witty struggles to turn the tables on each other. How delightful is the last glimpse we get of them! Beatrice, to tease Benedick, has been holding back among the other ladies, when he expects that she would be ready to go with him to the altar; and when at last, fairly puzzled, he asks, "Which is Beatrice?" and she unmasks, with the words, "What is your will?" he inquires, with an air of surprise, "Do not you love me?" What follows gives us once more the bright, joyous, brilliant Beatrice of the early scenes: –
"Beat. Why, no! No more than reason.
Bene. Why, then, your uncle, the Prince, and Claudio, have been deceived; they swore you did.
Beat. Do not you love me?
Bene. Troth, no! No more than reason.
Beat. Why, then, my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula, are much deceived; for they did swear you did.
Bene. They swore that you were almost sick for me.
Beat. They swore that you were wellnigh dead for me.
Bene. 'Tis no such matter: – Then you do not love me?
Beat. No, truly, but in friendly recompense."
And they break away from each other, as if all were over between them. But when their love sonnets each to the other are produced by Claudio and Hero, there can be but one end. Still, however, the war of wit goes on.
"Bene. A miracle! here's our own hands against our hearts! Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity!
Beat. I would not deny you; – but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion; and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption."
Beatrice has, as usual, the best of it in this encounter, but Benedick is too happy to care for such defeat. He knows he has won her heart, and that it is a heart of gold. He can, therefore, well afford to smile at the epigrams of "a college of wit-crackers," and the quotation against himself of his former smart sayings about lovers and married men. His home, I doubt not, will be a happy one – all the happier because Beatrice and he have each a strong individuality, with fine spirits and busy brains, which will keep life from stagnating. They will always be finding out something new and interesting in each other's character. As for Beatrice, at least, one feels sure that Benedick will have a great deal to discover and to admire in her the more he knows her. She will prove the fitness of her name, as Beatrice (the giver of happiness), and he will be glad to confess himself blest indeed (Benedictus) in having won her.
One might go on writing of this delightful play for ever. But it is not for me to go further into its merits. No doubt such criticism has often been written by abler hands. I have but to do with Beatrice, and I can only hope that, in impersonating her, I have given one-half the pleasure to my audience that I have had in taking upon me her nature for the time. Such representations were to me a pure holiday. However tired I might be when the play began, the pervading joyousness of her character soon took hold of me, and bore me delightedly on. The change to this bright, high-spirited, gallant-hearted lady, from the more soul-absorbing and pathetic heroines which on most occasions it fell to my lot to represent, was welcome to my often wearied spirits as a breeze from the sea.
I have told you of my first performance of Beatrice. Before I
