There was
assuredly a strong dash of Puritanism in the real Falstaff, for when
Shakespeare comes to render this, he multiplies the brush-strokes with
perfect confidence; Falstaff is perpetually repenting.
After the first scene Shakespeare seems to have made up his mind to keep
closely to his model and only to permit himself heightening touches.
In order to come closer to the original, I will now take another passage
later in the play, when Shakespeare is drawing Falstaff with a sure
hand:
"
Fal. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance
too! marry and amen!--Give me a cup of sack, boy.--
Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew netherstocks, and mend
them, and foot them, too. A plague of all cowards!--
give me a cup of sack, rogue.--Is there no virtue extant?
[
Drinks.]"
Here is surely the true Falstaff; he will not lead this life long; this
is the soul of him; but the exquisite heightening phrase, "Is there no
virtue extant?" is pure Shakespeare, Shakespeare generalizing as we saw
him generalizing in just the same way in the scene where Cade is talked
of in the Second Part of "King Henry VI.
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