him command over the supernatural beings of the place, and through these over the powers of nature, so that he can compass his designs with the quickness and precision of thought; control the elements, and make the wind and sea obey him. By the help of this his " "so potent art," he at length in an auspicious hour gets his former enemies and persecutors into his hands.

The king of Naples and his entire court, it seems, are on a voyage to attend "the marriage of the king's fair daughter Claribel to the king of Tunis." Made aware by his prescience of what is going on in those remote quarters, Prospero takes advantage of their return to raise a terrible storm at sea, whereby the fleet is dispersed, and the ship containing the king, the crown prince, and the chief counsellors of the throne, is separated from the others. The play opens with the wreck of the ship wherein they are embarked on the shore of his spirit-peopled wilderness. Dispersed in troops about the isle, each supposing the others to be lost, they give way to lamentation and despair; the king mourns his drowned son, the prince his drowned father; while some of the sailors drown their troubles in bottled comfort, and in wine-inspired anticipations of island sovereignty. Meanwhile Prospero, having through pity and sorrow wrought the prince and his daughter into a proper state for receiving the most tender impressions, contrives to bring them together, and to this end gives orders to Ariel, his chief minister, to get up some aerial music, whereby Ferdinand is led immediately into Miranda's presence. Every thing falls out just as the old man would have it: "at the first sight they have changed eyes;"" they are both in either's powers;" so that he

has nothing further to do but to "make the swift business uneasy, lest too light winning make the prize light." To try and prove their affection, he imposes the ugliest and heaviest tasks upon the prince, wherein he delights for her sake, and she suffers for his; her presence "makes his labours pleasures," and she "weeps when she sees him work;" thus proving it a "fair encounter of two most rare affections." Through his magic arts and airy ministers, which, however, he employs only for just and beneficent purposes, Prospero has a secret power not only over the bodies and senses, but over the thoughts of his enemies; can put them asleep or keep them awake; can lead them about at will, and reveal his thoughts to them without revealing himself; can paralyze their physical energies, and wring their hearts with remembrances of guilt, or steep their sorrows in forgetfulness: he has but to speak a word or wave his stick, and their "spirits, as in a dream are all bound up ;"

"His high charms work,

And these, his enemies, are all knit up
In their distractions."

Master of surrounding agencies, he can of course present occasions suited alike to the good and to the bad inclinations of those in his power; which mastery he so uses as to discover the evil propensities and at the same time thwart the evil purposes of his enemies; manages in such a way as to awaken in some of them the wicked resolve and yet prevent the wicked deed, thus mocking their guilty hopes, and making them the dupes and victims of their own impotent malice. Having by these means saved the king from the blow of a conspiracy

hatched in his sleep, and having awakened in them remorse and penitence for their treachery and violence to himself, he at last brings them all together, and, abjuring his magic arts, returns along with them to his home and inheritance.

PROSPERO.

PROSPERO, it seems to me, is one of the noblest, grandest conceptions that ever entered into the mind of man. So awful yet so gentle, we may truly say of him,

"He sits 'mongst men like a descended god :

He hath a kind of honour sets him off,
More than a mortal seeming."

A princely hermit equally vast in mind and pure in heart, whatever might be repulsive in the magician is softened and made attractive by the feelings of the father, who "does nothing but in care of her; of her, his dear one, her, his daughter." For this cause, being as wise as fond, he has hitherto kept her ignorant of what she is, and whence he is; for this cause, now that the time has come, he opens to her the history of his life, and melts her filial heart with the story of his wrongs and sufferings while informing her of her noble birth and ancestry, that the feelings of the woman may sweetly blend and coalesce in her mind with the ideas of rank and dignity. Being about to act the part, as it were, of a subordinate providence, to appear clothed with superhuman might and majesty, it was fitting he should come before us at first absorbed in the tenderest and sacredest of human ties. Our human sympathies

being in the outset thus deeply interested for him as a man, awe of his magical and mysterious character then comes in to strengthen, not preclude, those sympathies; he seems as much akin to us in affections as he is superior to us in gifts and counsels: so that in him our nature appears perfected, not perverted; glorified, not falsified; the truer to itself for being raised above itself; like the dawning of a future life before the setting of the present.

Prospero is as supernatural morally and intellectually as Ariel and his fellow-spirits are complexionally; only the former has become supernatural, the latter were made so.-Wisdom has always been able to work results which ignorance could only attribute to enchantment; and supernatural is but the word whereby men designate any thing which transcends their ordinary perceptions and experiences of nature. To be wise and good, is to be powerful, because wisdom and goodness consist in sympathy and harmony with truth and nature; which are mighty and will prevail,—prevail, by using those who hate and oppose them, by serving those who love and obey them: if we fall out with them, they are our masters; if we fall in with them, they are our ministers: the human mind may wield, it cannot resist their power: in a word, they will always be on his side who truly sides with them: we know not what they would do for us, if we really understood them; and to be able to command them, we must first be one with them, must study ourselves into them, or study them into ourselves. Such appears to be the poet's idea in the character and movements of Prospero, whose sorcery is the sorcery of knowledge, whose

magic is the magic of virtue; all things are aidant and obedient to his wise forethought and his upright will. By his science and art he derives from nature the means of controlling nature; dresses himself in her might, arms himself with her laws: in his presence, to his eye, she discovers new powers, reveals new secrets, works new results; her elements, the air in Ariel, the earth in Calaban, become instinct with his intelligent life, pliant to his rational will; the limbs and organs, as it were, of his body, to express his thoughts and execute his intents. Thus from being the student of nature he becomes, so to speak, her teacher and guide; she lends him hands because he lends her eyes; she submits to his authority and follows his instructions, because she can thereby attain to a higher development and a more excellent form.

So that the miracle which Prospero is, in a manner sanctions and authenticates to our minds the miracles which he does: the improbability of his proceedings disappears in his exaltation of character; he makes us credit his superhuman power by making us feel his superhuman wisdom and goodness. He seems, indeed, a sort of human divinity, whose thoughts and aims are so identical with truth and right, that they may be safely allowed to execute themselves; whose virtues and sufferings entitle him in the eyes of gods and men to the command of the winds and seas, until he shall have triumphed in his enemies, not over them, and recovered his stolen rights with them, not from them. In a word, knowledge with him becomes power, because with knowledge he unites the virtue to overcome evil with good; would scorn to enforce one law by violating another, or to take from others the power without taking