much for the other’s pride of wit, and have each converted the other to the true faith.  But indeed that heresy was all along feigned as a refuge from merry persecutions; and the virtue of the thing is, that in the belief that they have each conquered the other’s assumed fastidiousness, they each lay aside their own.  The case involves a highly curious interplay of various motives on either side; and it is not easy to say whether vanity or generosity, the self-regarding or the self-forgetting emotions, are uppermost in the process.

The wit of these two persons, though seeming at first view much the same, is very nicely discriminated.  Beatrice, intelligent as she is, has little of reflection in her wit; but throws it off in rapid flashes whenever any object ministers a spark to her fancy.  Though of the most piercing keenness and the most exquisite aptness, there is no ill-nature about it; it stings indeed, but does not poison.  The offspring merely of the moment and the occasion, it catches the apprehension, but quickly slides from the memory.  Its agility is infinite; wherever it may be, the instant one goes to put his hand upon it, he is sure to find it or feel it somewhere else.  The wit of Benedick, on the other hand, springs more from reflection, and grows with the growth of thought.  With all the pungency, and nearly all the pleasantry of hers, it has less of spontaneous volubility.  Hence in their skirmishes she always gets the better of him; hitting him so swiftly, and in so many spots, as to bewilder his aim.  But he makes ample amends when out of her presence, trundling off jests in whole paragraphs.  In short, if his wit be slower, it is also stronger than hers:  not so agile of movement, more weighty in matter, it shines less, but burns more; and as it springs much less out of the occasion, so it bears repeating much better.  The effect of the serious events in bringing these persons to an armistice of wit is a happy stroke of art; and perhaps some such thing was necessary, to prevent the impression of their being jesters by trade.  It proves at least that Beatrice is a witty woman, and not a mere female wit.  To be sure, she is rather spicy than sweet; but then there is a kind of sweetness in spice,—­especially such spice as hers.

* * * * *

I have already referred to the apt naming of this play.  The general view of life which it presents answers well to the title.  The persons do indeed make or have much ado; but all the while to us who are in the secret, and ultimately to them also, all this much ado is plainly about nothing.  Which is but a common difference in the aspect of things as they appear to the spectators and the partakers; it needs but an average experience to discover that real life is full of just such passages:  what troubled and worried us yesterday made others laugh then, and makes us laugh to-day:  what we fret or grieve at in the progress, we still smile and make merry over in the result.