"The interest in the plot," he continues, "is always, in fact, on account of the characters, not vice versa, as in almost all other writers; the plot is a mere canvass, and no more. Hence arises the true justification of the same stratagem being used in regard to Benedick and Beatrice, the vanity in each being alike. Take away from the Much Ado About Nothing' all that which is not indispensable to the plot, either as having little to do with it, or, at best, like Dogberry and his comrades, forced into the service, when any other less ingeniously absurd watchmen and night-constables would have answered the mere necessities of the action; take away Benedick, Beatrice, Dogberry, and the reaction of the former on the character of Hero,-and what will remain? In other writers the main agent of the plot is always the prominent character; in Shakespeare it is so, or is not so, as the character is in itself calculated, or not calculated, to form the plot. Don John is the mainspring of the plot of this play, but he is merely shown and then withdrawn."*

A little more attention to this view of the matter might have saved more than one critic from pronouncing some notable misjudgments upon this piece, and especially as regards the character of Beatrice. Campbell, for instance, might have deliberated longer before he declared her, in one emphatic word, to be "an odious woman." Hazlitt might have hesitated even to tell us that she "turns all things into ridicule, and is proof against everything serious." And Mrs. Jameson, while admitting, as she does, the strong intellect and generous feeling that characterize this heroine, might have been led to see that they are something more than the merely secondary constituents in her dramatic being. Indeed, when we are told respecting any leading female character of Shakespeare, that, upon the whole, wit and wilfulness predominate in it over intellect and feeling, we may fairly suspect that such critic's view of that character is distorted or imperfect. Yet more, when we are told that, in a Shakespearian drama of which prosperous love is the principal subject, the heroine is nothing less than an odious personage, we may pretty safely reject the allegation altogether.

The first critical oversight, then, which has com

*Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 80-81.

monly been committed in examining this play, has been the not perceiving that the complete unfolding of the characters of Beatrice and her lover forms the capital business of the piece. The second error, involving such strange misconceptions respecting the heroine in particular, has been the overlooking or disregarding that close affinity which the dramatist has established between the two characters, rendering them, as far as the difference of sex will permit, so nearly each other's counterpart, that any argument that shall prove odiousness in the one, must of inevitable necessity demonstrate it in the other. Consequent on these is the third and most important error of all in estimating the predominant spirit of this drama. Its critics have overlooked entirely the art with which the dramatist has contrived and used the incidents of the piece in such manner as to bring out, by distinct and natural gradations, the profound seriousness which lies beneath all the superficial levity seen at first in the true hero and heroine,-until the very pair who have given the most decidedly comic character to the outset of the play, are found on the point of giving it the most tragic turn towards its close.

The task therefore, which more especially lies before us, is, to trace distinctly, from the dramatist's own lucid page, this parallel progress of the two leading characters in question. In doing this, the most natural order seems to prescribe that we should begin with shewing what is the true spirit and quality of that exuberant wit in the heroine which the critics have interpreted so terribly to her disadvantage.

Mrs. Jameson, though deviating less into the misconceptions respecting this character than most of the male critics with whom we are acquainted, yet declares to us :—

"In her wit (which is brilliant without being imaginative) there is a touch of insolence not unfrequent in women, when the wit predominates over reflection and imagination. In her temper, too, there is a slight infusion of the termagant; and her satirical humour plays with such an unrespective levity over all

subjects alike, that it required a profound knowledge of women to bring such a character within the pale of our sympathy."

Again, in a following page of the same essay :

"A haughty, excitable, and violent temper is another of the characteristics of Beatrice," &c.

But how, we would ask, is this estimate of the nature of Beatrice's temper, and the quality of her humour, to be reconciled with that significant piece of dialogue on the subject which we find introduced in the second act, when the heroine has already made a full display of her wit in all its exuberant freedom, before the auditor, and before her uncle's princely guests?

Beatrice. But I beseech your grace, pardon me; I was born to speak all mirth, and no matter.

Don Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour.

Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cry'd; but then, there was a star danced, and under that was I born.

Don Ped. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.

Leonato. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord; she is never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then: for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamed of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing.

Surely, no terms can well be devised more expressive of a disposition to good-humoured gaiety and raillery, as opposed to everything ill-humouredly sarcastic and satirical. We have not only the lady herself protesting that she speaks "all mirth;" not only the testimony of her uncle and guardian, supported by that of his daughter-with whom she has been brought up as a sister-that her disposition is devoid of "the melancholy element;" but here is the prince himself, after a full and varied experience of her deportment and conversation, declaring her to be "a pleasantspirited lady." On this consideration it is, that he so immediately determines," She were an excellent wife for Benedick,”—not in mere levity, as the critics seem commonly to have construed it, but in serious care for

the welfare of this other favoured follower of his, as he had already shown it in providing so advantageous a match for his prime favourite, the count Claudio. It should be observed, also, that the Prince's declaration of her fitness to become the wife of Benedick is made by way of rejoinder to Leonato's assurance that "she mocks all her wooers out of suit;" so that Don Pedro, when observing just before, "She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband," had already satisfied himself that this non-endurance of hers, like all the rest of her raillery, had no serious intention, but, according to her own definition, was "all mirth, and no matter.'

What else, indeed, can any unprejudiced reader or auditor infer from that passage in the opening of this same act, where Beatrice, on occasion of Don Pedro's expected wooing of her cousin, gives the fullest career to her laughing humour on the subject of marriage ?

Leon. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.

Antonio. In faith, she is too curst.

Beat. Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's sending, that way for it is said, God sends a curst cow short horns; but to a cow too curst he sends none.

Leon. So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns. Beat. Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord! I could not endure a husband, with a beard on his face; I had rather lie in the woollen.

Leon. You may light upon a husband that hath no beard. Beat. What should I do with him?-dress him in my apparel, and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth; and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him. Therefore, I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-herd, and lead his apes into hell.

Leon. Well then, go you into hell?

Beat. No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids: so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens;

he shews me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

i

Leon. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.

Beat. Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman, to be over-mastered with a piece of valiant dust?-to make an account of her life to a clod of

wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.

Leon. Daughter, remember what I told you; if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.

Beat. The fault will be in tne music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero :—wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.

Leon. Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.

Beat. I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.

Then, how little of the spirit of a genuine satirist of matrimony do we find in all Beatrice's words and behaviour respecting the courtship and betrothing of her cousin. Take, for instance, the following brief dialogue relating to the latter:

Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it.

Beat. Speak, count, 'tis your cue.

Claudio. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you, and dote upon the exchange.

Beat. Speak, cousin; or if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let him not speak neither.

Don Ped. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.

Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care.-My cousin tells him in his ear, that he is in her heart.

Claud. And so she doth, cousin.

Beat. Good lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I-and I am sun-burned; I may sit in a corner, and cry, heigh ho! for a husband. . . Cousins, God give you joy!