pecially by every admirer of the Fat Knight. | ceding the domestic tragedy which clouded They were first published in 1796, with the the rest of Lamb's life, Sir Thomas Noon following title-page: "ORIGINAL LETTERS, Talfourd says: ETC., OF SIR JOHN FALSTAFF AND HIS FRIENDS; now first made public by a Gentleman, a descendant of Dame Quickly, from Genuine Manuscripts which have been in the possession of the Quickly Family near four hundred years.' A note written by Mr. John Matthew Gutch, of Bristol, on the fly-leaf of his copy of THE FALSTAFF LETTERS, gives some interesting particulars concerning the author. "These Letters," he says, "were the production of my old schoolfellow, James White, with incidental hints and corrections by another schoolfellow, Charles Lamb. "Amongst his friends, White was familiarly called 'Sir John.' I was present with him at a masquerade, when he personated Sir John Falstaff, in a dress borrowed from the wardrobe of Covent Garden Theatre, through the kindness of Fawcett, the comedian. His imitation of the character, or I should say personation, excited great mirth and applause, as well as considerable jealousy from some of the company present, supposed to be hired actors for the occasion; who, with much ill will, procured a rope and held it across the room (at the Pantheon in Oxford Street), and White was obliged to take a leap over the rope to escape being thrown down. The exertion he underwent by this interruption, added to the weight of the dress, injured his health for some days afterwards. "We were at this time in the habit of meeting at the "Feathers" in Hand Court, Holborn, to drink nips of Burton Ale, as they were called. One of our friends, who was particularly fond of the beverage, was called Nipperkin.' "White was a remarkably open-hearted, joyous companion; very intimate with the Lamb family, who were then lodging in Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. 64 White married a daughter of Faulder [or Fauldes], the bookseller, the fortunate purchaser of the copyright of Paley's works. He died, I think, in 1822,1 leaving a widow and three children. White was an idolater of Shakspeare. He had always several of his expressions and epithets at his ready command, and generally interlarded his conversation with them. He was the person alluded to in one of Lamb's Essays in Elia, who treated the chimney-sweepers in Smithfield at St. Bartholomew's fair. I was present at two of the Sausage feasts." Speaking of the period immediately pre 1 The correct date of White's death seems rather, according to Leigh Hunt, to have been 1819 or 1820. "During these years Lamb's most frequent companion was James White, or rather Jem White, as he always called him. Lamb always insisted that for hearty joyous humor, tinged with Shakspearian fancy, Jem never had an equal. Jem White,' said he to Mr. Le Grice, when they met for the last time, after many years' absence, at the Bell at Edmonton, in June, 1833, 'there never was his like! We never shall see such days as those in which Jem flourished!' All that now remains of Jem is the celebration of the suppers which he gave the young chimneysweepers in the Elia of his friend, and a thin duodecimo volume which he published in 1796, under the title of Letters of Sir John Falstaff,' with a dedication (printed in black letter) to Master Samuel Irelaunde,' which those who knew Lamb at the time believed to be his." The following notice from the Critical Review, June, 1797, was from the pen of Coleridge: His The humorous characters of Shakspeare have seldom been successfully imitated. Dr. Kenrick wrote a play called Falstaff's Wedding, in which he introduced the merry knight and his companions; but the peculiar quaintness of the character was lost by being sunk in modern wit. The author of the little work before us has, we think, been somewhat more successful, and must have given his days and nights to the study of the language of Falstaff, Dame Quickly, Slender, etc. object, indeed, seems to be to ridicule the late gross imposture of Norfolk Street; and certain it is that had these letters been introduced into the world, prepared in the manner of the Ireland MSS., the internal evidence would have spoken more loudly in their favor. But in whatever esteem they may be held as imitations, they argue no small portion of humor in the writer, who, we understand, is a young man, and this his first attempt." Lamb himself was enthusiastic in praise of the Letters. Writing to a friend, shortly after their publication, he said: I hope by this time you are prepared to say the Falstaff Letters are a bundle of the