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Much Ado About Nothing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2010

William Hazlitt
Edited by
J. H. Lobban
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Summary

This admirable comedy used to be frequently acted till of late years. Mr Garrick's Benedick was one of his most celebrated characters; and Mrs Jordan, we have understood, played Beatrice very delightfully. The serious part is still the most prominent here, as in other instances that we have noticed. Hero is the principal figure in the piece, and leaves an indelible impression on the mind by her beauty, her tenderness, and the hard trial of her love. The passage in which Claudio first makes a confession of his affection towards her, conveys as pleasing an image of the entrance of love into a youthful bosom as can well be imagined.

“Oh, my lord,

When you went onward with this ended action,

I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye,

That lik'd, but had a rougher task in hand

Than to drive liking to the name of love ;

But now I am return'd, and that war-thoughts

Have left their places vacant; in their rooms

Come thronging soft and delicate desires,

All prompting me how fair young Hero is,

Saying, I lik'd her ere I went to wars.”

In the scene at the altar, when Claudio, urged on by the villain Don John, brings the charge of incontinence against her, and as it were divorces her in the very marriage-ceremony, her appeals to her own conscious innocence and honour are made with the most affecting simplicity.

Type
Chapter
Information
Characters of Shakespeare's Plays , pp. 223 - 227
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009
First published in: 1908

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