A great deal of misconception as to my hero’s real character, may be traced to a deplorable ignorance of the time in which he lived. Many celebrated writers on the Falstaffian era (that is to say, people who know nothing at all about it) have declared the age of chivalry, in that great man’s time, to have been extinct. This has led modern thinkers--who, according to the improved lights of their age, look upon speculations on the Stock Exchange, joint-stock banks, Samaritan institutions, cheap clothing warehouses, the adulteration of coffee, pickles, &c. &c., as the only legitimate means of plundering your neighbours--to apply harsh names to the more primitive mode of transferring capital adopted by our hero. The fact is, _Sir John Falstaff was a knight-errant_,--the only one of his time, perhaps--the last ray of the setting sun of chivalry, if you will; but its most gorgeous! To paraphrase the words of an eminent historian, “he was the greatest, as well as the last, of those mighty vagabonds who formerly overhauled the purses of the community, and rendered the people incapable of paying the necessary expenses of their legal prosecution.” He was, in short, the Earl of Warwick of knight-errantry. Let us prove our theory by an extension of the parallel lines. The knight-errant of antiquity rode out, armed at all points, to win renown. Even in the most Arcadian times, the acquisition of that commodity appears to have been contingent on the display of a certain amount of spoil, in the shape of weapons, prisoners, ransoms, and so forth. The public enemies against whom the knight-errant’s attention was chiefly directed, were-- 1. _Giants_. Which, I take to mean, people who had grown so big as to require more land and larger houses to live on and in than their neighbours. 2. _Magicians_; i. e. people rather cleverer than their non-conjuring fellow-citizens. It will be admitted that Sir John Falstaff did a great man’s best to reduce the influence of these two varieties in his own favour. The knights-errant had their esquires and men-at-arms, who were allowed the privilege of fighting under their leader’s banner. It was not customary for the chroniclers of the period to mention the names of these subordinate personages. The dawn of a more equitable state of things, in this respect, may be traced to the time of Falstaff. The names of his immediate followers have been honourably preserved. The list is as follows:-- 1. P. Bardolph, _Esquire_.