sharpest, queerest, profoundest humors of any these juice-drained latter times have spawned. I should have advertised you that the meaning is frequently hard to be got at; and so are the future guineas that now lie ripening and aurifying in the womb of some undiscovered Potosi; but dig, dig, dig, dig, Manning!" In a paper written for Leigh Hunt's journal, The Examiner, Sept. 5, 1819, Lamb quotes the first, third and fourth of Falstaff's Letters to the Prince, and adds: PREFACE. OF all the valuable remains of Anti A and quity, the world has ever especially patronised those, which any ways tend to "How say you, reader, do not these inventions smack of East cheap? Are they not develope the characters of men eminent in nimble, forgetive, evasive? Is not the humor their day.-The Curate's Sermons we can of them elaborate, cogitabund, fanciful? subscribe to from motives of humanity to Carry they not the true image and super- his Widow; not to hint at their utility, adscription of the father which begat them? ministered occasionally, as narcotics. Are they not steeped all over in character- similar impulse, perhaps a fellow-feeling, subtle, profound, unctuous? Is not here the endears us to the Author, whose taylor is very effigies of the Knight? Could a counter-importunate.-But the familiar papers, feit Jack Falstaff come by these conceits? Or epistolary tablets, of a man renown'd among are you, reader, one who delights to drench his cotemporaries, famous through succeed. his mirth in tears? You are, or peradven- ing centuries, happy be his dole, who shall ture, have been a lover; a dismissed bach- rescue from the Epicurean tooth of Vandal elor,' perchance, one that is lass-lorn.' Moth accurs'd!-The Antiquarian shall Come, then, and weep over the dying bed of ever present him the right hand of fellowsuch a one as thyself. Weep with us the ship; nor less esteem the yellow colourings, death of poor Abraham Slender." laid on their nibbled surface by the kindly hand of time, than the mellow hues, with which the same friendly touch hath perfected some undoubted work of Guido, or the Caracci. He then quotes Davy's letter to Shallow, announcing Slender's death, and concludes thus: property of Sir John Falstaff, after the good Knight's death.-At Mrs. Quickly's demise, which happened in August, 1419, they devolved, among other Outlandish papers, such as leases, title-deeds, &c. to her heiress at law, an elderly maiden sister; who, unfortunately for all the world, and to my individual eternal sorrow and regret, of all the dishes in the culinary system, was fond of roast pig. "Should these specimens fail to rouse your curiosity to see the whole, it may be to your I am happy in presenting the world with loss, gentle reader; but it will give small pain to the spirit of him that wrote this little a series of most interesting manuscript letters, &c. They were found by Mrs. book, my fine-tempered friend, J. W.-for not in authorship or the spirit of authorship, but Quickly, Landlady of the Boar Tavern in from the fulness of a young soul, newly kin- Eastcheap, in a private drawer, at the left dling at the Shakspearian flame, and burst-hand corner of a walnut-tree escrutoire, the ing to be delivered of a rich exuberance of conceits-I had almost said kindred with those of the full Shakspearian genius itself-were these letters dictated. We remember when the inspiration came upon him, when the plays of Henry IV. were first put into his hands. We think at our recommendation he read them, rather late in life, though still he was but a youth. He may have forgotten, but we cannot, the pleasant evenings which ensued at the Boar's Head (as we called our tavern, though in reality the sign was not that, nor the street Eastcheap,-for that honored place of resort has long since passed away), when over our pottle of sherris he would talk you nothing but pure Falstaff the long evenings through. Like his, the wit of J. W. was deep, recondite, imaginative, full of goodly figures and fancies. Those evenings have long since passed away, and nothing comparable to them has come in their stead, We have heard the chimes at or can come. midnight." But let us no longer detain the reader from the letters themselves, which, we may add, are here reprinted verbatim et literatim.] A curse on her Epicurean guts, that could not be contented with plain mutton, like the rest of her Ancestors! in thy epistolary progress, a chasm should Reader, whenever as journeying onward occur to interrupt the chain of events, I beseech thee blame not me, but curse the rump of roast pig. This maiden sister, conceive with what pathos I relate it, absolutely