This is the Excellency of the Character of Sir John Falstaff; the Ground-work is Humour, the Representation and Detection of a bragging and vaunting Coward in real Life; However, this alone would only have expos'd the Knight, as a meer Noll Bluff, to the Derision of the Company; And after they had once been gratify'd with his Chastisement, he would have sunk into Infamy, and become quite odious and intolerable: But here the inimitable Wit of Sir John comes in to his Support, and gives a new Rise and Lustre to his Character; For the sake of his Wit you forgive his Cowardice; or rather, are fond of his Cowardice for the Occasions it gives to his Wit. In short, the Humour furnishes a Subject and Spur to the Wit, and the Wit again supports and embellishes the Humour.
At the first Entrance of the Knight, your good Humour and Tendency to Mirth are irresistibly excited by his jolly Appearance and Corpulency; you feel and acknowledge him, to be the fittest Subject imaginable for yielding Diversion and Merriment; but when you see him immediately set up for Enterprize and Activity, with his evident Weight and Unweildiness, your Attention is all call'd forth, and you are eager to watch him to the End of his Adventures; Your Imagination pointing out with a full Scope his future Embarrassments. All the while as you accompany him forwards, he heightens your Relish for his future Disasters, by his happy Opinion of his own Sufficiency, and the gay Vaunts which he makes of his Talents and Accomplishments; so that at last when he falls into a Scrape, your Expectation is exquisitely gratify'd, and you have the full Pleasure of seeing all his trumpeted Honour laid in the Dust. When in the midst of his Misfortunes, instead of being utterly demolish'd and sunk, he rises again by the superior Force of his Wit, and begins a new Course with fresh Spirit and Alacrity; This excites you the more to renew the Chace, in full View of his second Defeat; out of which he recovers again, and triumphs with new Pretensions and Boastings. After this he immediately starts upon a third Race, and so on; continually detected and caught, and yet constantly extricating himself by his inimitable Wit and Invention; thus yielding a perpetual Round of Sport and Diversion.
Again, the genteel Quality of Sir John is of great Use in supporting his Character; It prevents his sinking too low after several of his Misfortunes; Besides, you allow him, in consequence of his Rank and Seniority, the Privilege to dictate, and take the Lead, and to rebuke others upon many Occasions; By this he is sav'd from appearing too nauseous and impudent. The good Sense which he possesses comes also to his Aid, and saves him from being despicable, by forcing your Esteem for his real Abilities.--Again, the Privilege you allow him of rebuking and checking others, when he assumes it with proper Firmness and Superiority, helps to settle anew, and compose his Character after an Embarrassment; And reduces in some measure the Spirit of the Company to a proper Level, before he sets out again upon a fresh Adventure;--without this, they would be kept continually strain'd, and wound up to the highest Pitch, without sufficient Relief and Diversity.
It may also deserve to be remark'd of Falstaff, that the Figure of his Person is admirably suited to the Turn of his Mind; so that there arises before you a perpetual Allusion from one to the other, which forms an incessant Series of Wit, whether they are in Contrast or Agreement together.--When he pretends to Activity, there is Wit in the Contrast between his Mind and his Person,--And Wit in their Agreement, when he triumphs in Jollity.
To compleat the whole,--you have in this Character of Falstaff, not only a free Course of Humour, supported and embellish'd with admirable Wit; but this Humour is of a Species the most jovial and gay in all Nature.--Sir Jobn Falstaff possesses Generosity, Chearfulness, Alacrity, Invention, Frolic and Fancy superior to all other Men;--The Figure of his Person is the Picture of Jollity, Mirth, and Good-nature, and banishes at once all other Ideas from your Breast; He is happy himself, and makes you happy.--If you examine him further, he has no Fierceness, Reserve, Malice or Peevishness lurking in his Heart; His Intentions are all pointed at innocent Riot and Merriment; Nor has the Knight any inveterate Design, except against Sack, and that too he loves.--If, besides this, he desires to pass for a Man of Activity and Valour, you can easily excuse so harmless a Foible, which yields you the highest Pleasure in its constant Detection.
If you put all these together, it is impossible to hate honest Jack Falstaff; If you observe them again, it is impossible to avoid loving him; He is the gay, the witty, the frolicksome, happy, and fat Jack Falstaff, the most delightful Swaggerer in all Nature.--You must love him for your own sake,--At the same time you cannot but love him for his own Talents; And when you have enjoy'd them, you cannot but love him in Gratitude;--He has nothing to disgust you, and every thing to give you Joy;--His Sense and his Foibles are equally directed to advance your Pleasure; And it is impossible to be tired or unhappy in his Company.
This jovial and gay Humour, without any thing envious, malicious, mischievous, or despicable, and continually quicken'd and adorn'd with Wit, yields that peculiar Delight, without any Alloy, which we all feel and acknowledge in Falstaff's Company.--Ben Johnson has Humour in his Characters, drawn with the most masterly Skill and Judgment; In Accuracy, Depth, Propriety, and Truth, he has no Superior or Equal amongst Ancients or Moderns; But the Characters he exhibits are of satirical, and deceitful, or of a peevish or despicable Species; as Volpone, Subtle, Morose, and Abel Drugger; In all of which there is something very justly to be hated or despised; And you feel the same Sentiments of Dislike for every other Character of Johnson's; so that after you have been gratify'd with their Detention and Punishment, you are quite tired and disgusted with their Company:--Whereas Shakespear, besides the peculiar Gaiety in the Humour of Falstaff, has guarded him from disgusting you with his forward Advances, by giving him Rank and Quality; from being despicable by his real good Sense and excellent Abilities; from being odious by his harmless Plots and Designs; and from being tiresome by his inimitable Wit, and his new and incessant Sallies of highest Fancy and Frolick.
This discovers the Secret of carrying Comedy to the highest Pitch of Delight; Which lies in drawing the Persons exhibited, with such chearful and amiable Oddities and Foibles, as you would chuse in your own Companions in real Life;-- otherwise, tho' you may be diverted at first with the Novelty of a Character, and with a proper Detection and Ridicule of it, yet its Peevishness, Meanness, or Immorality, will begin to disgust you after a little Reflection, and become soon tiresome and odious; It being certain, that whoever cannot be endured as an accidental Companion in real Life, will never become, for the very same Reasons, a favorite comic Character in the Theatre.
This Relish for generous and worthy Characters alone, which we all feel upon the Theatre, where no Biass of Envy, Malice, or personal Resentment draws us aside, seems to be some Evidence of our natural and genuin Disposition to Probity and Virtue; tho' the Minds of most Persons being early and deeply tinged with vicious Passions, it is no wonder that Stains have been generally mistaken for original Colours.
It may be added, that Humour is the most exquisite and delightful, when the Oddities and Foibles introduc'd are not mischievous or sneaking, but free, jocund, and liberal; and such as result from a generous Flow of Spirits, and a warm universal Benevolence.