The brain of Justice Shallow smoulders with the brag of his youth; and, when he delightedly blows it up, he has the impression that he was redoubtable for performance. The visit of such a solid, whole-souled profligate as Falstaff is a rare chance for him to prate of the wildness of his youth, "and every third word a lie." "Lord, lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!" He makes paralytic efforts to fraternize with Falstaff's wickedness, poking sly innuendoes at his immeasurable superiority in that line. Falstaff remembers that he "came ever in the rear-ward of the fashion." He has settled down into comfortable living; and his leanness is smug with all the details of it,--the pigeons, and the russets, the mutton, "and any pretty little tiny kickshaws." "Oh, the mad days that I have spent! and to see how many of my old acquaintance are dead.--How a good yoke of bullocks? Is old Double dead?--How a score of ewes now?" So earnest with his petty thrift that death is but a formality. The feeble ripple of his talk over a bed of commonplaces would soon tire out the livelier Sir John, if he did not see money to borrow and good fat quarters to cultivate. So this man, "made after supper of a cheese-paring," has the flimsiest of butterfly-nets thrown over him, and is caught without damage.
There is little to say of Poins, save that he helps the Prince to play the fool with the time, while the spirits of the wise mock them. Now and then he reminds the Prince that his father is lying sick while he trifles so. Then the Prince gives us glimpses of the temper which separates at last from Falstaff, when the crown pushes the fool's cap from his head. "Thou think'st me as far in the devil's book as thou and Falstaff, for obduracy and persistency: let the end try the man." He is strong enough to enact this episode of folly without letting it tamper with the kingship which is the proper quality of his soul. And Falstaff seems to have transferred to him a portion of his own wit, as if on purpose to be soundly railed at and stimulated to the top of his bent. The only advantage which the Prince has over his fat knight is a commodity of truth-telling; but Falstaff cheapens it by the genius of his escapes.