It is not the repartees of Benedick and
Beatrice, but the immortal fatuity of Dogberry, that the name of _Much
Ado About Nothing_ recalls. None of the verbal quips of Touchstone
tickle us like his exquisite patronage of William and the fascination
which he exercises over the melancholy Jaques. And it is the same
throughout all Shakspeare. It is of the humours of Bottom, and Launce,
and Shallow, and Sly, and Aguecheek; it is of the laughter that treads
upon the heels of horror and pity and awe, as we listen to the
Porter in _Macbeth_, to the Grave-digger in _Hamlet_, to the Fool in
_Lear_--it is of these that we think when we think of Shakspeare in
any other but his purely poetic mood. Whenever, that is to say, we
think of him as anything but a poet, we think of him, not as a wit,
but as a humourist. So, too, it is not the dagger-thrusts of the
_Drapier's Letters_, but the broad ridicule of the _Voyage to Laputa_,
the savage irony of the _Voyage to the Houyhnhnms_, that we associate
with the name of Swift. And, conversely, it is the cold, epigrammatic
glitter of Congreve's dialogue, the fizz and crackle of the fireworks
which Sheridan serves out with undiscriminating hand to the most
insignificant of his characters--it is this which stamps the work of
these dramatists with characteristics far more marked than any which
belong to them in right of humorous portraiture of human foibles or
ingenious invention of comic incident.
Pages:
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216