made use of several, no doubt invaluable letters, to shade the jutting protuberances of that animal from disproportionate excoriation in its circuitous approaches to the fire. My friend, Mr. *****, decypherer of ancient records, on shewing him the manuscripts, and communicating my misfortune, slily hinted at his possession of so some curious yellow papers. However gratified I might feel at this instance of his friendship, however practicable I might conceive it to forge the mere manual characters, how are the escapes, the bursts of humour, of Sir John Falstaff to be delineated, his quips, and his gybes? No, Sirs, I might as well attempt, (with every respect to Alchymists, Amalgamators, &c.—Gentlemen, I bow to you) I might as well attempt to incorporate Solaressence with Epping-butter. It may be objected against the authenticity of my Manuscripts, that they do not appear in the proper garb of their age. To this I answer, that I do not make them public for the gratification of the Virtuoso, but for the amusement of the whole world, three-fourths of whom are too far advanced in life, to commence their studies in the most noble science of ancient orthography. Far be it from me to shrink from the investigation of the scholar, or the critic. Gentlemen, my closet is open to you-I very respectfully entreat your entrance. From your convictions I anticipate, I already hear, the united commands of the whole world vibrate in my ear, to bring forward other Manuscripts in my possession; Manuscripts, which contain many very important traits, and features of character, in Sir John Falstaff, but lightly touched upon by Shakspere.-What an immense acquisition to the Theatres ! I had once, indeed, thought of giving them a dramatic form, for the purpose of communicating them to the Manager of Coventgarden; but the splendid taste of the age, incessantly calling on him for gaudes and shews, the very nature of which must necessarily arrest his whole attention, I fear'd they might be laid on the shelf, "that Bourn whence no Traveller returns; " and thus, with other valuable writings, be lost to the world. Superadded to this, a species of delicacy I cannot describe, 'tis nearly allied to pride, forbad my parting with them unsolicited. Perhaps a respectful application from the manager, Mr. Harris, through the medium of Mr. F******, or any other distinguished performer, might conduce-But really this is so delicate a subject, thatIt in the spirit, amenable to the caprice of every unbridled passion.-And yet, that I should have emigrated from the loins of a Publican, be bred, no, not bred, born and begotten of a Publican! Whence can the fatality arise! Reader, the Manuscript came to me by direct inheritance. Master Quickly, Master Quickly, amid thy daily roar of subaltern base-born1 revelry, thou art little conscious of the illustrious personages that once honored thy roof; of the memorials that yet remain of their being to an estranged branch of thy race. The names of Falstaff, Fal, Corporal Bardolph, are strange to thee.— I do not marvel: for they have ceased, Master Quickly, to be on thy score.-Yet if thy blood is not utterly degenerate, if any particle remains to thee of the dignity of our house, put thy pipe into thy mouth, and walk sedately with me. A sage writer remarks, tho' time obliterateth, yet not relentless in his ravages, he leaveth some slight traditionary token to sooth the memory of past times. Shut the door.-Thou art now, where Sir John was want to solace himself, in the identical Pomegranate. Doth not the Genius of the place silently rebuke thy pride, that hath taken a flight so far beneath thy ancestry? The Boar's-head, in days of yore the resort of every quality proper and handsome, to become a rendezvous for the manyspecied scions of the mechanick-stock! The Pomegranate, ancient receptacle of illustrious Wits, Bloods, who "Daff'd the world aside, and bid it pass," to be choak'd with the seeds of every baser plant! It is not well-By the fat Friar's scalp of merry Sherwood, it is not well. Thy grandam, Master Quickly, was Wight, in whom the culinary attainments of man delighted to reside. She mingled nectareous sack-Thou art more-Thou art a pious householder.-In the twelfth hour of the night, when thy cattle, and the stranger, and the ass, and all that is within thy gate, are assembled to offer up their orisons call thou aloud upon the indignant manes of the departed Knight-confess thy degeneracy-promise purgation of his polluted haunts, and if so his shade will be pacified, may be asked, how they came into my possession?