ontinues on the stage some time chewing the cud of dishonour, which, with
all his facility, he cannot well swallow. "_Good faith_" says he,
accounting to himself as well as he could for the injurious conduct of
_Lancaster_, "_this sober-blooded boy does not love me._" This he might
well believe. "_A man_," says he, "_cannot make him laugh; there's none of
these demure boys come to any proof; but that's no marvel, they drink no
sack._"--_Falstaff_ then it seems knew no drinker of sack who was a Coward;
at least the instance was not home and familiar to him.--"_They all_," says
he, "_fall into a kind of Male green sickness, and are generally fools and
Cowards._" Anger has a privilege, and I think _Falstaff_ has a right to
turn the tables upon _Lancaster_ if he can; but _Lancaster_ was certainly
no fool, and I think upon the whole no Coward; yet the Male green sickness
which _Falstaff_ talks of seems to have infected his manners and aspect,
and taken from him all external indication of gallantry and courage. He
behaves in the battle of Shrewsbury beyond the promise of his complexion
and deportment: "_By heaven thou hast deceived me Lancaster_," says Harry,
"_I did not think thee Lord of such a spirit!_" Nor was his father less
surprized "_at his holding Lord Percy at the point with lustier
maintenance than he did look for from such an unripe warrior._" But how
well and unexpectedly soever he might have behaved upon that occasion, he
does not seem to have been of a temper to trust fortune too much or too
often with his safety; therefore it is that, in order to keep the event in
his own hands, he loads the Die, in the present case, with villainy and
deceit: The event however he piously ascribes, like a wise and prudent
youth as he is, without paying that worship to himself which he so justly
merits, to the special favour and interposition of Heaven.

"Strike up your drums, pursue the scattered stray.
Heaven, and not we, have safely fought to-day."

But the profane _Falstaff_, on the contrary, less informed and less
studious of supernatural things, imputes the whole of this conduct to thin
potations, and the not drinking largely of good and excellent _sherris_;
and so little doubt does he seem to entertain of the Cowardice and ill
disposition of this youth, that he stands devising causes, and casting
about for an hypothesis on which the whole may be physically explained and
accounted for;--but I shall leave him and