Albert Edward, Prince of Wales meets the ghost of Falstaff, accompanied by Mr Punch. The Prince is tall and fat, with a short beard, holding a cigar, and wearing a formal suit and heavy overcoat. Mr Punch stoops, holding his hat and stroking his chin. He also wears a tailcoat; his head has an exaggerated forehead, nose and chin, and he has an exaggerated hunch on his back. Falstaff is rendered in grey to show his status as a ghost; like Albert Edward he is bearded and overweight, but he wears medieval costume including a sword and hood, and carries a plumed hat.
Image: Albert Edward, Prince of Wales meets the ghost of Falstaff, accompanied by Mr Punch. The Prince is tall and fat, with a short beard, holding a cigar, and wearing a formal suit and heavy overcoat. Mr Punch stoops, holding his hat and stroking his chin. He also wears a tailcoat; his head has an exaggerated forehead, nose and chin, and he has an exaggerated hunch on his back. Falstaff is rendered in grey to show his status as a ghost; like Albert Edward he is bearded and overweight, but he wears medieval costume including a sword and hood, and carries a plumed hat.

In a cartoon published by the popular periodical Punch, yet another Prince of Wales is found in company with a Falstaff figure.

The cartoon is accompanied by a scripted scene, in which Edward and Mr Punch travel to the haunted site of the Boar's Head Tavern and encounter the ghost of Falstaff, who acknowledges that he has worthy successors in late Victorian London.

Published to mark the future Edward VII's fiftieth birthday, the cartoon highlights the disparity between Shakespeare's youthful Prince of Wales and this middle-aged one, whose physical corpulence equally invites the comparison with Falstaff.

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