The discovery that this was merely a malicious fiction would have put most men upon their guard against believing any further innuendo from the same quarter. But Claudio is ready to give credence to Don John's subsequent accusation against Hero, and to jump to the conclusion that it is true, upon evidence which could have misled no manly and generous mind. The very look, morose and vindictive, of Don John, ought to have inspired him with distrust. What that look was Beatrice puts vividly before us in a sentence or two at the opening of the Second Act. The whole passage is delightful.
"Leonato. Was not Count John here at supper?
Antonio. I saw him not.
Beatrice. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him, but I am heart-burned an hour after.
Hero. He is of a very melancholy disposition.
Beat. He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image, and says nothing; and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.
Leon. Then half Signor Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signor Benedick's face –
Beat. With a good leg, and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man could win any woman in the world, – if he could get her good-will.
Leon. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of tongue.
Beat. ... For the which blessing I am upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord! I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face. ...
Leon. You may light upon a husband that hath no beard.
Beat. What should I do with him? Dress him in my apparel, and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth; and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him."
Who does not see, what a pleasant person Beatrice must have been in her uncle's home, with all this power of saying the quaint and unexpected things which bubble up from an uncontrollable spirit of enjoyment? Her frankness must indeed have been a pleasant foil to the somewhat characterless and over-gentle Hero. See how fearlessly she presently tells Hero not to take a husband of her father's choosing, unless he pleases herself. She has just heard of the Prince's intention to make suit to Hero at the coming masked ball, and when Antonio tells Hero that he trusts she will not follow Beatrice's creed, but "be ruled by her father," Beatrice rejoins –
"Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsey, and say, 'As it pleases you:' – but yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsey, and say, 'Father, as it pleases me!'"
Leonato loves Beatrice too well to be angry at this instigation to possible rebellion, and only answers her with the words, "Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband." Beatrice is by no means at the end of her resources. She is bent on making light of all matrimonial projects. In what she goes on to say we have the counterpart of what Benedick, in the previous scene, had said to Don Pedro and Claudio; and so the groundwork is laid for the coming contrast between their protestations of resolute celibacy and their subsequent engagement.
"Beat. Not till Heaven make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? To make account of her life
