Falstaff's Role in Henry IV, Part One Henry IV, Part One, has always been one of the most popular of Shakespeare's plays, maybe because of Falstaff. Much of the early criticism I found concentrated on Falstaff and so will I. This may begin in the eighteenth century with Samuel Johnson. For Johnson, the Prince is a "young man of great abilities and violent passions," and Hotspur is a "rugged soldier," but "Falstaff, unimitated, unimitable Falstaff, how shall I describe thee? Thou compound of sense and vice . . . a character loaded with faults, and with faults which produce contempt . . . a thief, a glutton, a coward, a