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THIS play may be justly said to contain two of the most sprightly characters that Shakspeare ever drew. The wit, the humourist, the gentleman, and the soldier are combined in Benedick. It is to be lamented, indeed, that the first and most splendid of these distinctions is disgraced by unnecessary profaneness; for the goodness of his heart is hardly sufficient to atone for the licence of his tongue. The too sarcastic levity, which flashes out in the conversation of Beatrice, may be excused on account of the steadiness and friendship so apparent in her behaviour, when she urges her lover to risk his life by a challenge to Claudio. In the conduct of the fable, however, there is an imperfection similar to that which Dr. Johnson has pointed out in The Merry Wives of Windsor:-the second contrivance is less ingenious than the first-or, to speak more plainly, the same incident is become stale by repetition. I wish some other method had been found to entrap Beatrice, than that very one which before had been successfully practised on Benedick *.

Much Ado about Nothing, (as I understand from one of Mr. Vertue's MSS.) formerly passed under the title of Benedick and Beatrix. Heming the player received, on the 20th of May, 1613, the sum of forty pounds, and twenty pounds more as his Majesty's gratuity, for exhibiting six plays at Hampton Court, among which was this comedy. STEEVENS.

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Mr. Pye thus answers the objection of Steevens. intention of the poet was to show that persons of either sex might be made in love with each other by supposing themselves beloved, though they were before enemies; and how he could have done this by any other means I do not know. He wanted to show the sexes were alike in this case, and to have employed different motives would have counteracted his own design.'

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PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

WE may presume the plot of this play to have been the invention of Shakspeare, as the diligence of his commentators has failed to trace the sources from whence it is derived. Steevens says that the hint for it was probably received from Chaucer's Knight's Tale.

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In the Midsummer Night's Dream,' says Schlegel, there flows a luxuriant vein of the boldest and most fantastical invention; the most extraordinary combination of the most dissimilar ingredients seems to have arisen without effort by some ingenious and lucky accident, and the colours are of such clear transparency that we think that the whole of the variegated fabric may be blown away with a breath. The fairy world here described resembles those elegant pieces of Arabesque, where little Genii, with butterfly wings, rise half embodied above the flower cups. Twilight, moonshine, dew, and spring-perfumes are the element of these tender spirits; they assist nature in embroidering her carpet with green leaves, many coloured flowers, and dazzling insects; in the human world they merely sport in a childish and wayward manner with their beneficent or noxious influences. Their most violent rage dissolves in good-natured raillery; their passions, stripped of all earthly matter, are merely an ideal dream. To correspond with this, the loves of mortals are painted as a poetical enchantment, which, by a contrary enchantment, may be immediately suspended, and then renewed again. The dif ferent parts of the plot; the wedding of Theseus, the disagreement of Oberon and Titania, the flight of the two pair of lovers, and the theatrical operations of the mechanics, are so lightly and happily interwoven, that they seem necessary to each other for the formation of a whole. Oberon is desirous of relieving the lovers from their perplexities, and greatly adds to them through the misapprehension of his servant, till he at last comes to the aid of their fruitless amorous pain, their inconstancy and jealousy, and restores fidelity to its old rights. The extremes of fanciful and vulgar are united when the enchanted Titania awakes and falls in love with a coarse mechanic with an ass's head, who represents, or rather disfigures the part of a tragical lover. The droll wonder of the transmutation of Bottom is merely the translation of a metaphor in its literal sense; but, in his behaviour during the tender homage of the Fairy Queen, we have a most amusing proof how much the consciousness of such a head-dress heightens the effect of his usual folly. Theseus and Hippolita are, as it were, a splendid frame for the picture; they take no part in the action, but appear with a stately pomp. The discourse of the hero and his Amazon, as they course through the

forest with their noisy hunting train, works upon the imagination like the fresh breath of morning, before which the shapes of night disappear*.'

This is a production of the youthful and vigorous imagination of the poet. Malone places the date of its composition in 1594. There are two quarto editions, both printed in 1600: one by Thomas Fisher, the other by James Roberts.

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HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to
Theseus.

HERMIA, Daughter of Egeus, in love with Lysander.
HELENA, in love with Demetrius.

OBERON, King of the Fairies.

TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies.

PUCK, or ROBIN-GOODFELLOW, a Fairy.

PEAS-BLOSSOM,

COBWEB,

Fairies.

Мотн,

MUSTARD-SEED,

PYRAMUS,

THISBE,

WALL,

Characters in the Interlude per-
formed by the Clowns.

MOONSHINE,

LION,

Other Fairies attending their King and Queen.
Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta.

SCENE, Athens, and a Wood not far from it.

* Lectures on Dramatic Literature, vol. ii. p. 176.

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