" But the fact that some explanation is necessary is an
admission of the fault. Falstaff must indeed have laid his brains in the
sun before he could have been taken in by foppery so gross and palpable.
This is not the same man who at once recognized the Prince and Poins
through their disguise as drawers. Yet there are moments when the
Falstaff of "The Merry Wives" resumes his old nature. For example, when
he is accused by Pistol of sharing in the proceeds of the theft, he
answers with all the old shameless wit:
"Reason, you rogue, reason; think'st thou I'll endanger
my soul gratis?"
and, again, when he has been cozened and beaten, he speaks almost in the
old way:
"I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero.
Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my
prayers, I would repent."
But on the whole the Falstaff of "The Merry Wives" is but a poor thin
shadow of the Falstaff of the two parts of "Henry IV."
Had "The Merry Wives" been produced under ordinary conditions, one would
have had to rack one's brains to account for its feebleness.
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