s. The soft down of her disposition makes an
admirable contrast to the bristling and emphatic yet genuine plumage
of Beatrice; and there is something very pathetic and touching in her
situation when she is stricken down in mute agony by the tongue of
slander; while the "blushing apparitions" in her face, and the
lightning in her eyes, tell us that her stillness of tongue proceeds
from any thing but weakness of nature, or want of spirit. Her
well-governed intelligence is aptly displayed in the part she bears in
the stratagem for taming Beatrice to the gentler pace of love, and in
the considerate forbearance which abstains from teasing words after
the stratagem has done its work.

Claudio is both a lighter-timbered and a looser-built vessel than
Hero; rather credulous, unstable, inconstant, and very much the sport
of slight and trivial occasions. A very small matter suffices to upset
him, though, to be sure, he is apt enough to be set right again. All
this, no doubt, is partly owing to his youth and inexperience; but in
truth his character is mainly that of a brave and clever upstart,
somewhat intoxicated with sudden success, and not a little puffed with
vanity of the Prince's favour. Notwithstanding John's ingrained,
habitual, and well-known malice, he is ready to go it blind whenever
John sees fit to try his art upon him; and even after he has been
duped into one strain of petulant folly by his trick, and has found
out the falsehood of it, he is still just as open to a second and
worse duping. All this may indeed pass as indicating no more in his
case than the levity of a rather pampered and over-sensitive
self-love. In his unreflective and headlong techiness, he fires up at
the least hint that but seems to touch his honour, without pausing, or
deigning to observe the plainest conditions of a fair and prudent
judgment.

But, after all the allowance that can be made on this score, it is
still no little impeachment of his temper, or his understanding, that
he should lend his ear to the poisonous breathings of one whose
spirits are so well known to "toil in frame of villainies." As to his
rash and overwrought scheme of revenge for Hero's imputed sin, his
best excuse therein is, that the light-minded Prince, who is indeed
such another, goes along with him; while it is somewhat doubtful
whether the patron or the favourite is more at fault in thus suffering
artful malice to "pull the wool over his eyes." Claudio's finical a