And now I will save myself the trouble of writing the next three or four pages, by allowing Shakspeare to speak for me without interruption. I shall be happy to hear anybody find fault with the substitution, and will even go so far as to consider it a compliment.
Mr. Poins.—Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?
Sir John Falstaff.—A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! marry, and amen!—Give me a cup of sack, boy.—Ere I lead this life long, I’ll sew nether-stocks, and mend them, and foot them too. A plague of all cowards!—Give me a cup of sack, rogue.—Is there no virtue extant? [He drinks The Prince of Wales.]—Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter? pitiful-hearted Titan, that melted at the sweet tale of the sun! if thou didst, then behold that compound.
Sir John Falstaff.—You rogue, here’s lime in this sack too: There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man: Yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it; a villainous coward.—Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good men unhanged in England; and one of them is fat, and grows old: God help the while! a bad world, I say. I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or any thing: A plague of all cowards, I say still.
The Prince of Wales.—How now, wool-sack! what mutter you?
Sir John Falstaff.—A king’s son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I’ll never wear hair on my face more. You prince of Wales!
Prince of Wales.—Why, you abominable round man! what’s the matter?
Sir John Falstaff.—Are you not a coward? answer me to that; and Poins there?
Mr. Poins.—‘Zounds! ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, I’ll stab thee.
Sir John Falstaff.—I call thee coward! I’ll see thee damned ere I call thee coward: but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back. Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! give me them that will face me.—Give me a cup of sack:—I am a rogue, if I drunk to-day.