e
tutor and the feeder of his riots_. "_I will fetch off_," says he, "_these
Justices.--I will devise matter enough out of this __SHALLOW__ to keep the
Prince in continual laughter the wearing out of six fashions.--If the young
__DACE__ be a bait for the old __PIKE__,_" (speaking with reference to his
own designs upon _Shallow_) "_I see no reason in the law of nature but I
may snap at him._"--This is shewing himself abominably dissolute: The
laborious arts of fraud, which he practises on _Shallow_ to induce the
loan of a thousand pound, create _disgust_; and the more, as we are
sensible this money was never likely to be _paid back_, as we are told
that _was_, of which the travellers had been robbed. It is true we feel no
pain for _Shallow_, he being a very bad character, as would fully appear,
if he were unfolded; but _Falstaff_'s deliberation in fraud is not on that
account more excusable.--The event of the old King's death draws him out
almost into detestation.--"_Master __ROBERT SHALLOW__, chuse what office
thou wilt in the land,--'tis thine.--I am fortune's steward.--Let us take any
man's horses.--The laws of England are at my commandment.--Happy are they
who have been my friends;--and woe to my __LORD CHIEF JUSTICE__._"--After
this we ought not to complain if we see Poetic justice duly executed upon
him, and that he is finally given up to shame and dishonour.

But it is remarkable that, during this process, we are not acquainted with
the success of _Falstaff_'s designs upon _Shallow_ 'till the moment of his
disgrace. "_If I had had time_," says he to _Shallow_, as the King is
approaching, "_to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the
thousand pounds I borrowed of you_";--and the first word he utters after
this period is, "_Master __SHALLOW__, I owe you a thousand pounds_": We
may from hence very reasonably presume, that _Shakespeare_ meant to
connect this fraud with the punishment of _Falstaff_, as a more avowed
ground of censure and dishonour: Nor ought the consideration that this
passage contains the most exquisite comic humour and propriety in another
view, to diminish the truth of this observation.

But however just it might be to demolish _Falstaff_ in this way, by
opening to us his bad principles, it was by no means _convenient_. If we
had been to have seen a single representation of him only, it might have
been proper enough; but as he was to be shewn from night to night, and
from age to age, the di