(As from her darling’s works may well be shown,)
That often with its soul-enchanting touch,
She rais’d or joy or caus’d the deep-felt groan,
And each man’s passions made subservient to her own.
The Progress of Envy, 1751, Stanzas 2-4 and 7-10.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1765
(1728-1774)
The character of old Falstaff, even with all his faults, gives me more consolation than the most studied efforts of wisdom: I here behold an agreeable old fellow, forgetting age, and showing me the way to be young at sixty-five. Sure I am well able to be as merry, though not so comical, as he. Is it not in my power to have, though not so much wit, at least as much vivacity?—Age, care, wisdom, reflection, begone!—I give you to the winds. Let’s have t’other bottle: here’s to the memory of Shakespeare, Falstaff, and all the merry men of Eastcheap.
Such were the reflections that naturally arose while I sat at the Boar’s-head tavern, still kept at Eastcheap. Here, by a pleasant fire, in the very room where old Sir John Falstaff cracked his jokes, in the very chair which was sometimes honoured by Prince Henry, and sometimes polluted by his immoral merry companions, I sat and ruminated on the follies of youth; wished to be young again; but was resolved to make the best of life while it lasted, and now and then compared past and present times together.
“A Reverie at the Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap.” Collected Essays, 1765.