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Stakespeare 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 Don John is the main-spring of the plot of this play; but he is merely shown, and then withdrawn."

Among the most original and ingenious of the Shakespeare critics of Germany is Dr. Ulrici, whose "Essay on Shakespeare's Dramatic Wit, and his Relation to Calderon and Goethe" is founded mainly on the idea that Shakespeare's peculiar and essential difference from other dramatic poets consists in a view of human life suggested or unfolded by Christian revelation, in opposition to one derived from mythological paganism or natural reason. The reader will readily acknowledge a share of truth in this proposition; while, in the bold and unqualified manner in which it is announced, and the extent to which it is carried, it has much the air of paradoxical hypothesis. We are indebted to an excellent paper on Shakespearian literature, in the "Edinburgh Review," for 1840, for the following abridgment of Ulrici's analysis of the comedy before us :

"Ulrici's theory, as to the leading idea of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, is exceedingly ingenious. He considers the play as a representation of the contrast and contradiction between life, in its real essence, and the aspect which it presents to those who are engaged in its struggle. And this contradiction, he tells us, is set forth in an acted commentary on the title of the drama-a series of incidents which, in themselves neither real nor strange, nor important, are regarded by the actors as being all these things. The war at the opening, it is said, begins without reason and ends without result; Don Pedro seems to woo Hero for himself, while he gains her for his friend; Benedick and Beatrice, after carrying on a merry campaign of words without real enmity, are entrapped into marriage without real love; the leading story rests in a seeming faithlessness, and its results are a seeming death and funeral, a challenge which produces no fighting, and a marriage in which the bride is a pretender; and the weakness and shadowiness of human wishes and plans are exposed with yet more cutting irony in the means that bring about the fortunate catastrophe-an accident in which the unwitting agents, headed by Dogberry, the very representative of the idea of the piece, are the lowest and most stupid characters of the whole group. The Poet's readers may hesitate in following his speculative critic the whole way in this journey to the temple of abstract truth; but there can be no reasonable doubt that, for a long part of it, he has followed the right track. And it is interesting to trace how that great rule of the Poet, which Coleridge has set down as characteristic of himhis general avoidance of surprises-is here, as elsewhere, made subservient to the immediate purpose."

Campbell's remarks on this play are written in a more worldly spirit, and in a splenetic humour :

"I fully agree with the admirers of this play in their opinion as to the most of its striking merits. The scene of the young and guiltless heroine struck speechless by the accusation of her lover, and swooning at the foot of the nuptial altar, is deeply touching. There is eloquence in her speechlessness, and we may apply the words, 'Ipsa silentia terrent,' amidst the silence of those who have not the ready courage to defend her, while her father's harsh and hasty belief of her guilt crowns the pathos of her desolation. At this crisis, the exclamation of Beatrice, the sole believer in her innocence, 'O! on my soul, my cousin is belied,' is a relieving and glad voice in the wilderness, which almost reconciles me to Beatrice's otherwise disagreeable character. I agree also that Shakespeare has, all the while, afforded the means of softening our dismayed compassion for Hero, by our previous knowledge of her innocence, and we are sure that she shall be exculpated. Yet who, but Shakespeare, could dry our tears of interest for Hero, by so laughable an agent as the immortal Dogberry? I beg pardon for having allowed that Falstaff makes us forget all the other comic creations of our Poet. How

could I have overlooked you, my Launce, and my Launce's dog, and my Dogberry? To say that Falstaff makes us forget Dogberry is, as Dogberry himself would say, most tolerable and not to be endured. And yet Shakespeare, after pouncing on this ridiculous prey, springs up, forthwith, to high dramatic effect, in making Claudio, who had mistakenly accused Hero, so repentant as to consentingly marry another woman, her supposed cousin, under a veil, which, when it is lifted, displays his own vindicated bride, who had been supposed to have died of grief, but who is now restored to him, like another Alcestis, from the grave.