—I beseech thee, good Mr. Inquisitive, urge not the question. Of all the occupations subservient to the views of man, none was ever to me so vituperative, as that of a Publican.-What the Streetwalker is in the flesh, that is the Publican John was partial to. 1 The Boar's-head in Eastcheap, now a common pothouse. 2 A Room so called in the Boar Tavern, which Sir that the merry Sackbut shall supercede the | the rogue Gynes was at the same time beclanking of pewter, throughout the Boar.- stride him a dozen miles distant. At such an hour, if there be any convexity in thy roofs, expect thou a solemn answer. I thank Nature (I think it a blessing) for having cast me in a more phlegmatic mold. Reader, the preface is but short-look back ORIGINAL LETTERS. FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HENRY.1 I have yet a point to settle, and then I-if thou hast caught me tripping, if I am leave thee to the bustle of thy domiciliary in ought accountable to thee, I promise to regeneration.Thou hast misused me dam- explain or rectify in my next edition. nably, Master Quickly. Not Zeno with all his Stoics about him-not Job with all his oxen about him, would bear my wrongs patiently. Had I blasted the Boar's good name, had I libidinously approach'd mine hostess, and wound a recheat on thy brow, thou hadst some shadow of reason; but to maltreat a kind, philanthropick, well-disposed Gentleman, disinterestedly coming forward for the amusement of the whole world, all his own concerns stagnant! oh! 'tis very foul and unmannered. I desire thou wilt go to Mr. Robinson's, and take six copies of this my publication, paying the full price for each, individually. Thou seest, I am incontinently prone to lenity, even to the very detriment of my fortunes. Canst thou imagine, that any other writer of my merits, elaborate, cogitabund, fanciful in the garnishment of a quaint conceit, and reeking with my disappointments, would be pacified with so trivial a concession? I looked to have seen a smug proper Gentleman step from his chair in the Pomegranate, and vote each member a set of the Knight's adventures. I look'd I should have received ten pounds; and by the Martyrdom of holy Polycarp, thou hast no more Club, than is compounded of labouring smiths, circumcis'd Anglo-Hebrews, and revolted apprentices; such a farrago of unhous'd Arabs, as Lazarus himself would have scorned consortance with. Oh! thou hast much misus'd me-a' God's name, let the stable be cleansed-to work with Herculean brawn. To work! to work! to work! There is a certain description of writers, whose great volubility of genius cannot stop calmly and soberly to look behind ever and anon, and gather up the errors and absurdities of a warm imagination. No-'tis too mechanical for your picked man of genius. He blindly pushes forward for the goal, nor ever even steps aside, unless indeed, Atalanta-like, to catch at a Golden Apple. Cervantes seems to have been of this class; or he would certainly have never thought of mounting Dapple on Panza, (I beg Sancho's pardon, I mean Panza on Dapple,) when VOL. I.-W. H. HERE, young Gentlemen, go you to the Prince. Robert Shallow, esq. hath sent thee a haunch of Gloucestershire venison, Hal; with a good commodity of pippins, carraways, commendations, and remembrances. Ha ha! ha! I tell thee what, Hal, thou art most damnably down in the withers; thou art, as it were, a Prince without weight.-An I don't plump thee out like a Christmas turkey, then am I a rogue. Oh! I am sitting in a nest of the most unfledg'd Cuckows that ever brooded under the wing of a hawk. Thou must know, Hal, I had note of a good hale Recruit or two in this neighbourhood. In other shape came I not; look to it, Master Shallow, that in other shape I depart not. But Í know thou art ever all desire to be admitted a Fellow-Commoner in a jest. Robert Shallow, esq. judgeth the hamlet of Cotswold. Doth not the name of Judge horribly chill thee? With Aaron's rod in his hand, he hath the white beard of Moses on his chin. In goodsooth his perpetual countenance is not unlike what thou wouldst conceit of the momentary one of the lunatic Jew, when he tumbled God's Tables from the Mount. He hath a quick busy gait, and a huge Soldier-like beaver, surmounted with a Cockade. The valorous Justice, at the head of some dozen or two Domestics and others, once apprehended a brace of deserters; and ever since doth he assume this badge-Ha! ha! ha! More of this upright Judge (perpendicular as a Pikeman's weapon, Hal) anon. I would dispatch with these Bardolph; but the knave's Hands-(I cry thee mercy) 1 The correspondence appears to have commenced shire to pick up recruits in his way to York.