spark to her fancy. Born of the passing thought, and "delivered upon the mellowing of occasion," it seems to come from her as freely, as unconsciously, and as inexhaustibly as her breath. Though of the most piercing keenness, and the most exquisite aptness, there is, however, no trace of ill-nature about it; it stings, indeed, but does not poison; cuts, but hurts not; and we almost fancy that we see it sparkling in her eyes, dancing in her features, and irradiating her whole person with smiles as she utters it. The offsping merely of the moment and the occasion, it strikes the fancy but leaves no trace on the memory; falls,

"Like snow-flakes on a river,

A moment white, then gone forever:"

indeed it will not bear remembering or even repeating; it loses all its edge, ceases to be wit, the moment it is taken out of her lips, and disjoined from the object or the occasion that begets it. But if we forget it as soon as it is uttered, we also feel assured that she forgets it as soon as we do; and we are as sure to remember what she is, as we are to forget what she says. The agility and readiness of her wit are infinite: wherever

it

may be, the moment one goes to put his hand upon it, he is sure to find or feel it somewhere else. She appears to use it, either for the entertainment of her friends, or because she cannot help it, not because she is vain of it, or wishes to hurt with it. Such is the general quality of her wit; though it assumes a much deeper, richer tone in her impassioned moments, as when, burning with grief and resentment for the inju

ries heaped on her cousin, she instigates Benedick to kill Claudio; and he vows to do so, or die in the attempt for her love; where she discloses a depth and tenderness of feeling which strikes us the more powerfully for its contrast with all that has hitherto come from her, and shows that, after all, she is a witty woman, and by no means a mere female wit.

The wit of Benedick, on the other hand, is in great part the offspring of reflection, ever growing with the growth, and strengthening with the strength of thought. It therefore finds or makes its own occasion; never waiting for the presence or provocation of others, but pouring itself forth in the greatest perfection and greatest profusion in his solitary musings. With all the pungency and nearly all the pleasantry, it lacks the free spontaneous volubility of hers. Accordingly, in their wit-combats she always gets the better of him, either because he cannot, or, from a feeling of gallantry, will not be up to her; so that she uniformly comes off laughing with an air of triumph, he halting with an air of depression from their jest-breaking encounters. But he makes ample amends when he gets out of her presence; his wit, starting from reflection, gains impetus by going, and he trundles it off in whole paragraphs. In short, if his wit be slower, it is also much deeper and stronger than hers: not so agile and easy in manner, more solid and searching in matter, it shines less, but burns more; and as it springs much less out of the occasion, so it will bear repeating much better than hers. Thus, relating his encounter with her at the masquerade, he says: "An oak with but one green leaf on it, would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life

and scold with her she told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jester; that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible conveyance, upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me; she speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect the north star." Again, speaking to the prince, as he sees her coming: "Will your grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the antipodes, that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the farthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the pigmies, rather than hold three word's conference with this harpy."

Hazlitt pronounces Benedick a woman-hater; why he does so, I know not, unless from a desire to find respectable prototypes for himself. Benedick, it seems to me, is equally removed from a woman-hater and from a lady's-man; has too much good nature to be the former, too much self-respect to be the latter, and too much wisdom to be either. Indeed, he himself expressly says, "Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none." It is because he cannot help thinking of them, that he is continually cracking jokes about them: it is because he is deeply taken with Beatrice that he so constantly makes her the target of his wit. In natures like his, hatred always manifests itself in contempt; and contempt would not be continually breaking jests with its object.-To make

two such beings as he and Beatrice sigh like a furnace for each other, without any violence to truth and nature, belongs to but few; Shakspeare has made it seem far more natural for them to do so than otherwise.—These two characters, though perhaps not very instructive, are among the most entertaining the poet has given us.

1

LECTURE VII.

TWELFTH NIGHT—ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL-AS YOU LIKE IT.

IN Love's Labour's Lost the persons seem, for most part, to have taken up wit as a distinct pursuit, to have made it a matter of art and study; consequently, their freaks and oddities are more or less a matter of show, and vanity, and emulation; are somewhat strained and far-fetched; the affectations of persons trying to appear what they are not, rather than the free, spontaneous transpiration of innate peculiarities. Doubtless this should be set down mainly to the persons themselves, not to the poet. It all sorts admirably with the extravagant whim of the leading characters, and is indeed one. of the excellencies of the play, as a representation of manners. Into Twelfth Night, on the contrary, are poured all the humours and comicalities of which comedy seems capable; yet they all seem to spring up of their own accord. The comic characters are free alike from disguises, and from pretensions; act neither to conceal nor display themselves, but merely to indulge their humours and inclinations; care not whether every body or nobody sees them, so they have their whim out; and give utterance to folly and nonsense, not with a view to provoke laughter or gain notoriety, but simply because they cannot help it. Thus the very deformities of the characters have a sort of grace about