first of these documents is a brief, playful note addressed to the Prince of Wales--on the return of that Royal Leader from the successful assertion of his claims to the Principality by the destruction of the bulk of its inhabitants. The manuscript has not been preserved; but the loss is immaterial. It existed as late as the time of Shakspeare, by whose care a verbatim copy of it has been transmitted to us. It is worded as follows:-- “Sir John Falstaff, Knight, to the son of the King nearest his father, greeting. “I will imitate the honorable Romans in brevity. I commend me to thee; I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins, for he misuses thy favours so much, that he swears thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou may’st, and so farewell! “Thine by yea and no (which is as much as to say as thou noest him); _Jack Falstaff_ with my familiars; John with my brothers and sisters; and SIR JOHN with all Europe.”