--Vide the while Sir John stopped at Shallow's seat in GloucesterSecond Part of King Henry the Fourth-3d Act. 20 FALSTAFF TO THE PRINCE. his Mouth is full, in preventing desertion | ha!-mine, Hal! who was never seated on among my Recruits. An every Liver among bench, except indeed at mine hostess's, in them han't stood me in 3 and 40 shilling, the way of unbuttoning to my vespers after then am I a naughty Escheator.-I tell thee dinner; and I would to God every geminy what, Hal, I'd fight against my conscience of Nuns in his Majesty's dominions had my for never a prince in Christendom but thee. dispossession of the frail creature in their -Oh! this is a most damnable cause, and worship-they'd not want for miracle-workthe rogues know it-they'll drink nothing ing I can assure 'em.-Well, Hal, when I but sack of three and two pence a gallon, look'd the rogue should be committed for and I enlist me none but tall puissanti trial, lo! Robert commanded he should be Fellows that would quaff me up Fleet-ditch, immediately hung up by the gills! 'T was were it filled with sack-pick'd men, Hal- not that Robert was unjust or cruel-no.such as will shake my lord of York's mitre. Robert quak'd at the ferocious furrows on I pray thee, sweet Lad, make speed-thou the rogue's brow.-There was a jail at shalt see glorious deeds! hand; the rogue was gyv'd-and yet JOHN FALSTAFF. Robert quak'd-ha! ha ha! Master Šilence the Law-giver too savoured shrewdly of dismay-he thought the man might in conscience be hung-Davy might help his good Coz.-he'd take it upon his word Cots. wold records had it in point-ha! ha! ha! Thou knowest, Hal, it was not for me to crop the green ears of a goodly joke-harvest-I am no April scythesman-with the alacrity of a shrewd leaser, I gathered up the errant Gybelings of my brow, and commended their Worships' quick administration of justice. An if the knave had swung, what the goodger!-'Stead of county yeomen on a base bench, he had had his jury of kites and daws to sit on him, under the sweet canopy of the skies.-But Davy, Davy, Davy, doled him a longer life. This many-specied subaltern of master Shallow's, being advised of the matter, quickly halted in under the yoke of a villainous tub of Jew's-bane, a pannier of newly-stucken hog's-blood, or I'm the impotentest varlet that ever tilted at lip. Wouldst thou believe it, Hal? Barabbas was instantly commanded to prison-Davy, and his crimson fry, to Shallow were of more import than the chariest Bona-roba in all Eastcheap to thee, thou naughty hip-o'-the-hawthorn lover.-Oh! thou would'st have distill'd most damnably, to hear the shrill judge and his man, like Judas and the High-priest, pass busy question and answer upon the price of blood! Davy had transported the reeking mass to Robin Pluck's coiner of puddings-Robin admitted the complexion of the commodity-'t was excellent-but Robin thought half a noble a long shotha! ha! ha! Master Pluck, let me counsel thee-An the wrath of Robert Shallow esq. be not a commodity of July weather, master Pluck, look to thyself-thou wilt be most damnably amerc'd, master Pluck, thou HA! ha ha! support me, Hal! support me! An I don't quake more than when the lunatick sheriff would ha' carted me for Newgate, there's nought goodly in a cup of sack. Oh! I am damnably provided hereLet me pawn as many points in my wind, as dame Prodigal's whelp Necessity hath impress'd of my chattels for sentinel-service in Mistress Ursula's shop, and never a stitch on 'em would that Bardolph redeem. I might overwhelm myself, and rot on the ground. An there was not a little smack of kind-heartedness in sugar-candy, God help old Jack! he might lie in the glebe for brawn-feed. Here is master Robert Shallow, with his rod of justice hath done what Sir Colevile, or the Scotchman Douglas, aye, or young Harry himself, would have given his ears to achieve-he hath put me down, Hal. I would to God Cotswold were in Spain, for there the gentlemen do never laugh-By the Lord, this uncomb'd hemp-stalk doth breed more convulsive propensities in man, than is in the whole fry of stricken Finsmen2; and yet is it all unwittingly; though his countenance be as sharp as the tweak of a bully, his wit is as benumbing too. Here hath been a whoreson murderer brought before him; the Elder would enforce my assistance-ha! ha! It is needless to observe, that Mouldy, Bullcalf Wart, Feeble, and Shadow, must have formed the able recruits Sir John here alludes to. 2 Sir John's conceit is here rather obscure.—I submit, but with great deference, whether he does not allude to the sensitive nature of the Torpedo, which is immediately convulsed on being touched. |