To Panurge, therefore, it was unnecessary
and it might have seemed inconsequent to attribute other gifts or
functions than are proper to such intelligence as may accompany the
appetites of an animal. That most irreverend father in God, Friar John,
belongs to a higher class in the moral order of being; and he much rather
than his fellow-voyager and penitent is properly comparable with
Falstaff. It is impossible to connect the notion of rebuke with the sins
of Panurge. The actual lust and gluttony, the imaginary cowardice of
Falstaff, have been gravely and sharply rebuked by critical morality; we
have just noted a too recent and too eminent example of this; but what
mortal ever dreamed of casting these qualities in the teeth of his
supposed counterpart? The difference is as vast between Falstaff on the
field of battle and Panurge on the storm-tossed deck as between Falstaff
and Hotspur, Panurge and Friar John. No man could show cooler and
steadier nerve than is displayed in either case--by the lay as well as
the clerical namesake of the fourth evangelist. If ever fruitless but
endless care was shown to prevent misunderstanding, it was shown in the
pains taken by Shakespeare to obviate the misconstruction which would
impute to Falstaff the quality of a Parolles or a Bobadil, a Bessus or a
Moron.
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