Much Ado about Nothing. Told by a Popular Novelist.
With Illustrations in Colour by Averil Burleigh. (Greening and Co. 6s.)—Let us admit at once that the illustra- tions are delightful, and that the "Popular Novelist" has done his part of the work with a sense of colour and an evident enjoyment of the comedy ; so we shall be the more at liberty to wonder why the book was produced at all. It is not an engaging novel ; there are a hundred stories written every month which are truer to life and of less doubtful propriety. And it certainly is not Shakespeare; or it is, at all events, Shakespeare with the music taken from his lines, with the delicately wicked strife of Benedick and Beatriae turned to the mere sparring of lovers, with a word inserted here and there to alter blank verse into prose. Where, we wonder, lies the merit of changing
"Confirm'd, confirm'd! 0, that is stronger made Which was before bared up with ribs of iron !"
to ; " Confirmed1' he groaned. Confirmed. Though I will ask you if such confirmation were needed "P We would, indeed, protest against all rewriting of Shakespeare's plays on such lines as these. Let those who love them read them ; for the rest, let them be content with the original work of modern novelists.
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