MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 'Much Ado about Nothing) is first mentioned in August 1600 and was printed in the same year. It is not referred to in Meres's famous list of Shakespeare's plays in 1598, unless indeed it is to be identified with the mysterious comedy, 'Love's Labour's Won,' which Meres includes among Shakespeare's works. That 'Much Ado,) in some less finished form than we now have, had been staged as early as 1598 under the title of 'Love's Labour's Won,' is a bare possibility which hardly warrants speculation, but there is this to be said in its favor : it occu pies among the comedies of Shakespeare's full maturity a position very analogous to that which Love's Labour's Lost,' has among the early comedies. Each of these plays, when compared with others of the same period (with 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona' and 'A Midsummer Night's Dream) or with 'As You Like It,' 'Twelfth Night,' and 'All's Well that Ends Well') impresses the reader as a drama of the intellect rather than of the heart. Intrigue and wirciVerbalance romance in both, and personal planning largely takes the place of delectable chance. Benedick and Beatrice are finished studies which seem to have developed out of the sketches of Biron and Rosaline in 'Love's Labour's Lost.' It goes with what has been said that this is a play of prose rather than_poetry, O of epigram rather than sentiment. Only a quarter of the lines are in verse, and this verse is seldom notable. The unfailing charm of the comedy lies in the infinitely- brilliant superficiality of Beatrice and Benedick, the two arch-enemies of romance — in the unemo tional cut and thrust of their badinage; and, next, in the ludicrous realism of the constables, Dogberry and Verges. All testimonies agree that this comedy is one of Shakespeare's most complete successes. It is also a remarkable evidence of the author's versatility, for it proves that he could execute with unsurpassed spirit and skill a type of play for which his other greater works would indicate that he had little natural inclination. 'Much Ado about
Nothing' is the only one of Shakespeare's major dramas which one can imagine that Congreve or Sheridan might have written. On the stage it has always been triumphant. When compared with its special corrivals among Shakespeare's comedies — the more romantic 'As You Like It' and 'Twelfth Night'— it impresses one as suited rather more to the theatre and rather less to the study. About a quarter-century after the poet's death, it was selected by Leonard Digges among the special examples of Shakespeare's drawing power: " Let but Beatrice And Benedick be seen. lo. in a trice The Cockpit, Galleries, Boxes, all are full." (1640) David Garrick was a famous Benedick, and nearly all the greatest actresses have found opportunities for added laurels in Beatrice. The source of this play is relatively unimportant, for the greatest parts of it — the clownery of the constables and the figures of Beatrice and Benedick — seem to have sprung spontaneously from Shakespeare's brain. That part of the plot, however, which concerns Hero, Claudio and Don John is paralleled in several earlier works, in Spenser's 'Faerie Queene> (Bk. IV, ii), in Ariosto's Furioso' (Bk. V), and particularly in the 20th tale of Bandello's Italian novelle (printed 1554). It appears to have been from the last (possibly in the French or in some now unknown English version) that Shakespeare drew his hints; but the dramatist, besides altering the material in details, so sub ordinates it to the newer themes that it is likely to impress modern taste as either repellent or uninteresting.