It is full of great
and wonderful things. The character-drawing is so abundant and precise
that those who know how hard it is to convey the illusion of character
can only bow down, thankful that such work may be, but ashamed that it
no longer is. Every person in the play is passionately alive about
something. The energy of the creative mood in Shakespeare filled all
these images with a vitality that interests and compels. The wit and
point of the dialogue--

_Don Pedro._ I think this is your daughter.

_Leonato._ Her mother hath many times told me so.

_Benedick._ Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

_Leonato._ Signior Benedick, no; for then you were a child;

or (as in the later passage)--

_Beatrice._ I may sit in a corner and cry heigh ho for a husband.

_Don Pedro._ Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

_Beatrice._ I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath
your Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent
husbands, if a maid could come by them.

_Don Pedro._ Will you have me, lady?

_Beatrice._ No, my lord, unless I might have another for working
days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day--

is plain to all; but it is given to few to see with what admirable,
close, constructive art this dialogue is written for the theatre. Of
poetry, of understanding passionately put, there is comparatively
little. The one great poetical scene is that at the opening of the fifth
act. The worst lines of this scene have become proverbial; the best are

"'tis all men's office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow,
But no man's virtue nor sufficiency,
To be so moral when he shall endure
The like himself."

There is little in the play written thus, but there are many scenes
throbbingly alive. The scene in the church shows what power to
understand the awakened imagination has. The scene is a quivering eight
minutes in as many lives. Shakespeare passes from thrilling soul to
thrilling soul with a touch as delicate as it is certain.

Shakespeare's fun is liberally given in the comic scenes. In the last
act there is a beautiful example of the effect of lyric to heighten a
solemn occasion.

_Twelfth Night._

_Written._ 1600 (?)

_Published_, in the first folio, 1623.

_Source of the Plot._ The story of Orsino, Viola, Olivia and
Sebastian is to be foun