A prospective difficulty, such as could not have been foreseen by any but

a comprehensive mind capable of embracing all emergencies, presented itself to our hero, who exclaimed

"ZOUNDS! WILL THEY NOT ROB US?"

66

What, a coward, Sir John Paunch!" asked the Prince, mockingly. "Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather" (a favourite play on words with our hero); "but yet no coward, Hal.”

"Well, we leave that to the proof."

"Sirrah Jack!" said Poins, as he sneaked away to 'walk lower' with the Prince of Wales; "thy horse stands behind the hedge: when thou need'st him there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast."

"Now cannot I strike him if I should be hanged!" exclaimed the magnanimous John.

Footsteps sounded, lanterns glimmered on the summit of the hill.

"Now my masters," said Jack, grasping his broadsword. "Happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business."

They withdrew into "the narrow lane." This was a short cut, down which the travellers would probably walk, leaving their horses to be led round by the high road. Such proved to be the case. The travellers, four in number, were plebeians of the vulgarest description; shopmen, farmers, carriers, and the like,-people with large hands and coarse minds, such as in all cases have been reserved by destiny as the legitimate prey of the superior classes: the only observable variation of their treatment being in the manner of levying taxation.

Four terrible figures rushed out of the darkness, and four terrible voices cried :

"Stand!"

The unfortunate travellers would have been most happy to do so, only they were too frightened. They fell on their knees instead, and roared.

As you may suppose, this was not the way to get rid of the assailants. The four terrible figures attacked the four terrified ones. The leader of the former, a man of colossal stature and intrepid behaviour, let fall in his fury some remarkable words

"Strike! down with them, cut the villains' throats!

knaves they hate us youth."

Sir John Falstaff was the speaker.

Bacon-faced

Who shall presume to count a great

man's life by years? Sir John, in the heat of action, was a mere boy again. Nay, in proof that his weight of flesh even sat no heavier on him than his weight of years, he exclaimed almost in the same breath :

Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs! I

VICTORY OF GADSHILL.

63

would your store were here. On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves; young men must live."

Why prolong the scene?

Surely the mere statement that a man like Sir John Falstaff fell upon four travellers, is fully equivalent to saying that the latter were completely crushed.

The enemy retreated, leaving their stores in possession of the victors. The glorious field of Gadshill was unstained by a drop of blood. Nor was there a single prisoner taken. In fact the victory was undisputed, which appears to me the most desirable kind of victory. A man who will not let you get the better of him without a great deal of trouble, is obviously almost as good a man as yourself. And pray what is the object of a battle, except the establishment of decisive superiority?

Flushed with victory, and laden with spoils, Falstaff and his companions sat down on the grass to divide the latter. No signs were visible of the Prince or of Poins. Public opinion went strongly against those defaulters, who were treated as mere amateurs, with no real soul or aptitude for business. Of course, it was decided unanimously that neither of them should derive any benefit from the proceeds of an action wherein they had taken no part.

"There is no more valour in that Poins than in a wild duck," said our hero with trenchant scorn.

Had the selection of good Master Cruikshank's subjects rested with me, I would have pointed out, as the theme for one picture, Jack Falstaff, sitting on the ground, with a bag of silver between his thighs, stirring it round unctuously with his hand from right to left, sniffing its odour, as it were, and smacking his lips over it as over the ingredients of a choice pudding, whereof he knew the flavour and nutritive qualities by anticipation. To this, though, honest Master George might well object that Falstaff remained not long enough in that attitude to sit for a picture. Time rarely favours the world with a sublime moment, scarcely ever with many of them in succession. "Your money!" cried a strange voice.

"Villains!" cried another.

And two men in buckram suits, with masked faces, rushed out of the wood and attacked the freebooters.

I will state the issue of this second and most unforeseen engagement, briefly, and then comment upon it. Falstaff and the rest, after a blow or two, ran away, leaving their booty behind them.

Now perhaps you have fallen into the vulgar error of imagining Sir John Falstaff a coward? Allow me to help you out of it.

The reflections and decisions of genius are instantaneous and almost

simultaneous.

The instinctive conclusions of Sir John Falstaff, on being thus unexpectedly attacked, may be summed up and classified as follows:1. That men, who can afford buckram suits (defensive armour of the period, of considerable costliness), are not common men.

2. That men out of the common seldom venture upon a dangerous undertaking without plenty of satellites in reserve.

3. That no sensible man will attack superior numbers unless supported by the reasonable certainty of some advantages.

4. That a man who watches a thief rob an honest man, and then takes upon himself to rob the thief, is decidedly a sensible man.

5. That a purse of silver is more easily replaced than a forfeited existence. 6. That the men in buckram hit rather hard; and that the sensation of being thrashed was decidedly unpleasant.

