John Flamsteed

“ Ranulf Flambard died in 1128, having spent the last part of his life in doing what he could to redeem the earlier, by his work on the cathedral of Durham, where in worthy style he carried on the work of his predecessor, William of St. Calais. Soon after died William Giffard, the bishop whom Henry had appointed before he was himself crowned, and in his place the king appointed his nephew, Henry of Blois, brother of Count Stephen, who was to play so great a part in the troubles that were soon to begin. ”

“ Sir John is old as well as fat, which gives a melancholy retrospective tinge to the character; and by the disparity between his inclinations and his capacity for enjoyment, makes it still more ludicrous and fantastical.
The secret of Falstaff's wit is for the most part a masterly presence of mind, an absolute self-possession, which nothing can disturb. His repartees are involuntary suggestions of his self-love; instinctive evasions of every thing that threatens to interrupt the career of his triumphant jollity and self-complacency. ”

“ Except for a brief interval of schooling, under a master whose cruelty he never forgot, the young John Flaxman was kept at home. Unfitted for the play or the exercises of his age, he found in his father's stock-in-trade all the occupation and all the pastime for which he cared. Customers, among whom were men of note in arts and literature, soon began to take an interest in the sickly lad whom they found always busy drawing or modelling behind the counter, or trying to teach himself the classic fables and Latin. ”

“ Many thoughtless commentators have pronounced the portrait of Sir John Falstaff, as drawn in the “Merry Wives of Windsor,” to be wanting in verisimilitude, and have therefore called its authenticity into question. No discerning mind can mistake the likeness. It is the same man whom we have so often seen drawn by the same master-hand under more favourable circumstances—but how changed, how fallen! ”

“ The yellow cur and his companions toiled along at their steady trot, their red tongues hanging. The broadside from the French ship rang inland, and the beggar groaned, urging them with curses and chosen abuse. His intimate knowledge of the neighbourhood led him to steer for the identical spot on which Flemington, crouched in his whin-bush, had looked down on the affray, and he hoped devoutly that he might reach that point of vantage while there was still something to be seen from it. Silence had settled on the strait once more. ”

“ The fact seems to be that there is a real consequence about Sir John Falstaff which is not brought forward: We see him only in his familiar hours; [pg 234] we enter the tavern with Hal and Poins; we join in the laugh and take a pride to gird at him: But there may be a great deal of truth in what he himself writes to the Prince, that tho' he be “Jack Falstaff with his Familiars, he is Sir John with the rest of Europe.” It has been remarked, and very truly I believe, that no man is a hero in the eye of his valet-de-chambre ”

“ Dear, beloved, and, whatever the world may of thee (for I have the conceit that I look deeper into men’s natures than the thoughtless commonalty) , honoured Sir John Falstaff, if money could win thee to be near me and mine—who love thee deservedly, and to whom thou hast never been aught but what is just and pure—thou shouldst have it from my well-stored coffers poured untold into thy pockets. ”

“ Having made this exclamation, we may suppose that Sir John Falstaff would repair his not very flattering mistake by a plausible apology, or turn it off with a timely jest——either being always at his command at a moment’s notice. Having pacified the by no means implacable Doit, he would muse upon old times—old forms and deeds growing into shape and colour through the fog of years on the dead level of an old man’s memory—like cows and windmills through the morning mist on a Flemish landscape. ”

“ Who then so likely to be a popular man in Coventry as Sir John Falstaff—the master, par excellence, of the Princely Revels? What town in the kingdom so likely to be endeared to Sir John’s affections as Coventry? Why, the knight’s repugnance to run the gauntlet of the gibes of his familiars, admirers, and butts, when at the head of his ragged regiment, is at once explained! What a joke for the pages and courtiers hanging about the inn-doors! What giggling from the tavern wenches! ”

