g this
transaction, _Falstaff_ arrives, joins in the pursuit, and takes Sir _John
Coleville_ prisoner. Upon being seen by _Lancaster_ he is thus addressed:--

"Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?
When every thing is over, then you come:
These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,
One time or other break some gallows' back."

This may appear to many a very formidable passage. It is spoken, as we may
say, in the hearing of the army, and by one intitled as it were by his
station to decide on military conduct; and if no punishment immediately
follows, the forbearance may be imputed to a regard for the Prince of
Wales, whose favour the delinquent was known so unworthily to possess. But
this reasoning will by no means apply to the real circumstances of the
case. The effect of this passage will depend on the credit we shall be
inclined to give to _Lancaster_ for integrity and candour, and still more
upon the facts which are the ground of this censure, and which are fairly
offered by _Shakespeare_ to our notice.

We will examine the evidence arising from both; and to this end we must in
the first place a little unfold the character of this young Commander in
chief;--from a review of which we may more clearly discern the general
impulses and secret motives of his conduct: And this is a proceeding which
I think the peculiar character of _Shakespeare_'s Drama will very well
justify.

We are already well prepared what to think of this young man:--We have just
seen a very pretty manoeuvre of his in a matter of the highest moment, and
have therefore the less reason to be surprized if we find him practising a
more petty fraud with suitable skill and address. He appears in truth to
have been what _Falstaff_ calls him, _a cold, reserved, sober-blooded
boy_; a politician, as it should seem, by nature; bred up moreover in the
school of _Bolingbroke_ his father, and tutored to betray: With sufficient
courage and ability perhaps, but with too much of the knave in his
composition, and too little of enthusiasm, ever to be a great and superior
character. That such a youth as this should, even from the propensities of
character alone, take any plausible occasion to injure a frank unguarded
man of wit and pleasure, will not appear unnatural. But he had other
inducements. _Falstaff_ had given very general scandal by his
distinguished wit and noted poverty, insomuch that a little cruelty and
injustice towar