military career, and beyond his own ejaculation, 'Would to God that my
name was not so terrible to the enemy as it is!' and the (possible)
inference from it that he must have made his name terrible in some
way, we have no evidence that he was ever in the field before the
battle of Shrewsbury. Indeed, the absence of evidence on this matter
goes strongly to prove the negative. Falstaff boasts of his valour,
his alacrity, and other qualities which were not apparent to the
casual observer, but he never boasts of his services in battle. If
there had been anything of the kind to which he could refer with
complacency, there is no moral doubt that he would have mentioned it
freely, adding such embellishments and circumstances as he well knew
how.

In the absence of evidence as to the course of his life, we are left
to conjecture how he spent the forty years, more or less, between the
time of his studies at Clement's Inn and the day when Shakespeare
introduces him to us. We have no doubt that he spent all, or nearly
all, this time in London. His habits were such as are formed by life
in a great city; his conversation betrays a man who has lived, as it
were, in a crowd, and the busy haunts of men were the appropriate
scene for the display of his great qualities. London, even then, was a
great city, and the study of it might well absorb a lifetime. Falstaff
knew it well, from the Court, with which he always preserved a
connection, to the numerous taverns where he met his friends and
eluded his creditors. The Boar's Head in Eastcheap was his
headquarters, and, like Barnabee's, two centuries later, his journeys
were from tavern to tavern; and, like Barnabee, he might say
'_Multum bibi, nunquam pransi_.' To begin with, no doubt the
dinner bore a fair proportion to the fluid which accompanied it, but
by degrees the liquor encroached on and superseded the viands, until