The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-01-22

this is as much in his Imagination as in
reality. His Imagination keeps
up the ball after his senses have done
with it. He seems to have even 3 greater
enjoyment of the freedom from restraint.
of good cheer, of his care. of his. vanity,
in the ideal exaggerated description which
he gives of them, in fact. He never fails
to enrich his discourse with aIlusions to
eating and drinking. but We never see him
at table. He carries his own larder about
with him, and he is himself "a tun of
man. Such is his deliberate ex-
aggeration of his own vices that it does
not seem quite certain whether the &C
count of his hostess bill found in his
pocket, with such an out-of-the-way
charge for capons and such. with emily one
half-penny worth of bread. was not put
there himself as a trick to humor the lest
upon his tavorite propensiiies and as
conscious caricature of himself"
Furniva1 says of him: 'Of Falsfaff. who
can say enough? He is the incarnation of
humor and lies, OF wit and self-indsllgence
of shrewdness and immortality, of self
possession and vice. without a spark of
conscience or reverence, withoflt self
respect, an adventurer preying upon the
weakness OF other men. Yet all men en-
JOY him-so did Shakespeare. His
efirontery is Ininitabie. He's neither a
coward nor courageous. He oniv asks
whIchIl pay best-hghting or running
away-and acts accordingly. He evidently
had reputation as soldier. and was q
protested one, was sought out and got a
commission on the outbreak of the war"
have been thus generous in quoting
the views of others on my hero in order to
give hint as it were of the unyarying
touch of affection which creeps into the
estimate of his character set down by men
of the most widely differing idiosyncra-
cies. They handle him as Isaac Walton
handles mis- frog "as though they loved
him" and more than any other Parsonage
OF the Shakespearean drama as though he
was living entity of flesh and blood and
no mere tigment of the poets braiF This
leads me to touch briefly on the question
we'll nigh as holly debated as Hamlet's
real or feigned madness as to whether
Faistatf had a living prototype. Though
on matter like this my Judgment, which
Is that only OF casual student who is
better posted on the practical affairs of
the stage, is of little worth, I may say
that the late J. c. Halliwell Phillips con-
ciuslonS seems almost seif-evidenr They,
as set forth in his monograph on the
point In debate. are simply these: Shake
speare did draw the character from
John Oidcastle who is to be found
under that name in the old play,
The Famous Victories of King Henry
the Fifth" written before the year
1856 and from which Shakespeare I'M
doubtedly borrowed somewhat, and not
Sir John Faistaff, who served as the orig
inal. One among many proofs of this
position adduced by the distinguished
commentators and to my mind an almost
incontrovertible one, is that in the second
scene of the first act of "Henry "" Fail
staff asks the Prince, sis not my hostess
OF the tavern most sweet wench ?" the
Prince answering, "As the honey of Hybla,
my own lad OF the CASTLE" a seize vident
pun on the name Oldcastle which the act
ing copy originally had throughout and
which, in Difference to the wishes of
Oldcastle's descendants and at the queens
command, was changed to Falstaff, as
Rowe in his Life of Shakespeare" ex-
pressly states.
That whether there is historical warrant
for the character or not, it was drawn from
life | consider to be beyond all cavil. In
the first place, as Hazlitt evidently di-
vined with his rare acuteness, but as few
save those actors who have actually played
the part can fully comprehend. the mans
fairness is indissolubiy allied to his mental