From The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors, ed. Charles Wells Moulton, 8 vols. (London: Moulton Publishing, 1901), 1: 495-96.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
1599
Much adoe about | Nothing. | As it hath been sundrie times publickely | acted by the right honourable, the Lord | Chamberlaine his seruants. | Written by William Shakespeare. | London | Printed by V. S. for Andrew Wise, and | William Aspley. | 1600. -- TITLE PAGE OF FIRST EDITION, 1600.
This play is so witty so playful, so abundant in strong writing, and rich humour, that it has always attracted universal applause. The beauties it contains are innumerable, they are a cluster, and are set so thick that they scarcely afford one another relief, and yet the best critic would find it difficult to say which of them ought to be displaced. -- DIBDIN, CHARLES, 1795, A Complete History of the Stage, vol. III, p. 80.
Perhaps that middle point of comedy was never more nicely hit in which the ludicrous blends with the tender, and our follies, turning round against themselves in support of our affections, retain nothing but their humanity. -- HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1817-69, Characters of Shakespear's Plays, p. 214.
The interest in the plot is always in fact on account of the characters, not vice versa, as in almost all other writers; the plot is a mere canvas and no more. Hence arises the true justification of the same stratagem being used in regard to Benedick and Beatrice, -- the vanity in each being alike. Take away from the "Much Ado About Nothing" all that which is not indispensable to the plot, either as having little to do with it, or, at best, like Dogberry and his comrades, forced into the service, when any other less ingeniously absurd watchmen and night-constables would have answered the mere necessities of the action, -- take away Benedick, Beatrice, Dogberry, and the reaction of the former on the character of Hero, -- and what will remain? In other writers the main agent of the plot is always the prominent character; in Shakspere it is so, or is not so, as the character is in itself calculated, or not calculated, to form the plot. Don John is the main-spring of the plot of this play, but he is merely shown and then withdrawn. -- COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1818, Lectures and Notes on Shakspere, ed. Ashe, p. 239.
Shakspeare has exhibited in Beatrice a spirited and faithful portrait of the fine lady of his own time. The deportment, language, manners, and allusions, are those of a particular class in a particular age; but the individual and dramatic character which forms the groundwork, is strongly discriminated; and being taken from general nature, belongs to every age. In Beatrice, high intellect and high animal spirits meet, and excite each other like fire and air. In her wit (which is brilliant without being imaginative,) there is a touch of insolence, not unfrequent in women when the wit predominates over reflection and imagination. In her temper, too, there is a slight infusion of the termagant; and her satirical humour plays with such an unrespective levity over all subjects alike, that it required a profound knowledge of women to bring such a character within the pale of our sympathy. But Beatrice, though wilful, is not wayward; she is volatile, not unfeeling. She has not only an exuberance of wit and gayety, but of heart, and soul, and energy of spirit, and is no more like the fine ladies of modern comedy, -- whose wit consists in a temporary allusion, or a play upon words, and whose petulance is displayed in a toss of the head, a flirt of the fan, or a flourish of the pocket handkerchief -- than one of our modern dandies is like Sir Philip Sidney. In Beatrice, Shakspeare has contrived that the poetry of the character shall not only soften, but heighten its comic effect. -- JAMESON, ANNA BROWNELL, 1832, Characteristics of Women.
Our interest in Claudio is secured by this blending of the moral elements in his nature, but the foundation for a comedy and for a comic character does not appear to lie either in him or in the whole action in which Claudio is implicated. If we separate it from the rest, we shall retain a painful and not a cheerful impression. -- GERVINUS, G. G., 1849-62, Shakespeare Commentaries, tr. Bunnett, p. 414.
If it is proverbially impossible to determine by selection the greatest work of Shakespeare, it is easy enough to decide on the date and the name of his most perfect comic masterpiece. For absolute power of composition, for faultless balance and blameless rectitude of design there is unquestionably no creation of his hand that will bear comparison with "Much Ado About Nothing." -- SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES, 1880, A Study of Shakspeare, p. 153.
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