from me all ostentation of sorrow.
Poins. The reason?
P. Hen. What would'st thou think of me if I should
weep?
Poins. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.
P. Hen. It would be every man's thought; and thou
art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks; never
a man's thought in the world keeps the roadway better
than thine: every man would think me an hypocrite indeed.
And what accites your most worshipful thought to
think so?
Poins. Why, because you have been so lewd, and so
much engraffed to Falstaff."
By far the best thing in this page--the contempt for every man's thought
as certain to be mistaken--is, I need hardly say, pure Shakespeare.
Exactly the same reflection finds a place in "Hamlet"; the
student-thinker tells us of a play which in his opinion, and in the
opinion of the best judges, was excellent, but which was only acted
once, for it "pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general."
Very early in life Shakespeare made the discovery, which all men of
brains make sooner or later, that the thoughts of the million are
worthless, and the judgment and taste of the million are execrable.
There is nothing worthy to be called character-drawing in this scene;
but there's just a hint of it in the last remark of Poins. According to
his favourite companion the Prince was very "lewd," and yet Shakespeare
never shows us his lewdness in action; does not "moralize" it as Jaques
or Hamlet would have been tempted to do. It is just mentioned and passed
over lightly. It is curious, too, that Shakespeare's alter ego,
Jaques, was also accused of lewdness by the exiled Duke; Vincentio, too,
another incarnation of Shakespeare, was charged with lechery by Lucio;
but in none of these cases does Shakespeare dwell on the failing.
Shakespeare seems to have thought reticence the better part in regard to
certain sins of the flesh. But it must be remarked that it is only when
his heroes come into question that he practises this restraint: he is
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