Certain New Elucidations of Shakespeare 57 



worser part of Falstaff's nature seriously, because his author 

 keeps him from taking himself in any aspect seriously. His wit 

 is vagrant, his impudence is shifty, his insight — the real substance 

 in the man — is shadowy. When he does his best, he seems hardly 

 to have assayed at all. When he thinks to compel recognition 

 from the Prince, as he comes with his train from the coronation, 

 he must needs capitalize his expectation : 



Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow. I will make the king do you 

 grace. I will leer upon him as a' comes by; and do you but mark the 

 countenance he will give me. 



But the king bids the Lord Chief -Justice, who once ' committed ' 

 him, reprimand the challenger. This is not according to the code 

 of the ' gang,' and Quiller^Couch scores King ' Hal ' for it. We 

 have a notion that Quiller-Couch would have done the same 

 thing in King Hal's place. But should not Falstaff have known 

 better than to suppose Hal would not vindicate the honor of his 

 office? Would not a month or two of 'managing' the play make 

 the part approvable? 



Then there is an obsession on us that Falstaff is in a sense the 

 rehabilitation of a one-time potentiality in ourselves. We have 

 some awareness of what the plight of self -neglect is like, when 

 one has ceased to feel that it pays to take pains with one's self. 

 In this consciousness there is an element of sympathy, of pity 

 towards the man. Yet, when the needle turns to the pole, when 

 the moral orientation, as it at some point must in Shakespeare, 

 reveals itself, this phase of sympathy merges in another. When 

 ' tear-sheet ' Doll, stroking Falstaff's beard, deprecates in his 

 behalf the issue of it all, — 



Antony and Cleopatra. Yet there is nothing inconsistent in either with 

 the other. Shylock is handled, fundamentally, with the same strategy as 

 Antony in the latter play, and as Falstaff. We are taken into the inmost 

 consciousness of each. Is not frankness the basis of all manifestations of 

 Shylock's mind? 



I had forgot. You told me so. 



Sovereignty, again, commandingness of nature. Shylock is the only great 

 personality in the cast, big even in his hate, which he makes us justify. 

 There is a rareness in him, Jew or no Jew, which stifles prejudice and 

 exacts regard. 



159 



