itself an /ogre-esque/ personage--if it is allowable to coin a word to
convey a just idea. Thus, to take an example in our own time, if it
had not been for the "Memorial of Saint Helena," and the controversies
between the Royalists and the Bonapartists, there was every
probability that the character of Napoleon would have been
misunderstood. A few more Abbe de Pradits, a few more newspaper
articles, and from being an emperor, Napoleon would have turned into
an ogre.

How does error propagate itself? The mystery is accomplished under our
very eyes without our perceiving it. No one suspects how much solidity
the art of printing has given both to the envy which pursues
greatness, and to the popular ridicule which fastens a contrary sense
on a grand historical act. Thus, the name of the Prince de Polignac is
given throughout the length and breadth of France to all bad horses
that require whipping; and who knows how that will affect the opinion
of the future as to the /coup d'Etat/ of the Prince de Polignac
himself? In consequence of a whim of Shakespeare--or perhaps it may
have been a revenge, like that of Beaumarchais on Bergasse (Bergearss)
--Falstaff is, in England, a type of the ridiculous; his very name
provokes laughter; he is the king of clowns. Now, instead of being
enormously pot-bellied, absurdly amorous, vain, drunken, old, and
corrupted, Falstaff was one of the most distinguished men of his time,
a Knight of the Garter, holding a high command in the army. At the
accession of Henry V. Sir John Falstaff was only thirty-four years
old. This general, who distinguished himself at the battle of
Agincourt, and there took prisoner the Duc d'Alencon, captured, in
1420, the town of Montereau, which was vigorously defended. Moreover,
under Henry VI. he defeated ten thousand French troops with fifteen
hundred weary and famished men.