7. That he, (Sir John), had better be off.

Acting upon these rapid convictions, Sir John Falstaff performed one of the most renowned manoeuvres in his warlike career. the retreat from Gadshill.

Ordinary prose is inadequate to the emergency of describing this great A moment's grace, reader, while the historian calls on the poetic Muse-just to see if she be at home. Yes. It is all right.

event.

IV.

THE DAY AFTER THE BATTLE.

THE Boar's Head Tavern, in Eastcheap-the head-quarters of our hero, and where he drew his last breath-like the Old Swan, near the Ebgate Stairs, where he uttered his first cry-like the church of St. Michael, Paternoster, where his mortal remains found honourable asylum- was utterly destroyed in the memorable fire of London. Authorities differ as to the exact site of this famous hostelry. Some maintain that it stood at a certain distance, in a given direction, from some part of the present Cannon Street- the immediate vicinity of the Old London Stone being, not improbably, the implied locality. Others are of a contrary opinion, and insist stoutly that it stood elsewhere. Many archæological writers, whose verdict would have placed the matter beyond question, are silent on the subject. It is to be hoped that the antiquarian reader is satisfied.

Towards this establishment, on the night after the battle of Gadshill under the friendly cover of darkness, rode Sir John Falstaff- and the remains of his discomfited army. Do not be alarmed. No one had been killed. The only loss of numbers had been caused by the desertion of the Prince and Poins. But the march to London had been terrible.

The troops were utterly without provisions. The exchequer was empty. Foraging excursions had been attempted, but in all cases had failed. To the horrors of war had succeeded those of famine still worse of thirst. To give you an idea of the desperate condition to which they were reduced, it is actually on record that Esquire Bardolph was seen to drink water from a horsetrough near Deptford. Singular phenomena are said to have attended on this prodigy. It is asserted that, on the gallant officer bringing his face to a level with the noxious element, a hissing sound was heard, and a rapid cloud of steam ascended from the surface. The water, on the warlike gentleman's withdrawal, was discovered to be lukewarm, as if a heated iron had been thrust into it. Sir John Falstaff is the authority for these remarkable occurrences which probably were but the creations of a distempered fancy, the result of his own exhausted bodily condition. At any rate, it is certain that the Falstaff troops reached the metropolis sadder and lighter men.

Still I would not have my readers imagine that I have fallen into the common view with regard to the issue of the battle of Gadshill; namely, that Sir John Falstaff was utterly routed, discomfited, and bamboozled in that engagement; that he was made by it a butt, a laughing-stock, and a

victim; that he lost fame, wealth, and standing by it; that he repented, and was ashamed of it for the rest of his days.

For much of this erroneous impression, we are, no doubt, indebted to certain players, who, taking advantage of the dramatic form of Shakspeare's Chronicles, have attempted the personation of Sir John Falstaff on the public stage. I have frequently been moved almost to tears by the temerity of these people in daring to disport themselves in the lion skin of Falstaff. I have never been deceived by any one of them for a moment. Even before they have commenced braying, I have invariably recognised them by the patter of their hoofs, even though some of them have been the greatest creatures of their species. These creatures stuff themselves out with certain pounds of wadding, glue on a pair of white whiskers, ruddle their countenances, and say to themselves, "Now I'm Falstaff;" just as on the previous night they may have rolled an extra flannel waistcoat or so into a lump between their shoulders, and conceived themselves Richard; just as on the following night, in virtue of a goat-like beard, a long gown, and a stoop in the shoulders, they will constitute themselves Shylock! What is the Falstaff of which these libellers give you an idea? A bloated, ridiculous poltroon. Now, in the first place, cowards do not get fat. They are a nervous race — unquiet and dyspeptic. The stage Falstaff runs away from Gadshill like a boy from a turnip-ghost; not like a sensible man with a respect for his skin, having reason to believe the latter in some peril. He lies about his adventures as if he expected Prince Hal to believe him—or cared two pins whether he did or not. On being detected in his fictions, I have invariably observed the stage Falstaff conduct himself in the following He covers his face with his shield, hides in a corner like a schoolgirl, and kicks out one leg behind him in a fashion peculiar to baffled old gentlemen on the stage. At Shrewsbury he behaves so like an arrant nincompoop, as to make it preposterous that he should ever have shown his face on a field of battle, let alone have been entrusted with the command of a troop. Altogether he appears before us a ridiculous, giggling, spluttering, snorting, inconsistent pantaloon, a personage widely differing from the majestic figure faithfully copied, line for line, by my excellent friend George Cruikshank from the immortal full-length drawn by William Shakspeare, and a man whose life I would no more condescend to write than that of the next potato-man who may become bankrupt through lack of brains to roast his merchandise properly for the market.

manner.

Those who wish to have my opinion of Gadshill in the abstract and in its upshot, as proving Sir John Falstaff the real master of the situation after all, are requested to accompany me critically through a chapter in the great