And at first it seems as if Shakspeare intended by the introduction of Dogberry and his ineffective watch merely to interpolate a bit of comic business, by parodying the important phrases and impotent exploits of the suburban constable. But Dogberry's mission extended farther than that, and is intimately woven with delightful unconsciousness on his part into the fortunes of Hero.
Dogberry is not only immortal for that, but his name will never die so long as village communities in either hemisphere elect their guardians of the peace and clothe them in verbose terrors. If the town is unfortunately short of rascals, the officer will fear one in each bush, or extemporize one out of some unbelligerent starveling to show that the majestic instructions of his townsmen have not been wasted on him. This elaborate inefficiency is frequently selected by busy communities, because so few persons are there clumsy enough to be unemployed. Such a vagrom is easily comprehended. Dogberry has caught up the turns and idioms of sagacious speech, and seems to be blowing them up as lifebelts; so he goes bobbing helplessly around in the froth of his talk. "I leave an arrant knave with your worship; which, I beseech your worship, to correct yourself, for the example of others. I humbly give you leave to depart; and if a merry meeting may be wished, God prohibit it." He ties his conversation in hopeless knots of absurdity; when pomp takes possession of a vacuous mind, it rattles like the jester's bladder of dried pease. Have not his fellow-citizens invested him? He will then lavish the selectest phrases. I heard a village politician once say with scorn in town-meeting, "Mr. Moderator, I know nothing about your technalities." Dogberry is the most original of Malaprops, says to the Prince's order that it shall be suffigance, and tells the watch that salvation were a punishment too good for them, if they should have any allegiance in them. He has furnished mankind with that adroit phrase of conversational escape from compromise, "Comparisons are odorous." Where common men would suspect a person, Dogberry says the person is auspicious. His brain seems to be web-footed, and tumbles over itself in trying to reach swimming water; as when he says, "Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves, and it will go near to be thought so shortly." This is the precipitancy of a child's reasoning.