STE. I thank thee for that jest; here's a garment for't: wit shall not go unrewarded, while I am king of this country: Steal by line and level, is an excellent pass of pate; there's another garment for't.

TRIN. Monster, come, put some lime9 upon your fingers, and away with the rest.

CAL. I will have none on't: we shall lose our time,

And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes
With foreheads villainous low 2.

9-put some LIME, &c.] That is, birdlime. JOHNSON.

I

my

So, in Green's Disputation between a He and She Conycatcher, 1592: " mine eyes are stauls, and hands lime twigs." STEEVENS. to BARNACLES, or to apes] Skinner says barnacle is Anser Scoticus. The barnacle is a kind of shell-fish growing on the bottoms of ships, and which was anciently supposed, when broken off, to become one of these geese. Hall, in his Virgidemiarum, lib. iv. sat. 2, seems to favour this supposition :

"The Scottish barnacle, if I might choose,

"That of a worme doth waxe a winged goose," &c. So likewise Marston, in his Malecontent, 1604: like your Scotch barnacle, now a block,

66

--

"Instantly a worm, and presently a great goose." "There are (says Gerard, in his Herbal, edit. 1597, page 1391) in the north parts of Scotland certaine trees, whereon do grow shell-fishes, &c. &c. which, falling into the water, do become fowls, whom we call barnakles; in the north of England, brant geese; and in Lancashire, tree geese," &c.

This vulgar error deserves no serious confutation. Commend me, however, to Holinshed, (vol. i. p. 38,) who declares himself to have seen the feathers of these barnacles " hang out of the shell at least two inches." And in the 27th song of Drayton's Polyolbion, the same account of their generation is given.

COLLINS.

Old Gerard, in his History of Plants, has a long account of these barnacles: 66 Many of these shells I brought with me to London, which, after I had opened, I found in them living things without form or shape; in others, which were nearer come to ripenesse, I found living things that were very naked, in shape like a bird in others, the birds covered with a soft downe, the shell half

STE. Monster, lay-to your fingers; help to bear this away, where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out of my kingdom: go to, carry this.

TRIN. And this.

STE. Ay, and this.

open, and the birds ready to fall out, which no doubt were the fowles called barnacles. I dare not absolutely avouch every circumstance of the first part of this history, concerning the tree that beareth those buds aforesaid, but will leave it to a future consideration, howbeit that which I have seene with mine eies, and handled with mine hands, I dare confidently avouch and boldly put down for verity." Johnston's ed. of Gerard, p. 1588.

PHILLIPPS.

"Cal. And all be turn'd to barnacles, or apes." Mr. Collins's note, it is presumed, will not be thought worth retaining in any future edition. His account of the barnacle is extremely confused and imperfect. He makes Gerarde responsible for an opinion not his own; he substitutes the name of Holinshed for that of Harrison, whose statement is not so ridiculous as Mr. Collins would make it, and who might certainly have seen the feathers of the barnacles hanging out of the shells, as the fish barnacle or Lepas anatifera is undoubtedly furnished with a feathered beard. The real absurdity was the credulity of Gerarde and Harrison in supposing that the barnacle goose was really produced from the shell of the fish. Dr. Bullein not only believed this himself, but bestows the epithets, ignorant and incredulous on those who did not; and in the same breath he maintains that christal is nothing more than ice, See his Bulwarke of Defence, &c. 1562. Folio, fo. 12. Caliban's barnacle is the clakis or tree-goose. Every kind of information on the subject may be found in the Physica Curiosa of Gaspar Schot the Jesuit, who with great industry has collected from a multitude of authors whatever they had written concerning it. See lib. ix. c. 22. The works of Pennant and Bewick will supply every deficiency with respect to rational knowledge. DouCE.

2 With FOREHEADS villainous Low.] Low foreheads were anciently reckoned among deformities. So, in the old bl. 1. ballad, entitled A Peerlesse Paragon :

“Her beetle brows all men admire,

"Her forehead wondrous low."

