avoid, every knave will
censure, and every fool will fear: And accordingly _Shakespeare_, ever
true to nature, has made _Harry_ desert, and _Lancaster_ censure him:--He
dies where he lived, in a Tavern, broken-hearted, without a friend; and
his final exit is given up to the derision of fools. Nor has his
misfortunes ended here; the scandal arising from the misapplication of his
wit and talents seems immortal. He has met with as little justice or mercy
from his final judges the critics, as from his companions of the Drama.
With our cheeks still red with laughter, we ungratefully as unjustly
censure him as a coward by nature, and a rascal upon principle: Tho', if
this were so, it might be hoped, for our own credit, that we should behold
him rather with disgust and disapprobation than with pleasure and delight.

But to remember our question--_Is Falstaff a constitutional coward?_

With respect to every infirmity, except that of Cowardice, we must take
him as at the period in which he is represented to us. If we see him
dissipated, fat,--it is enough;--we have nothing to do with his youth, when
he might perhaps have been modest, chaste, "_and not an Eagle's talon in
the waist_." But _Constitutional __ Courage_ extends to a man's whole
life, makes a part of his nature, and is not to be taken up or deserted
like a mere Moral quality. It is true, there is a Courage founded upon
_principle_, or rather a principle independent of Courage, which will
sometimes operate in spite of nature; a principle which prefers death to
shame, but which always refers itself, in conformity to its own nature, to
the prevailing modes of honour, and the fashions of the age.--But Natural
courage is another thing: It is independent of opinion; It adapts itself
to occasions, preserves itself under every shape, and can avail itself of
flight as well as of action.--In the last war, some Indians of America
perceiving a line of Highlanders to keep their station under every
disadvantage, and under a fire which they could not effectually return,
were so miserably mistaken in our points of honour as to conjecture, from
observation on the habit and stability of those troops, that they were
indeed the women of England, who wanted courage to run away.--That Courage
which is founded in nature and constitution, _Falstaff_, as I presume to
say, possessed;--but I am ready to allow that the principle already
mentioned, so far as it refers to reputation only, began wit