FALSTAFF'S DEATH. — The most beautiful emen dation ever made of Shakespeare's text was that of Theobald, in Dame Quickly 's description of Fais taff 's death, in Henry V, evolved from the senseless " table of Greenfields" the natural and exquisite, " 'a babbled of green fields." The believers in a "table" have suggested "upon a table of green fells"; " on a table of green frieze" — an allusion to Jack's gam bling propensity probably! — "as stubble on shorn fields"; " on a table of greasy fell "; " and the bill of a green finch." Pope " took the cake " when he suggested that the passage was a direction to a "supe," named Greenfields, to bring in a table! No commentator until White seems to have taken the inevitable sense of the context: "For after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled o' green fields." What more natural than to talk of green fields after playing with flowers? Editing Shakespeare seems to have reduced most scholars to the most contempt ible degree of asininity. We would not, however, speak disrespectfully of an additional conjecture of Mr. Locke Richardson, in a recent number of " The Critic." He infers that the mention of green fields was an attempt on Falstaff 's part to repeat the 2ßd Psalm, which speaks of " green pastures. He infers that as Jack was a choir-boy in his state of innocency, he must have sung the Psalm; that he was always deadly afraid of death and judgment; and that his reiteration of " God," in his last moments, shows that he was remorseful and asking for mercy. One difficulty in this view is that his appeal to God came after the babbling of green fields, whereas the peace which he naturally would have felt in recalling the sweet assurance of the Psalmist that he would "fear no evil " in the valley of the shadow of death, would inevitably have come after the exclamation of remorse and appeal to his Maker. Another difficulty is that his words were "green fields" instead of "green pastures." From this Mr. Richardson educes an additional beauty of the dramatist, "in thus making Mistress Quickly misunderstand and misquote Falstaff 's words. Even at the last moment there is .in intimation of the social difference in rank and intelligence between Sir John and the low-born hostess of a tavern." But a third and insuperable difficulty is that it leaves out of the account the dying man's playing with flowers, which would be much more apt to suggest the green fields in which he wan dered and picked flowers in his boyhood than to remind him of the 23d Psalm. The reading of Mr. Richardson is novel and ingenious, but, we apprehend, too fine and recondite. We share Mr. Rolfe's doubt about it rather than Mr. Furness's acceptance of it. "It was admirable," as Mr. Furness says, but it is too
admirable. It is asking too much to found an argument on words which Falstaff, as reported, did not use, by assuming that he used different words and was misreported. A lady, writing in the Shakespearean depart ment of "The Critic," suggests that Falstaff was reciting the whole Psalm, and that Dame Quickly'» ear being caught by the words " table" and "green pastures," she rendered them " tableof green fields." "Table " might have appealed to lieras an innkeeper, but the rest would seem irrelevant. On the other hand " babbled " seems a rather fine expression fora dame of her quality. On the whole, the passage will probably continue to furnish food for commentators to the bewilderment of the author's ghost.
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY. — A very curious ques tion of identity, in one respect exceeding in interest the Tichborne case, is found in Bryant's Estate, 176 Pa. St. 309. Charles Bryant died in 1893. at the age of seventy, at a hotel in Philadelphia, in which city he had lived for forty-seven years. He was married there in 1853. He had followed the sea from an early age. and had become captain and owner of a brig. In 1870 he abandoned the sea and opened a grocery store. He left about forty-five thousand dollars. He never alluded to his family or his per sonal history. He had no correspondence nor any communication with anyone claiming to be of his blood. He left no writing which could furnish any clue to his origin, except a government certificate as sailing-master, dated in 1856, in which his birth place was given as North Bridgewater, Mass. Among his personal effects were a daguerreotype and a photo graph, evidently taken at about the age of thirty. On his death, the State claimed his property by escheat, and five different sets of claimants appeared, from Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Illinois, and one from Nova Scotia and England. It was almost like the contest for the honor of Homer's birthplace. Each afflicted family had lost a beloved Charles Bryant, who disappeared more than a generation previously, and they had never heard of him since. In every case his disappearance was without any as signable cause. The trial court said : '• If the narra tives told by the witnesses are reliable, and in the main they may be true, the decedent must be re garded as the type of quite a number of Charles Bryants, each of whom is possibly living a dual life, and without having developed any preparatory wicked ness, has cast off the ties which are generally held to be sacred." Each family recognized the pictures, "in the most positive terms," as the •• undoubted likeness of their individual decedent." So the trial court naturally did not attach much importance to their testimony as to the resemblance in the pictures.