“ I do not mean to say, that had I lived in the fifteenth century I should have been a Sir John Falstaff. Morally, in his position, I should have cut as sorry a figure as, physically, in his garments. Boswells need not be Johnsons. Sympathy and admiration, I repeat, are the necessary qualifications. I sympathise with, and admire the heroic character as developed in all ages; and I look upon Sir John Falstaff as the greatest hero of his own epoch.
Earthly greatness, like everything else to which the same adjective applies, is comparative—to be measured only by besetting difficulties. ”

“ This was very kind of Maître Jean, for it made Lady Alice smile. And the poor mother stood in need of some such diversion, however passing.
“Now, lads,” said Mowbray. “Whip and spur with a vengeance. No rest this side of Canterbury. And for London, ho!”
“For London, ho!” shouted Jack Falstaff, with a beaming face, looking more like a jovial young prince riding to tournament, than a rescued purloiner of animal food flying the constable. ”

“ When the cigar was brought, Flummers said, "That's the stuff!" and a moment later he broke out with, "Say, Witherspoon, why don't you kill the geyser that does the county building for your paper?"
"Why so?"
"Oh, he flashes his star and calls himself a journalist. What time is it? I must hustle; can't stay here and throw away time on you fellows. Say, John"—
Richmond shut him off with: "Don't call me John. A man—I'll say man out of courtesy to your outward form—a man that hasn't sense enough to lift a bass into a boat is not to be permitted such a familiarity. ”

“ FLAXMAN, JOHN (1756–1826) , sculptor and draughtsman, was born at York on 6 July 1755. According to a family tradition four brothers Flaxman, coming from Norfolk, had fought against the king at Naseby, and the youngest of the four, named John, had settled as a farmer and carrier in Buckinghamshire. From him was descended another John, who towards the middle of the eighteenth century carried on, partly in London and partly in the provinces, the trade of a maker and seller of plaster casts. ”

“ When he entered Brechin and rolled past the high, circular shaft of its round tower, the world made way for him with a grin, and when it was not agile enough to please him, he heralded himself with a shrill note from the chanter, which he had unscrewed from his pipes. Business was business with him. He meant to lie in the town to-night, but he was anxious to get on to Flemington’s tracks before the scent was cold.
He drove to the Swan inn and entered the yard, and there he had the satisfaction of seeing Archie’s [Pg 189] horse being rubbed down with a wisp of straw. ”

“ A late visitor—especially one making such formidable announcement of his arrival as that which disturbed Sir John Falstaff from his comfortable after-supper nap, and sent Master Shallow’s little dried walnut of a heart leaping into his mouth, like a parched pea from a shovel up the chimney—was not only a source of astonishment but of alarm. It might be a robber at the head of a forest-band come to levy what we should term an execution on the goods and chattels ”

“ Germain, which he had let fall with all the quiet dignity of a man too upright to pass under false colours, had done more to put the brothers on the wrong track than the most violent protestations. Balnillo had been careful, in spite of his confidence in his guest; but in the sympathy of his soul James had given Flemington the means of future access to himself. Now the tavern in the Castle Wynd at Stirling could be of use to him no longer, and he knew that only the last extremity must find him in any of the secret haunts known to him in the Muir of Pert. ”

“ He had never dreamed of the silent band which had been yielded up by the misty stretches of the Basin.
James leaned over the vessel’s side towards the Venture, and thought of Captain Hall. He had seen him in a tavern of the town, and had been as little impressed by his looks as was Flemington. He had noticed the uncertain eye, the restless fingers, the trotting gait, and had held him lightly as a force; for he knew as well as most men know who have knocked about this world that character—none other—is the hammer that drives home every nail into the framework of achievement. ”

“ Prince Henry stammered awkwardly, addressing himself to Sir John Falstaff,—“Percy I killed myself, and saw thee dead.”
Prince John of Lancaster whistled a popular melody in a low key.
Sir John Falstaff lifted up his hands, and exclaimed—
“Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down, and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour take the sin upon their own heads. ”

