This is Shakespeare speaking, and Shakespeare alone: the phrases sing to us in the unmistakable music of the master-poet, though the fall at the last to "--steal," seems to be an attempt to get into the character of Falstaff. It is, of course, difficult to make the first words of a person sharply characteristic; a writer is apt to work himself into a new character gradually; it is only the sensitive self-consciousness of our time that demands an absolute fidelity in characterization from the first word to the last. Yet this scene is so excellent and natural, that the uncertainty in the painting of Falstaff strikes me as peculiar. But this first speech is not the only speech of Falstaff in which Shakespeare betrays himself; again and again we catch the very accent of the poet. It is not Falstaff but Shakespeare who says that "the poor abuses of the time want countenance"; and later in the play, when the character of Falstaff is fully developed, it is Shakespeare, the thinker, who calls Falstaff's ragged regiment "the cankers of a calm world and a long peace." In just the same way Hamlet speaks of the expedition of Fortinbras:
"This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace, That inward breaks."
But though the belief that Shakespeare sometimes falls out of the character and slips phrases of his own into Falstaff's mouth is well-founded, it should nevertheless be put aside as a heresy, for the true faith is that the white-bearded old footpad who cheered on his fellow-ruffians with
"Strike.... Bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth: down with them! fleece them!"
and again: "On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves! young men must live!"
is the most splendid piece of humorous portraiture in the world's fiction.
Who but Falstaff would have found his self-justification in his youth?--_splendide mendax_! and yet the excuse is as true to his sack-heated blood when he uses it on Gadshill as it was true also to fact when he first used it forty years before. And who but Falstaff would have had the words of repentance always on his lips and never in his heart? I ascribe these illuminating flashes to Falstaff, and not to Shakespeare, for no imagination in the world has yet accomplished such a miracle; as a miracle of representment Falstaff is astonishing enough, as a miracle of creation he is simply unthinkable. I would almost as soon believe that Falstaff made Shakespeare as that Shakespeare made Falstaff without a living model. All hail to thee, inimitable, incomparable Jack! Never before or since has poet been blessed with such a teacher, as rich and laughterful, as mendacious and corrupting as life itself.