Sir John Falstaff.—Carry Master Silence to bed.—Master Shallow, my Lord Shallow, be what thou wilt, I am fortune’s steward. Get on thy boots: we’ll ride all night__O sweet Pistol!—Away, Bardolph.—Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and, withal, devise something to do thyself good.—Boot, boot, Master Shallow: I know, the young king is sick for me. Let us take any man’s horses; the laws of England are at my commandment. Happy are they which have been my friends, and woe unto my lord chief justice!
Pistol:
Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also!
Where is the life that late I led say they;
Why, here it is! (snaps his fingers.)
Welcome those pleasant days.
Scene closes. ]
* It will be observed that Shakspeare almost invariably
makes Pistol speak in a kind of mongrel blank verse—
apparently in remote imitation of the masques, pageants, and
miracle plays then recently introduced into this country
from Italy—fashionable amusements, whereat the worthy
ancient (in his capacity of hanger-on of all dirty work to
the upper classes) doubtless frequently assisted, in a
supernumerary capacity. Sir John Falstaff answers him
playfully, from one of the earliest known specimens of this
kind of composition—See Payne Collier’s History of Dramatic
Poetry, and other works to be met with in the admirable and
compendious catalogue of the British Museum, which will
amply repay perusal.
The time long hoped for had then arrived. There was no more thought of drowsiness or dissipation for that night,—no more of debt or difficulty for the future. Henry of Monmouth—Sir John’s pet pupil, his “tender lambkin”—was king; and surely, if such feelings as gratitude and goodfellow-ship existed in the hearts of princes, no man had greater right to look forward to emoluments and dignities under the new regime than Sir John Falstaff. He himself was incapable of forgetting old friends in his prosperity, and he could not suspect such baseness in others. We have heard him declare that he would double charge Pistol with dignities, that Master Shallow might choose what office he would in the land—it should be his! Bardolph, knowing his master’s disposition, would not take a knighthood for his fortune. Not one present was omitted from the circle of Sir John Falstaff’s comprehensive benevolence. Even to poor Master Silence he performed the only kindness which that vocalist was just then capable of benefiting by,—he ordered his inebriated worship to be carried up to bed!
Depend upon it, there was no time lost in booting and saddling for the townward journey. Be sure that the command to “take any man’s horses” was carried out to the letter, and backed by the legal warrant of Justice Shallow—(for were they not on His Majesty’s service? could the government of the realm possibly go on without the immediate presence in the capital of Sir John Falstaff?)
What a terrible distance was that which separated Sir John from London and the young king! How he wished for the power to annihilate time and space! Alas! he was born in a wrong age for locomotive purposes. Half-a-dozen centuries earlier, a knight-errant of his vast merit and renown, wishing for a rapid mode of transit, would but have had to summon his guardian fairy, and that obliging genius would have ordered her griffins to be put-to for his accommodation, with a lift in her enchanted car, immediately. In the present day, four hundred and forty years later, the thing would be scarcely more difficult. A post-chaise to the Tewkesbury station, and a special train thence to London, would settle the matter in three or four hours. But the task of conveying Sir John Falstaff, rapidly, over the vile roads of the fifteenth century, by mere horse-power, would be a difficulty which the mind of a Pickford alone could be qualified to grapple with.
And yet, incredible as it may seem, Sir John Falstaff actually contrived to reach the metropolis on the third day after his departure from Master Shallow’s residence. I am not prepared to say that no magic power was employed in effecting this apparently miraculous transit. On the contrary, the aid of a rather potent magician appears to have been successfully invoked for the occasion—one, at whose bidding, the roughest roads become level, the stoutest doors fly open, the veriest griffins, tigers, crocodiles, and Cerberi of gate-keepers become docile as lambs; an enchanter, at whose very aspect, or even name, horses saddle themselves, inn-tables spread themselves, corks fly out of self-pouring wine-bottles, pigs spit themselves, larks, pheasants, and wild duck stop in their mid-air course, and fall, ready-stuffed and roasted, on to eager travellers’ plate. Need I say that I allude to the evil, but fascinating necromancer, King Money?
Sir John Falstaff borrowed a thousand pounds of Master Robert Shallow!