"At the same time, if Shakespeare were looking over iny shoulder, I could not disguise some objections to this comedy, which involuntarily strike me as debarring it from ranking among our Poet's most enchanting dramas. I am on the whole, I trust, a liberal on the score of dramatic probability. Our fancy and its faith delighted withal; but, if I may use a vulgar saying, ‘a are no niggards in believing whatsoever they may be willing horse should not be ridden too hard.' Our fanciful faith is misused when it is spurred and impelled to believe that Don John, without one particle of love for Hero, but out of mere personal spite to Claudio, should contrive the infernal treachery which made the latter assuredly jealous. Moreover, during one half of the play, we have a disagreeable female character in that of Beatrice. Her portrait, I may be told, is deeply drawn, and minutely finished. It is; and so is that of Benedick, who is entirely her counterpart, except that he is less disagreeable. But the best-drawn portraits by the finest masters may be admirable in execution, though unpleasant to contemplate, and Beatrice's portrait is in this category. She is a tartar, by Shakespeare's own showing, and, if a natural woman, is not a pleasing representative of the sex. In befriending Hero, she almost reconciles us to her, but not entirely; for a good heart, that shows itself only on extraordinary occasions, is no sufficient atonement for a bad temper, which Beatrice evidently shows. The marriage of the marriage-hating Benedick and the furiously anti-nuptial Beatrice is brought about by a trick. Their friends contrive to deceive them into a belief that they love each other, and partly by vanity-partly by a mutual affection, which had been disguised under the bickerings of their wit-they have their hands joined, and the consolations of religion are administered, by the priest who marries them, to the unhappy sufferers.

"Mrs. Jameson, in her characters of Shakespeare, concludes with hoping that Beatrice will live happy with Benedick; but I have no such hope; and my final anticipation in reading the play is the certainty that Beatrice will provoke her Benedick to give her much and just conjugal castigation. She is an odious woman. Her own cousin says of her

Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
Misprizing what they look on-and her wit
Values itself so highly, that to her

All matters else seem weak. She cannot love,
Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
She is so self-endeared."

"I once knew such a pair; the lady was a perfect Beatrice; she railed hypocritically at wedlock before her marriage, and with bitter sincerity after it. She and her Benedick now live apart, but with entire reciprocity of sentiments, each devoutly wishing that the other may soon pass into a better world. Beatrice is not to be compared, but contrasted with Rosalind, who is equally witty; but the sparkling sayings of Rosalind are like gems upon her head at court, and like dewdrops on her bright hair in the woodland forest."

We extract this last criticism, partly in deference to Campbell's general exquisite taste and reverent appreciation of Shakespeare's genius, and partly as an example of the manner in which accidental personal associations influence taste and opinion. The critical poet seems to have unhappily suffered under the caprices or insolence of some accomplished but fantastical female

wit, whose resemblance he thinks he recognizes in Beatrice; and then vents the offences of the belle of Edinburgh, or London, upon her prototype of Messina, or more probably of the court of Queen Elizabeth. Those who, without encountering any such unlucky cause of personal prejudice, have looked long enough upon the rapidly passing generations of wits and beauties in the gay world to have noted their characters as they first appeared, and subsequently developed themselves in after life, will pronounce a very different judgment. Beatrice's faults are such as ordinarily spring from the consciousness of talent and beauty, accompanied with the high spirits of youth and health, and the play of a lively fancy. Her brilliant intellectual qualities are associated with strong and generous feelings, high confidence in female truth and virtue, warm attachment to her friends, and quick, undisguised indignation at wrong and injustice. There is the rich material, which the experience and the sorrows of maturer life, the affection and the duties of the wife and the mother, can gradually shape into the noblest forms of matronly excellence; and

such, we doubt not, was the result shown in the married life of Beatrice.

The objection to the character of the Bastard John goes deeper into the sources of human action. It denies the truth of such a character, for reasons which would apply also to that of Iago. I wish, for the honour of human nature, that the objection were well founded; and that the Poet had here drawn an unreal character, acting from motives such as never influence conduct in real life. But, unhappily, it is not so. Experience shows too many instances of the infliction of causeless and bitter injury, without any adequate personal motive, of passion or of interest, to suffer us to doubt the truth or probability of John, or Iago. Self-generated envy and hatred, the natural "strong antipathy of bad to good," the Satanic pleasure of making others feel pangs similar to those which guilt has made familiar to their own breasts, the very gratification derived from the exercise of malignant power,-every one of these has prompted many deeds and plots, surpassing in guilt the revenge or hatred of ambition, rivalry, or jealousy.

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