“ I begin to doubt seriously that Sir John Falstaff was one bit of a courtier after all. Had he been a person of that description, he would certainly have toadied King Henry the Fourth much better than he did, by aping (as is the fashion with people of a courtly turn) the most salient points of that lugubrious, and especially infamous, monarch’s character and conduct. This is a new light on the mystery of our knight’s repeated failures in the attempt to rise in court favour. He was not half a rogue—that is the long and short of the matter. ”

“ But when he reflected what indulgent, beneficent masters—if, indeed, parents were not the fitter word—his ancestors had always been to their tenants:—no! for the sake of human nature, he could not believe in such black ingratitude as to suppose Falstaff had come to any harm. It would still be in his power to give his friends a cordial welcome. He led the way almost cheerfully, deploring only that the journey must be performed on foot.
At the first opportunity he whispered Bardolph, “Slip on before us, borrow a horse, steal an ass, or run like mad. ”

“ I can fancy Sir John Falstaff for a few days leading a life of marvellous peace, and even happiness, in the orderly household of sage Master Whittington, who loved our friend for the strong latent good that was in him, and to whom the doubly errant knight’s vices and irregularities were mere hateful excrescences, to be abhorred, as we abhor the consumption that kills our favourite sister, but which makes us love herself the more in our indignation at its rapacious cruelty. ”

“ Prince John of Lancaster continued to whistle, and implied that the story was, to say the least,—singular. It was evident he was inclined to attach more credit to the representations of Sir John Falstaff than to those of his elder brother. You see, they had been, at school together. No man is a hero in the eyes of the valet who takes off his boots when he is not in a condition to remove them himself ”

“ After the struggles and perplexities of the months that had elapsed since Balnillo and Christian Flemington met in Edinburgh, she had come slowly to herself amid storms of sleet. Beyond the Grampians, in the North, her awakened eyes looked on a country whose heart had been broken at Culloden. The ragged company that gathered round its Prince on that Wednesday morning was dispersed among the fastnesses of the hills, or lying dead and dying among the rushes and heather, whilst Cumberland’s soldiers finished their bloody business ”

“ The commercial mind is sceptical in all ages. The Fleming and the Lombard—not by any means sure that they had acted wisely in the first instance in trusting themselves to the mercies of their plausible debtor—became doubly suspicious. They held a brief consultation apart, the result of which was a somewhat lugubrious proposal that they should proceed experimentally to Dover.
Towards Dover they walked; Falstaff mechanically yielding to his conductors, as one whom despair had robbed of volition.
Remarkable as the statement may read, it soon proved that Bardolph had spoken the truth. ”

“ Madam Flemington felt as though her brain refused to work. There seemed to be nothing to drive it forward. The world stood still. The walls, an imprisoning horror, shut her in from all movement, all action, when action was needed. She had never felt Ardguys to be so desperately far from the reach of humanity, herself so much cut off from it, as now. And yet she must act. Her nearest channel of communication was the judge, riding away.
“Fool!” she cried, seizing Mysie, “run—run! Send the boy after Lord Balnillo. Tell him to run!” ”

“ Painters in those days had not the standing in society that they have now, but the voice and manner were unmistakably those of a man of breeding. Even his freedom was not the upstart licence of one trying to assert himself, but the easy expression of a roving imagination.
“I should introduce myself too,” said Logie. “I am Captain James Logie, Lord Balnillo’s brother. But we must rescue your—your—baggage. Where is your postilion?”
Flemington held up the lantern again, and its rays fell upon a man holding the two horses which were standing together under a tree. James went towards them. ”

“ Knowing he would be a king some day, when he would find it as advantageous to be thought an honest man as it would be easy to hang anybody who might say he wasn’t, he considered that his future would shine all the brighter from present companionship with rogues—such as a prejudiced society agreed to consider Falstaff and his followers. So Prince Henry studied the first crude principles of taxation by plundering his father’s subjects on the public roads in company with Sir John Falstaff. ”