admired but not esteemed, of vice which may be despised, but hardly
detested. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with
those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief, and a
glutton, a coward, and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak,
and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous and insult the
defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirises in their
absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the
prince only as an agent of vice, but of this familiarity he is so
proud as not only to be supercilious and haughty with common men,
but to think his interest of importance to the duke of Lancaster.
Yet the man thus corrupt, thus despicable, makes himself necessary
to the prince that despises him, by the most pleasing of all
qualities, perpetual gaiety, by an unfailing power of exciting
laughter, which is the more freely indulged, as his wit is not of
the splendid or ambitious kind, but consists in easy escapes and
sallies of levity, which make sport but raise no envy. It must be
observed that he is stained with no enormous or sanguinary crimes,
so that his licentiousness is not so offensive but that it may be
borne for his mirth.

The moral to be drawn from this representation is, that no man is
more dangerous than he that with a will to corrupt, hath the power
to please; and that neither wit nor honesty ought to think themselves
safe with such a companion when they see Henry seduced by Falstaff.




HENRY V