PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 43 



— the everlasting bonfire of Bardolph's nose — announces the entry 

 of him, whose " means are slender, but whose waist is great '^ — of 

 him, equally noted for the sack he consumed and the good hu- 

 mour he excites — whose wit is the cause of wit in others ; but 

 whose honesty bears about the same proportion to his argumenta- 

 tive ingenuity as the ha'penny worth of bread to the two gallons 

 of sack : yet, can we better spare a better man. Here he comes 

 with the self proclamation of " Sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack 

 FalstafF, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and the more 

 valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff : " there he stands — 

 "tho' last not least" — unimitated, inimitable; a compound of 

 much that is mean and of all that is merry; with scarcely a true 

 virtue, yet not to be detested ; a coward and a liar, yet not to be 

 despised ; a glutton, yet not graceless ; one, to whom we may not 

 proffer love or esteem ; but whom we reprove or abuse, with feel- 

 ings similar to those of a partial father, who checks the wayward- 

 ness of a boy, while he rejoices in his boldness of spirit or cunning 

 ingenuity. Hence, old Jack, for the present : Bear slowly hence 

 thy " ton of flesh," with the sympathy of all, who can forget thy 

 failings in consideration of thy matchless wit. 



Being restricted to space, we now proceed to a very interesting 

 portion of the lecture, viz. that in which Mr. Wightwick treated of 

 Shakspeare's dramas as acting plays. 



I now proceed to examine the plays of Shakspeare, as acting 

 plays, separately so considered ; and it were as well I should 

 submit to the society my idea of what an acting play should be. 

 And first, (to follow the example of the Cookery Book, which 

 enjoins us, when we would make hare soup, first to catch the 

 hare) I would recommend the dramatist, when he would write a 

 play, first to decide on its point — i. e. some principal event inclu- 

 ding a crowning and conclusive catastrophe, which, in its conduct, 

 shall exhibit the progressive workings of some natural passion ; 

 and, in its final developement, shall illustrate the importance of 

 some moral principle — Not that virtue is always to have its imme- 

 diate or temporal reward ; but that the curtain shall in no case 

 fall upon the unexposed and unreproved conduct of vice. A mere 

 string of events — however some of them may be striking — unless 

 it be connected with something paramount — unless it exhibit, or 

 enable us to conceive, a perfect and probable conclusion, — must 

 be unsatisfactory. A dramatist, guilty of this error, only emulates 

 the dandyism of a Bond Street Lounger, who, with a magnificent 

 bunch of seals at one end of his chain, has no watch at the other. 



