In estimating the characters of great men, it is recognised as a principle that we should give them almost the same credit for the mischief they abstain from doing as for the positive good they effect. Abstention from evil, under circumstances of great temptation to its performance, is unquestionably a virtue of the highest order. In proof of the high esteem habitually awarded by mankind to this rare although negative excellence, I will refer merely to the celebrated letting-alone case of the Roman Scipio, and the well-known parallel to it afforded by the conduct of Sir John Falstaff himself, who (at a later period of his career than the one at present under notice), having occasion, for professional reasons, to break open a gentleman’s lodge, kill the gentleman’s deer, and maltreat the gentleman’s servants, was yet, in the very height and impetuosity of action, enabled to put a sufficient curb on his impulses to resist the temptation of kissing a keeper’s daughter! The little incident of self-denial just alluded to, though in every way deserving of the highest eulogy, has, as it seems to me, been dwelt on by the commentators with undue stress, rather implying a suspicion that it might have been an exceptional case in the character and conduct of our knight, and remarkable only on that account. So far from this being the truth, I could establish precedents for the occurrence by a thousand proofs of glaring offences which Sir John Falstaff did not commit, while otherwise occupied in the way of his business. I will content myself, however, with a single example, couched in an incident, which here falls naturally into its place, by which it will be seen that the hero of these pages could, on occasion, abstain from taking part in even the greatest acts of rascality of his time; moreover, when the greatest facilities, and even inducements, existed for his participating in such means of glory. The following passage from Hollinshed will facilitate comprehension of the incident.