"Much adoe about Nothing. As it hath been sundrie times publikely 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." 4to. 36 leaves. Much Ado about Nothing occupies twenty-one pages in the folio of 1623, viz., from p. 101 to p. 121 inclusive, in the division of Comedies. It is there divided into Acts, but not into Scenes, and is without a list of Dramatis Personæ. In the quarto there is no division into Acts. (222) MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. INTRODUCTION. BA ANDELLO, an Italian novelist who died three years before Shakespeare was born, furnished him with the incident upon which this play hinges the trick by which Borachio slanders Hero to her lover. It is found also in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Book V., and in Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book II. Can. 4, an English translation of the former of which, by Sir John Harington, was published in 1591. No translation of Bandello's novel is known; but if any reader of Shakespeare finds it difficult to believe that such a man, at the age of thirty-five years, — fifteen of which he had passed in literary pursuits, at a time when Italian was more commonly known to educated Englishmen than French is now,—had mastered enough of that language to be able to read a short tale in it, I must confess myself but ill disposed to help him out of the further perplexity in which he will be involved by the knowledge, that, while in neither Ariosto's nor Spenser's version of the story is there the slightest coincidence with Much Ado about Nothing in name of person or place, in Bandello's, the friend and patron of the lover is Don Pedro of Arragon, the father of the lady, Lionato, and the scene, Messina, and that in Bandello alone are found the incidents of the entrance of the repudiated lady's window by a servant of her calumniator, her swooning and pretended death, the promise to her father to marry at his bidding, and her subsequent restoration to her repentant lover. The Italian's contribution to the play is limited to these few bare names and almost barren incidents; for Benedick and Beatrice, Dogberry and Verges, John the Bastard, and even Conrade, Borachio and Margaret, and all that they do and say else, are Shakespeare's Not only so, but the four first-named characters, being own. purely English, and giving the tone to the composition, make Much Ado about Nothing a comedy of contemporary English manners. We are able to determine the date of the production of this play with accuracy quite sufficient to all the purposes for which exactness in such matters is valuable. It was published in 1600; England's Parnassus, which appeared also in that year, contains no quotation from it; and Meres, who could not have passed it unnoticed, when he did notice The Comedy of Errors and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, does not mention it in his citation, so often referred to, which was published in 1598. We may therefore conclude that Much Ado about Nothing was written in 1598 or 1599. There is no internal evidence upon this point; for Chalmers' conjecture, that when Beatrice says, you had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it," an allusion is meant to an infirmity in the English commissariat of that day, which, from recent Crimean experience, seems chronic, rests on a foundation entirely too slender and fanciful. The text of the folio is printed with comparatively few and trifling errors, most of which are easy of correction, either by conjecture or by the aid of the quarto, which is also remarkably well printed for a dramatic publication of the period. Each copy contains a few words and brief sentences omitted from the other. It is plain from the repetition of certain somewhat striking errors of the press, which are particularly indicated in the Notes, that the folio was printed from a copy of the quarto edition; and this fact has caused most editors to adhere to the text of the latter, as "the more ancient authority," Mr. Collier giving, as an additional reason, his opinion that "the changes from the 4to in the folio are nearly all for the worse." As to its being the earlier printed edition, this fact has, evidently, no weight in deciding between the authority of an edition which is authenticated and that of one which is not; and not only is this truth applicable in the present instance, but we know that the copy of the quarto from which the authenticated folio was printed had been used in Shakespeare's theatre as the prompter's book, and there subjected to several alterations and corrections; and thus its essential differences from the quarto have a special and peculiar demand upon our deference. The important errors (to a reader) of the quarto which the folio leaves uncorrected are of such a nature that they might remain without inconvenience upon a prompter's book; such are the printing of verse as prose and the use of the names of actors, instead of those of characters, as prefixes. The various differences of text bearing upon this point are all considered in the Notes. As to preference between the readings of the two editions, that is mere matter of opinion; and fortunately the cases in which such preference may be exercised- not by any means admitting that it should be are of comparatively little moment. But I am surprised that any reader of Shakespeare should consider, for instance, the change of "any man that knows the statutes," in the quarto, to " any man that knows the statues," in the folio, for the worse, or think the same of the change from "beat" in the quarto to "bear," in the lines, "a thousand innocent shames In angel whiteness bear away those blushes," in the folio : — the difference between a vision of angelic whitewinged innocence bearing away, all shameful, the blushes of the shrinking girl, and a vision of the same impersonated virtue violently beating them off, being one about the propriety or the beauty of which there would seem to be no room for discussion. The significant change in Dogberry's speech, Act III. Sc. 5, from "examination," in the quarto, to "examine," in the folio, is remarked upon at length in the Notes: its character admits no doubt that it was made by authority.' The readings of the folio, in all important variations, seem to me much preferable to those of the quarto; but the former is followed in this edition, with assistance from the latter in cases of apparent misprint only, not for that reason, but because the folio was printed, — and carefully printed for the day, even as to punctuation, contracted syllables, and capital letters, from a copy which had evidently had the benefit of at least a partial correction, and because it has the authority of Heminge and Condell, Shakespeare's fellow-actors. As to the period of the action and the costume of Much Ado about Nothing, the former is not determinable within narrow bounds; and it is of no consequence that it should be; for the list of dramatis personæ is of the composite sort, and the exteriors which the characters present must of necessity be those of different times and nations. A Sicilian costume of any period anterior to the writing of the comedy, and during which the island was under the dominion of Spain and involved in war, VOL. III. |