Whilst it was ours.—­So will it fare with Claudio;
     When he shall hear she dy’d upon his words,
     The idea of her love shall sweetly creep
     Into his study of imagination;
     And every lovely organ of her life
     Shall come apparel’d in more precious habit,
     More moving, delicate, and full of life,
     Into the eye and prospect of his soul,
     Than when she liv’d indeed.

The principal comic characters in much ado about nothing, Benedick and Beatrice, are both essences in their kind.  His character as a woman-hater is admirably supported, and his conversion to matrimony is no less happily effected by the pretended story of Beatrice’s love for him.  It is hard to say which of the two scenes is the best, that of the trick which is thus practised on Benedick, or that in which Beatrice is prevailed on to take pity on him by overhearing her cousin and her maid declare (which they do on purpose) that he is dying of love for her.  There is something delightfully picturesque in the manner in which Beatrice is described as coming to hear the plot which is contrived against herself: 

For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
 Close by the ground, to hear our conference.

In consequence of what she hears (not a word of which s true) she exclaims when these good-natured informants are gone: 

     What fire is in mine ears?  Can this be true? 
     Stand I condemn’d for pride and scorn so much? 
     Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride adieu! 
     No glory lives behind the back of such. 
     And, Benedick, love on, I will requite thee;
     Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand;
     If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee
     To bind our loves up in an holy band: 
     For others say thou dost deserve; and I
     Believe it better than reportingly.

And Benedick, on his part, is equally sincere in his repentance with equal reason, after he has heard the grey-beard, Leonato, and his friend, ‘Monsieur Love’, discourse of the desperate state of his supposed inamorata.

This can be no trick; the conference was sadly borne.—­They have the truth of this from Hero.  They seem to pity the lady; it seems her affections have the full bent.  Love me! why, it must be requited.  I hear how I am censur’d:  they say, I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say too, that she will rather die than give any sign of affection.—­I did never think to marry; I must not seem proud:—­happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending.  They say, the lady is fair; ’tis a truth, I can bear them witness:  and vir-tuous;—­’tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise—­but for loving me;—­by my troth it is no addition to her wit;—­nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her.—­I may chance to have some odd quirks and remnants of