Shallow. The same Sir John, the very same: I saw him break Schoggan’s head at the court-gate, when he was a crack, not thus high; and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray’s-Inn. O, the mad days that I have spent! and to see how many of mine old acquaintance are dead!
Silence. We shall all follow, cousin.
Shallow. Certain, ’tis certain, very sure, very sure: death (as the Psalmist saith) is certain to all, all shall die.—How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?
Silence. Truly, cousin, I was not there.
Shallow. Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet?
Silence. Dead, Sir.
Shallow. Dead! see, see! he drew a good bow: and dead? he shot a fine shoot. John of Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead! he would have clapped i’th’ clout at twelve score; and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a man’s heart good to see.—How a score of ewes now?
Silence. Thereafter as they be: a score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds.
Shallow. And is old Double dead?’
There is not any thing more characteristic than this in all Shakspeare. A finer sermon on mortality was never preached. We see the frail condition of human life, and the weakness of the human understanding in Shallow’s reflections on it; who, while the past is sliding from beneath his feet, still clings to the present. The meanest circumstances are shewn through an atmosphere of abstraction that dignifies them: their very insignificance makes them more affecting, for they instantly put a check on our aspiring thoughts, and remind us that, seen through that dim perspective, the difference between the great and little, the wise and foolish, is not much. ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin:’ and old Double, though his exploits had been greater, could but have had his day. There is a pathetic naiveté mixed up with Shallow’s common-place reflections and impertinent digressions. The reader laughs (as well he may) in reading the passage, but he lays down the book to think. The wit, however diverting, is social and humane. But this is not the distinguishing characteristic of wit, which is generally provoked by folly, and spends its venom upon vice.