concealed by the most varied display of the fascinations of poetry and the exhilaration of mirth; the details of the execution are so very attractive that it requires no small degree of attention to perceive that the denouement is, in some measure, already contained in the exposition. The history of the love of Ferdinand and Miranda, developed in a few short scenes, is enchantingly beautiful: an affecting union of chivalrous magnanimity on the one part, and, on the other, of the virgin openness of a heart which, brought up far from the world on an uninhabited island, has never learned to disguise its innocent movements. The wisdom of the princely hermit Prospero has a magical and mysterious air; the impression of the black falsehood of the two usurpers is mitigated by the honest gossiping of the old and faithful Gonzalo; Trinculo and Stephano, two good-for-nothing drunkards, find a worthy associate in Caliban; and Ariel hovers sweetly over the whole as the personified genius of the wonderful fable.

"Caliban has become a bye-word, as the strange creation of a poetical imagination. A mixture of the gnome and the savage, half demon, half brute; in his behaviour we perceive at once the traces of his native disposition, and the influence of Prospero's education. The latter could only unfold his understanding, without, in the slightest degree, taming his rooted malignity: it is as if the use of reason and human speech should be communicated to a stupid ape. Caliban is malicious, cowardly, false, and base in his inclinations; and yet he is essentially different from the yulgar knaves of a civilized world, as they are occasionally portrayed by Shakespeare. He is rude, but not vulgar; he never falls into the prosaical and low familiarity of his drunken associates, for he is a poetical being in his way; he always speaks too in verse 2. He has picked up every thing dissonant and thorny in language, out of which he has composed his vocabulary, and of the whole variety of nature, the hateful, repulsive, and pettily deformed have alone been impressed on his imagination. The magical world of spirits, which the staff of Prospero has assembled on the island, casts merely a faint reflection into his mind, as a ray of light which falls into a dark cave, incapable of communicating to it either heat or illumination, merely serves to put in motion the poisonous vapours. The whole delineation of this monster is inconceivably consistent and profound, and notwith

2 Schlegel is not quite correct in asserting that Caliban "always speaks in verse." Mr. Steevens, it is true, endeavoured to give a metrical form to some of his speeches, which were evidently intended for prose, and they are therefore in the present edition so printed. Shakspeare, throughout his plays, frequently introduces short prose speeches in the midst of blank verse.

standing its hatefulness, by no means hurtful to our feelings, as the honour of human nature is left untouched.

"In the zephyrlike Ariel the image of air is not to be mistaken, his name even bears an' allusion to it; on the other hand, Caliban signifies the heavy element of earth. Yet they are neither of them allegorical personifications, but beings individually determined. In general we find, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, in the Tempest, in the magical part of Macbeth, and wherever Shakspeare avails himself of the popular belief in the invisible presence of spirits, and the possibility of coming in contact with them, a profound view of the inward life of Nature and her mysterious springs; which, it is true, ought never to be altogether unknown to the genuine poet, as poetry is altogether incompatible with mechanical physics, but which few have possessed in an equal degree with Dante and himself 3."

It seems probable that this play was written in 1611 at all events between the years 1609 and 1614. It appears from the MSS. of Vertue that the Tempest was acted, by John Heminge and the rest of the King's Company, before Prince Charles, the Lady Elizabeth, and the Prince Palatine Elector, in the beginning of the year 1613.

3 Lectures on Dramatic Literature by Aug. Will, Schlegel, translated by John Black, 1815. Vol. ii. p. 178.

PERSONS REPRESENTED*.

ALONSO, King of Naples.

SEBASTIAN, his Brother.

PROSPERO, the rightful Duke of Milan.

ANTONIO, his Brother, the usurping Duke of Milan.

FERDINAND, Son to the King of Naples.

GONZALO, the honest old Counsellor of Naples.

ADRIAN,

FRANCISCO, Lords.

CALIBAN, a savage and deformed Slave.

TRINCULO, a Jester.

STEPHANO, a drunken Butler.

Master of a Ship, Boatswain, and Mariners.

SCENE, the Sea, with a Ship; afterwards an unin

habited Island.

From the Folio Edition of 1623.

TEMPEST.

ACT I.

SCENE I. On a Ship at Sea.

A Storm, with Thunder and Lightning.

Enter a Shipmaster and a Boatswain.

BOATSWAIN,

Master.

Boats. Here, master: what cheer?

Mast. Good: Speak to the mariners: fall to't yarely1, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.

Enter Mariners.

[Exit.

Boats. Heigh, my hearts; cheerly, cheerly, my hearts; yare, yare: Take in the top-sail; Tend to the master's whistle.-Blow till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!

Enter ALONZO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, GONZALO, and others.

Alon. Good Boatswain, have care. Where's the master? Play the men2.

1 That is, readily, nimbly.

2 That is, act with spirit, behave like men.

Thus Baret in his

Alvearie: "To play the man, or to show himself a valiant man

in any matter. Se virum præbere." P. 399.

Viceroys and peers of Turkey play the men."
Tamberlaine, 1590.

Boats. I pray now, keep below.

Ant. Where is the master, boatswain?

Boats. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour! keep your cabins: you do assist the storm. Gon. Nay, good, be patient.

Boats. When the sea is. Hence! What care these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence: trouble us not.

Gon. Good; yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

Boats. None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor; if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present 3, we will not hand a rope more; use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.-Cheerly, good hearts. Out of our way, I say.

[Exit.

Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks, he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. [Exeunt.

Re-enter Boatswain.

Boats. Down with the top-mast; yare; lower, lower; bring her to try with main course. [A cry within.] A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather, or our office.

3 The present instant.

4 In Smith's Sea Grammar, 1627, 4to. under the article How to handle a Ship in a Storme :-" Let us lie as Trie with our main course; that is, to hale the tacke aboord, the sheat close aft, the boling set up, and the helm tied close aboord."