Dryden: _Ridere soleo, cum video homines ab Homeri
virtibus strenue declinates, si quid vero irrepsi vitii, id avide
arripientes._ But I might have spared this quotation, and you your
avowing; for this character might as well have been borrowed from some
of the stalls in Bedlam, or any of your own hair-brained cox-combs which
you call heroes, and persons of honour. I remember just such another
fuming Achilles in Shakespeare, one ancient Pistol, whom he avows to be
a man of so fiery a temper, and so impatient of an injury, even from Sir
John Falstaff his captain, and a knight, that he not only disobeyed his
commands about carrying a letter to Mrs. Page, but returned him an
answer as full of contumely, and in as opprobrious terms, as he could
imagine:
'Let vultures gripe thy guts, for gourd and Fullam holds,
And high and low beguiles the rich and poor.
Tester I'll have in pouch, when thou shalt lack,
Base Phrygian Turk,' etc.
"Let's see e'er an Abencerrago fly a higher pitch. Take him at another
turn, quarrelling with corporal Nym and old Zegri: The difference arose
about mine hostess Quickly (for I would not give a rush for a man unless
he be particular in matters of this moment); they both aimed at her
body, but Abencerrago Pistol defies his rival in these words:
'Fetch from the powdering-tub of infamy
That lazar-kite of Cressid's kind,
Doll Tearsheet, she by name, and her espouse:
I have, and I will hold,
The quondam Quickly for the only she.
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