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The scene where Great Will killed the deer, dragging Falstaff all over the park after it by the light of Bardolph's nose, upon which they put an extinguisher if they heard any of the keepers, and so left everybody groping about and catching the wrong person, was the most wonderful mixture of fun and tears.
The old buildings always used to remind me of Wollett's beautiful engraving of a scene in the Maid of the Mill. It will be long before any artist will make a drawing of this. Only think of this redness in a picture! this boiled lobster of a house! Falstaff's description of Bardolph's nose would look pale in the comparison.
That poor thing died from a different weapon at each recital, though always with a flow of blood and a successful dash of his antlers into Falstaff; and to hear Falstaff bellow! But it was mournful to hear how sorry Great Will was over the animal he had slain. He spoke like music. I found it pathetic in spite of my knowing that the whole scene was lighted up by Bardolph's nose.
It was rather consoling to cover some ignominious retreat with a new epigram on Cromwell's red nose, that irresistible member which kindled in its day as much wit as Bardolph's, to hail it as "Nose Immortal," a beacon, a glow-worm, a bird of prey, to make it stand as a personification of the rebel cause, till even the stately Montrose asked newcomers from England, "How is Oliver's nose?"
Philibert could not but smile at the travelling notary, and thinking to himself, "too much Cognac at the end of that nose of yours, my friend!" which, indeed, looked fiery as Bardolph's, with hardly a spot for a fly to rest his foot upon without burning. "But how will you go, friend?" asked Philibert, looking down at Master Pothier's gamaches; "you don't look like a fast walker."
The scene where Great Will killed the deer, dragging Falstaff all over the park after it by the light of Bardolph's nose, upon which they put an extinguisher if they heard any of the keepers, and so left everybody groping about and catching the wrong person, was the most wonderful mixture of fun and tears.
"That" meant Thomas Chettle, his fists squared, and as red as any fighting turkey, held off at arm's-length by Bardolph. "Come over me!" cries Will, with a rush at Thomas, head down, for all his being held off by Bardolph's other hand. "Who says he has come over me?" Now the matter stood thus.
I think this is a pretty good image, sir. Johnson: 'Sir, it is one of the happiest I ever have heard." Is there anything more delicious outside Falstaff and Bardolph, or Don Quixote and Sancho Panza? Indeed, Bardolph's immortal "Would I were with him wheresoe'er he be, whether in heaven or in hell," is in the very spirit of Boswell's devotion to his hero.
So long as any yet extant national sentiment, or prejudice, was not yet directly assailed so long as that arbitrary power was yet wise, or fortunate enough to withhold the blow which should make the individual sense of outrage, or the feeling of a class the common one so long as those peaceful, social elements, yet waited the spark that was wanting to unite them so long 'the laws of England' might be, indeed, at a Falstaff's or a Nym's or a Bardolph's 'commandment, for the Poet has but put into 'honest Jack's' mouth, a boast that worse men than he, made good in his time so long, the faith, the lives, the liberties, the dearest earthly hopes, of England's proudest subjects, her noblest, her bravest, her best, her most learned, her most accomplished, her most inspired, might be at the mercy of a woman's caprices, or the sport of a fool's sheer will and obstinacy, or conditioned on some low-lived 'favorites' whims.
That poor thing died from a different weapon at each recital, though always with a flow of blood and a successful dash of his antlers into Falstaff; and to hear Falstaff bellow! But it was mournful to hear how sorry Great Will was over the animal he had slain. He spoke like music. I found it pathetic in spite of my knowing that the whole scene was lighted up by Bardolph's nose.
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