Here only does Shakespeare show that he feels
the necessity of condescending to such evasion or such apology as is
implied in the explanation of Falstaff's incredible credulity by a
reference to "the guiltiness of his mind" and the admission, so
gratifying to all minds more moral than his own, that "wit may be made a
Jack-a-Lent, when 'tis upon ill employment." It is the best excuse that
can be made; but can we imagine the genuine, the pristine Falstaff
reduced to the proffer of such an excuse in serious good earnest?
In the original version of this comedy there was not a note of poetry
from end to end; as it then appeared, it might be said to hold the same
place on the roll of Shakespeare's plays as is occupied by _Bartholomew
Fair_ on the roll of Ben Jonson's. From this point of view it is curious
to contrast the purely farcical masterpieces of the town-bred schoolboy
and the country lad. There is a certain faint air of the fields, the
river, and the park, even in the rough sketch of Shakespeare's
farce--wholly prosaic as it is, and in no point suggestive of any
unlikelihood in the report which represents it as the composition or
rather as the improvisation of a fortnight.
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