Imatges de pàgina
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Drop on you both! a fouth-west blow on ye,
And blifter you all o'er.

I must eat my dinner.

This island's mine by Sycorax my mother,

Which thou tak'ft from me: when thou cameft first Thou ftroak'ft me, and mad'ft much of me: wou'd'ft give me

Water with berries in 't, and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night: and then I lov'd thee,
And fhew'd thee all the qualities o' th' ifle,

The fresh springs, brine pits; barren place and fertile:
Curs'd be I, that I did fo: all the charms

Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the fubjects that you have,

Who first was mine own king: and here you fty me
In this hard rock, whilst you do keep from me
The rest of th' island.

Caliban's Exultation after Profpero tells him-He fought to violate the Honour of his Child, has Something in it very ftrikingly in Character.

Oh ho, oh ho,-I wou'd it had been done, Thou did't prevent me, I had peopled elfe This ifle with Calibans.

Prof. Abhorred flave;

Which any print of goodness will not take,
Being capable of all ill! I pity'd thee,

Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other: when thou could' ft not, favage,
Show thine own meaning; but would'st gabble like
A thing moft brutish, I endow'd thy purposes
With words that made them known: but thy vile race
Though

the malignity, of his purposes; but let any other being entertain the fame thoughts, and he will find them easily if fue in the fame expreffions."

Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good

nature

Could not abide to be with; therefore waft thou
Defervedly confin'd into this rock,

Who hadnt deferv'd more than a prison.

Cal. You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curfe; the red plague rid you For learning me your language!

Mufic.

Where fhould this mufic be? in air or earth ?
It founds no more, and fure it waits upon
Some God of th' ifland. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wreck,
This mufic crept by me upon the waters;
Allaying both their fury and my paffion
With its sweet air.

Ariel's Song.

Full fathom five (12) thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth fuffer a fea-change

Into fomething rich and ftrangé.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,

Hark, now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.

Amiable

(12) Full fathom five, &c.] Gildon, who has pretended to criticife our author, would give this up as an infufferable and fenfelefs piece of trifling. And I believe this is the general opinion concerning it. But a very unjust one. Let us confider the buûnefs Ariel is here upon, and his manner of executing it. The commiffion Profpero had entrusted to him, in a whifper, was plainly this; to conduct Ferdinand to the fight of Miranda, and to difpofe him

to

Amiable Simplicity of Miranda on first View of Ferdinand.

Prof. This gallant which thou feest

Was in the wreck and, but he's something ftain'd

With

to the quick fentiments of love, while he, on the other hand, prepared his daughter for the fame impreffions. Ariel fets about his bufinefs by acquainting Ferdinand, in an extraordinary manner, with the afflictive news of his father's death. A very odd apparatns, one would think, for a love fit. And yet as it appears, the poet has fhewir in it the finest conduct for carrying on his plot. Profpero had faid,

I find my zenith doth depend upon

A moft aufpicious far, whofe influence
If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop.

In confequence of this his prefcience, he takes advantage: of every favourable circumftance that the occafion offers. The principal affair is the marriage of his daughter with young Ferdinand. But to fecure this point it was neceffary they fhould be contracted before the affair came to Alonzo, the father's knowledge. For Profpero was ignorant how this storm and fhipwreck, caufed by him, would work upon Alonzo's temper. It might either foften him, or increase his averfion for Profpero as the author. On the other hand, to engage Ferdinand, without the confent of his father, was difficult. For, not to fpeak of his quality, where fuch engagements are not made without the confent of the fovereign, Ferdinand is reprefented (to fhew it a match worth feeking) of a moft pious temper and difpofition, which would prevent him contracting himself without his father's knowledge. The poet therefore, with the utmost addrefs, has made Ariel perfuade him of his father's death, to remove this remora. Thus far W. J. adds, "The reafon for which Ariel is introduced thus trifling is, that he and his companions are evidently of the fairy kind, an order of beings to which tradition has always afcribed a fort of diminutive agency, powerful but ludicrous, a humourous and frolick controlment of nature, well expreffed by the songs of Ariel.”

With grief, that beauty's canker, thou mightst call

him

A goodly perfon.

Mir. I might call him

A thing divine: for nothing natural
I ever faw fo noble.

Fer. Moft fure the goddess

On whom thefe airs attend.

Mir. There's nothing ill can dwell in fuch a tem ple:

If the ill fpirit love fo fair a house,

Good things will strive to dwell with 't.

A Lover's Speech.

My (13) fpirits, as in a dream, are all bound up ; My father's lofs, the weakness which I feel,

The

(13) My, &c.] The following fine fimile from Virgil, will be a good comment on S. Æn. 12. v. 908.

Ac velut, &c.

And as, when heavy fleep has clos'd the fight,
The fickly fancy labours in the night,
We feem to run, and deftitute of force,
Our finking limbs forfake us in the course:
In vain we heave for breath, in vain we cry,
The nerves unbrac'd their usual strength deny,
And on the tongue the falt'ring accents die.

Dryden. Tao, in his Gierufalemme Liberata, has finely imitated this fimile, C. 20. S. 105,

Come vede talor torbidi, &c.

As when the fick or frantic men oft dream
In their unquiet fleep, and flumber short,

And think they run fome fpeedy courfe, and feem
To move their legs and feet in haity fort;

The wreck of all my friends, or this man's threats,
To whom I am fubdu'd, were but light to me,
Might I but thro' my prifon once a day
Behold this maid: all corners elfe o' th' earth
Let liberty make ufe of: fpace enough
Have I in fuch a prifon.

ACT

Yet feel their limbs far flower than the stream
Of their vain thoughts, that bears them in this fport,
And oft wou'd fpeak, wou'd cry, wou'd call or fhout,
Yet neither found, nor voice, nor word fent out.

Fairfax.

The following part of the speech is greatly exceeded by another of the fame fort in the Second Part of King Henry VI. A& 3. which fee and n. There is too in the Midfummer Night's Dream, a thought of the fame kind, though rather too quaint.

Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company:
For you in my refpect are all the world,

Then how can it be faid I am alone;

When all the world is here to look on me?

A& 2. Sc 3.

Sir J. Suckling, in his Goblins, Act 4. has a fimilar paf

fage.

Witness all that can punish falfhood,

That I cou'd live with thee, even in this dark
And narrow prifon, and think all happiness
Confin'd within the walls.

We may obferve the character of Reginella, in that play, is an imperfect copy of Miranda in this.

Mafinger, in his Guardian, Act 5. Sc. 1. has an expression like S's.

Thefe woods, Severino,

Shall more than feem to me a populous city,
You being prefent

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