ility and Courage equal to any
situation, and capable by nature of the highest affairs; trained to arms,
and possessing the tone, the deportment, and the manners of a
gentleman;--but yet these accomplishments and advantages seem to hang loose
on him, and to be worn with a slovenly carelessness and inattention: A too
great indulgence of the qualities of humour and wit seems to draw him too
much one way, and to destroy the grace and orderly arrangement of his
other accomplishments;--and hence he becomes strongly marked for one
advantage, to the injury, and almost forgetfulness in the beholder, of all
the rest. Some of his vices likewise strike through, and stain his
Exterior;--his modes of speech betray a certain licentiousness of mind; and
that high Aristocratic tone which belonged to his situation was pushed on,
and aggravated into unfeeling insolence and oppression. "_It is not a
confirmed brow_," says the Chief Justice, "_nor the throng of words that
come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a
level consideration_": "_My lord_," answers _Falstaff_, "_you call
honourable boldness impudent sauciness. If a man will court'sie and say
nothing, he is virtuous: No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will
not be your suitor. I say to you I desire deliverance from these officers,
being upon hasty employment in the King's affairs._" "_You speak_,"
replies the Chief Justice, "_as having power to do wrong._"--His whole
behaviour to the Chief Justice, whom he despairs of winning by flattery,
is singularly insolent; and the reader will remember many instances of his
insolence to others: Nor are his manners always free from the taint of
vulgar society;--"_This is the right fencing grace, my lord_," says he to
the Chief Justice, with great impropriety of manners, "_tap for tap, and
so part fair_": "_Now the lord lighten thee,_" is the reflection of the
Chief Justice, "_thou art a very great fool._"--Such a character as I have
here described, strengthened with that vigour, force, and alacrity of
mind, of which he is possessed, must have spread terror and dismay thro'
the ignorant, the timid, the modest, and the weak: Yet is he however, when
occasion requires, capable of much accommodation and flattery;--and in
order to obtain the protection and patronage of the great, so convenient
to his vices and his poverty, he was put under the daily necessity of
practising and improving these arts; a baseness which