It is full of
bustle, animation, and rapidity of action. It shows admirably how
self-will is only to be got the better of by stronger will, and how
one degree of ridiculous perversity is only to be driven out by
another still greater. Petruchio is a madman in his senses; a very
honest fellow, who hardly speaks a word of truth, and succeeds in
all his tricks and impostures. He acts his assumed character to the
life, with the most fantastical extravagance, with complete presence
of mind, with untired animal spirits, and without a particle of ill
humour from beginning to end.--The situation of poor Katherine, worn
out by his incessant persecutions, becomes at last almost as
pitiable as it is ludicrous, and it is difficult to say which to
admire most, the unaccountableness of his actions, or the
unalterableness of his resolutions. It is a character which most
husbands ought to study, unless perhaps the very audacity of
Petruchio's attempt might alarm them more than his success would
encourage them. What a sound must the following speech carry to some
married ears!
Think you a little din can daunt my ears?
Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puff'd up with winds,
Rage like an angry boar, chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field?
And heav'n's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in a pitched battle heard
Loud larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue,
That gives not half so great a blow to hear,
As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire?
Not all Petruchio's rhetoric would persuade more than 'some dozen
followers' to be of this heretical way of thinking.
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