Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock Have funk the fea within the earth, or e'er 3 PRO. Be collected; No more amazement: tell your piteous heart, MIRA. PRO. O, woe the day! No harm." I have done nothing but in care of thee, the preceding as well as fubfequent words of Miranda feem to demand the emendation which I have received from Theobald. STEEVENS. 3 or e'er —] i. e. before. So, in Ecclefiaftes, xii. 6: "Or ever the filver cord be loofed, or the golden bowl be broken Again, in our author's Cymbeline: or e'er I could "Give him that parting kifs.” STEEVENS. Pro. No harm.] I know not whether Shakspeare did not make Miranda fpeak thus: O, woe the day! no harm? To which Profpero properly anfwers: I have done nothing but in care of thee. Miranda, when the fpeaks the words, O, woe the day! fuppofes, not that the crew had efcaped, but that her father thought differently from her, and counted their destruction no harm. JOHNSON. 5 ——— more better-] This ungrammatical expreffion is very frequent among our oldeft writers. So, in the Hiftory of Helyas Knight of the Swan, bl. 1. no date: imprinted by William Copland. "And alfo the more fooner to come, without prolixity, to the true Chronicles," &c. Again, in the True Tragedies of Marius and Scilla, 1594: "To wait a message of more better worth.” Again, ibid: "That hale more greater than Caffandra now." STEEVENS, Than Profpero, mafter of a full poor cell, MIRA. More to know Did never meddle with my thoughts." PRO. 'Tis time I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand, And pluck my magick garment from me.—So; [Lays down his mantle. Lie there my art.-Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort. The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd I have with fuch provision in mine art 6 - full poor cell,] i. e. a cell in a great degree of poverty. So in Antony and Cleopatra: "I am full forry." STEEVENS. 7 Did never meddle with my thoughts.] i. e. mix with them. To meddle is often used, with this fenfe, by Chaucer. Hence the fubftantive medley. The modern and familiar phrase by which that of Miranda may be explained, is never entered my thoughtsnever came into my head. STEEVENS. It fhould rather mean to interfere, to trouble, to busy itself, as ftill ufed in the North, e. g. Don't meddle with me; i. e. Let me alone ; Don't moleft me. RITSON. See Howell's Dist. 1660, in v. to meddle; "fe mefler de." MALONE. Lye there my art.] Sir W. Cecil, lord Burleigh, lord high treasurer, &c. in the reign of queen Elizabeth, when he put off his gown at night, used to say, Lie there, lord treasurer. Fuller's Holy State, p. 257. STEEVENS. 9 virtue of compaffion] Virtue; the moft efficacious part, the energetic quality; in a like fenfe we fay, The virtue of a plant is in the extract. JOHNSON. 2 that there is no foul. -] Thus the old editions read; but this is apparently defective. Mr. Rowe, and after him Dr. Warburton, read that there is no foul loft, without any notice of the variation. Mr. Theobald fubftitutes no foil, and Mr. Pope follows him. To come fo near the right, and yet to miss it, is No, not fo much perdition as an hair, Which thou heard 'ft cry, which thou faw'ft fink. For thou muft now know further. You have often MIRA. PRO. The hour's now come; The very minute bids thee ope thine ear; Obey, and be attentive. Can'ft thou remember I do not think thou can'ft; for then thou waft not MIRA. Certainly, fir, I can. unlucky: the author probably wrote no foil, no ftain, no fpot: for fo Ariel tells, Not a hair perish'd; On their fuftaining garments not a blemish, But fresher than before. And Gonzalo, The rarity of it is, that our garments being drench'd in the fea, keep notwithstanding their freshness and gloffes. Of this emendation I find that the author of notes on The Tempeft had a glimpfe, but could not keep it. JOHNSON. 1220 foul-] Such interruptions are not uncommon to Shakfpeare. He fometimes begins a sentence, and before he concludes it, entirely changes its conftruction, because another, more forcible, occurs. As this change frequently happens in converfation, it may be fuffered to pafs uncenfured in the language of the stage. 3 not fo much perdition as an hair, STEEVENS. Betid to any creature in the veffel] Had Shak fpeare in his mind St. Paul's confolatory speech to the fhip's company, where he affures them that though they were to fuffer fhipwreck "not an hair fhould fall from the head of any of them?" Acts, xxvii. 34. Ariel afterwards fays, "Not a hair perish'd." HOLT WHITE. 4 Out three years old.] i. e. Quite three years old, three years old full-out, complete. So, in the 4th act: "And be a boy right out." STEEVENS. 1 PRO. By what? by any other house, or perfon? Of any thing the image tell me, that Hath kept with thy remembrance. MIRA. 'Tis far off; And rather like a dream, than an affurance PRO. Thou had'ft, and more, Miranda: But how is it, That this lives in thy mind? What feest thou else In the dark backward and abyfm of time?+ If thou remember'ft aught, ere thou cam'ft here, How thou cam'ft here, thou may'st. MIRA. But that I do not. PRO. Twelve years fince, Miranda, twelve years fince,' Thy father was the duke of Milan, and A prince of power. MIRA. Sir, are not you my father? PRO. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and She faid-thou waft my daughter; and thy father Was duke of Milan; and his only heir A princefs;- -no worse iffued." abyfm of time?] i. e. abyss. This method of fpelling the word, is common to other ancient writers. They took it from the French abysme, now written abime. So, in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613: "And chafe him from the deep abyfms below." STEEVENS. 5 Twelve years fince, Miranda, twelve years fince,] Years, in the first inftance, is ufed as a diffyllable, in the fecond as a monofyllable. But this, I believe, is a licence peculiar to the profody of Shakspeare. STEEVENS. A princess; no worfe iffued.] The old copy reads "And princess." For the trivial change in the text I am answerable. Iued is defcended. So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608: "For I am by birth a gentleman, and issued of fuch parents," &c. STEEVENS. MIRA. O the heavens! What foul play had we, that we came from thence? Or bleffed was't, we did? PRO. Both, both, my girl: By foul play, as thou fay'ft, were we heav'd thence; But bleffedly holp hither. Mira. O, my heart bleeds To think o' the teen' that I have turn'd you to, Which is from my remembrance! Please you, further. I PRO. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio,― pray thee, mark me,-that a brother should Without a parallel; thofe being all my ftudy, And to my state grew ftranger, being tranfported, MIRA. Sir, moft heedfully. PRO. Being once perfected how to grant fuits, How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom To trash for over-topping;' new created 7 teen-] is forrow, grief, trouble. So, in Romeo and Juliet: -to my teen be it fpoken." STEEVENS. whom to advance, and whom-] The old copy has who in both places. Corrected by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. To trash for over-topping ;] To trash, as Dr. Warburton obferves, is to cut away the fuperfluities. This word I have met with in |