he compensates to
himself, like other unprincipled men, by an increase of insolence towards
his inferiors.--There is also a natural activity about _Falstaff_ which,
for want of proper employment, shews itself in a kind of swell or bustle,
which seems to correspond with his bulk, as if his mind had inflated his
body, and demanded a habitation of no less circumference: Thus conditioned
he rolls (in the language of _Ossian_) like a _Whale of Ocean_, scattering
the smaller fry; but affording, in his turn, noble contention to _Hal_ and
_Poins_; who, to keep up the allusion, I may be allowed on this occasion
to compare to the Thresher and the Sword-fish.

To this part of _Falstaff_'s character, many things which he does and
says, and which appear unaccountably natural, are to be referred.

We are next to see him _from within_: And here we shall behold him most
villainously unprincipled and debauched; possessing indeed the same
Courage and ability, yet stained with numerous vices, unsuited not only to
his primary qualities, but to his age, corpulency, rank, and
profession;--reduced by these vices to a state of dependence, yet
resolutely bent to indulge them at any price. These vices have been
already enumerated; they are many, and become still more intolerable by an
excess of unfeeling insolence on one hand, and of base accommodation on
the other.

But what then, after all, is become of _old Jack_? Is this the jovial
delightful companion--_Falstaff_, the favourite and the boast of the
Stage?--by no means. But it is, I think however, the _Falstaff_ of Nature;
the very stuff out of which the _Stage Falstaff_ is composed; nor was it
possible, I believe, out of any other materials he could have been formed.
From this disagreeable draught we shall be able, I trust, by a proper
disposition of light and shade, and from the influence of compression of
external things, to produce _plump Jack_, the life of humour, the spirit
of pleasantry, and the soul of mirth.

To this end, _Falstaff_ must no longer be considered as a single
independent character, but grouped, as we find him shewn to us in the
Play;--his ability must be disgraced by buffoonery, and his Courage by
circumstances of imputation; and those qualities be thereupon reduced into
subjects of mirth and laughter:--His vices must be concealed at each end
from vicious design and evil effect, and must thereupon be turned into
incongruities, and assume the name of humour only;--hi