Again, (the quotation is Mr. Malone's,) in Antony and Cleopatra :

66

And her forehead

"As low as she would wish it." STEEVENS.

5

A noise of hunters heard3. Enter divers Spirits, in shape of hounds, and hunt them about; PROSPERO and ARIEL setting them on.

PRO. Hey, Mountain, hey!

ARI. Silver! there it goes, Silver!

PRO. Fury, Fury! there, Tyrant, there! hark, hark!

[CAL. STE. and TRIN. are driven out. Go, charge my goblins that they grind their joints With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews With aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make

them,

Than pard, or cat o' mountain.

ARI.

Hark, they roar.

PRO. Let them be hunted soundly: At this hour Lie at my mercy all mine enemies:

Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou
Shalt have the air at freedom: for a little,
Follow, and do me service.

[Exeunt.

3 A noise of hunters heard.] Shakspeare might have had in view" Arthur's Chace, which many believe to be in France, and think that it is a kennel of black dogs followed by unknown huntsmen with an exceeding great sound of horns, as if it was a very hunting of some wild beast." See a Treatise of Spectres, translated from the French of Peter de Loier, and published in quarto, 1605.

GREY. "Hecate, (says the same writer, ibid.) as the Greeks affirmed, did use to send dogges unto men, to feare and terrifie them." MALONE. See Gervase of Tilbery, who wrote in 1211, for an account of the Familia Arturi. Ot. Imper. dec. ii. c. 12. STEEVENS. See Tyrwhitt's Chaucer; note on verse 6441. BOSWELL.

ACT V. SCENE I.

Before the Cell of PROSPERO.

Enter PROSPERO in his magick robes; and ARIEL. PRO. Now does my project gather to a head: My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time Goes upright with his carriage *. How's the day? ARI. On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord, You said our work should cease.

PRO. I did say so, When first I rais'd the tempest. Say, my spirit, How fares the king and his followers' ?

ARI.
Confin'd together
In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
Just as you left them, sir; all prisoners

In the lime-grove which weather-fends your cell;
They cannot budge till your release. The king,
His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted;
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brim-full of sorrow, and dismay; but chiefly
Him you term'd, sir, The good old lord, Gonzalo;
His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops
From eaves of reeds: your charm so strongly works
them,

Goes upright with his carriage.] Alluding to one carrying a burthen. This critical period of my life proceeds as I could wish. Time brings forward all the expected events, without faultering under his burthen. STEEVENS.

5

the king and his ?] The old copy reads "the king and his followers?" But the word followers is evidently an interpolation, (or gloss which had crept into the text,) and spoils the metre without help to the sense. In King Lear we have the phraseology I have ventured to recommend :

"To thee and thine, hereditary ever," &c. STEEVENS. your release.] i. e. till you release them. MALone.

till

That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.

PRO. Dost thou think so, spirit ?

ARI. Mine would, sir, were I human.
PRO.

7

And mine shall.
Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions? and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
Passion as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the
quick,

Yet, with my nobler reason, 'gainst my fury
Do I take part: the rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further: Go, release them, Ariel;
My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,
And they shall be themselves.

ARI.

I'll fetch them, sir. [Exit. PRO. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves9;

7 — а TOUCH, a feeling-] A touch is a sensation. So, in Cymbeline:

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a touch more rare

"Subdues all pangs, all fears."

So, in the 141st sonnet of Shakspeare:

"Nor tender feeling to base touches prone."

Again, in The Civil Wars of Daniel, b. i. :

"I know not how their death gives such a touch."

8 that relish all as sharply,

STEEVENS.

Passion as they,] I feel every thing with the same quick sensibility, and am moved by the same passions as they are. A similar thought occurs in King Richard II. :

"Taste grief, need friends, like you," &c. STEEVENS. 9 Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves ;] This speech Dr. Warburton rightly observes to be borrowed from Medea's in Ovid: and, "it proves," says Mr. Holt, "beyond contradiction, that Shakspeare was perfectly acquainted with the sentiments of the ancients on the subject of inchantments." The original lines are these: