'A lover and a lusty bacheler,
With lockes crull as they were laid in presse,
Of twenty yere of age he was, I gesse.
Of his stature he was of even lengthe,
And wonderly deliver, and grete of strengthe.

* * * * *

Embrouded was he, as it were a mede,
All ful of freshe floures, white and rede;
Singing he was, or floyting alle the day,
He was as freshe as is the moneth of May.
Short was his goune, with sleves long and wide,
Wel coude he sitte on hors, and fayre ride,
He coude songes make, and wel endite,
Juste and eke dance, and wel pourtraie and write.
So hot he loved that by nightertale,
He slep no more than doth the nightingale.'

Such was Falstaff at the age of twenty, or something earlier, when he
entered at Clement's Inn, where were many other young men reading law,
and preparing for their call to the Bar. How much law he read it is
impossible now to ascertain. That he had, in later life, a
considerable knowledge of the subject is clear, but this may have been
acquired like Mr. Micawber's, by experience, as defendant on civil
process. We are inclined to think he read but little. _Amici fures
temporis:_ and he had many friends at Clement's Inn who were not
smugs, nor, indeed, reading men in any sense. There was John Doit of
Staffordshire, and Black George Barnes, and Francis Pickbone, and Will