‘Hath Leonato any son, my lord?’
and Don Pedro, understanding the drift of the question, replies:
‘No child but Hero, she’s his only heir.’
What a mean, damnable excuse he makes.
‘Yet sinn’d I not,
But in mistaking.’
Beatrice with sure eye discerns the scoundrel. ‘Kill Claudio.’ Not Don Pedro, not even Don John, although she had heard Benedick denounce him as the author of the villainy.
Beatrice and the Friar never doubt Hero’s innocence. The Friar declares that
‘In her eye there hath appear’d a fire
To burn the errors that these princes hold
Against her maiden truth.’
What an amplitude there is in Beatrice! What a sweep it is to bring into what we already know of her such divine faith in her friend! This light-hearted girl suddenly becomes sublime.
Hamlet.—Coleridge’s remark that the two former appearances of the Ghost increase its objectivity when it appears to Hamlet is subtle and true. Observe that the Ghost is visible to Hamlet, Marcellus, Bernardo and Horatio, but not to the Queen.