Drop on you both! a south-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'st from me: when thou camest first
Thou stroak'st me, and mad'st much of me: wou'd'st

give me

Water with berries in't, and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the lefs,
That burn by day and night: and then I lov'd thee,
And shew'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 sty me
In this hard rock, whilft you do keep from me
The rest of th' ifland...

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

Oh ho, oh ho, -I wou'd it had been done, Thou did'st prevent me, I had peopled elfe This ifle with Calibans.

Prof. Abhorred ilave; 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'st not, savage, Show thine own meaning; but would'st gabble like A thing most 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 wast thou
Deservedly confin'd into this rock,

Who hadst deserv'd more than a prison.

Cal. You taught me language; and my profit on't

Is, I know how to curse; the red plague rid you
For learning me your language!

Music.

Where should this music be? in air or earth?
It founds no more, and fure it waits upon
Some God of th' island. 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 strange.
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 criticise our author, would give this up as an infufferable and fenfeless piece of trifling. And I believe this is the general opinion concerning it. But a very unjust one. Let us confider the business Ariel is here upon, and his manner of executing it. The commiffion Prospero had entrusted to him, in a whisper, was plainly this; to conduct Ferdinand to the fight of Miranda, and to dispose him

to

Amiable Simplicity of Miranda on first View of

Ferdinand.

Prof. This gallant which thou feeft 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 impressions. Ariel fets about his business by acquainting Ferdinand, ins 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 fhewE in it the finest conduct for carrying on his plot. Prospero had faid,

I find my zenith doth depend upon
A most auspicious star, whose influence
If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop.

In consequence of this his prefcience, he takes advantage of every favourable circumstance that the occasion offers. The principal affair is the marriage of his daughter with young Ferdinand. But to secure this point it was neceffary they should be contracted before the affair came to Alonzo, the father's knowledge. For Prospero was ignorant how this storm and shipwreck, caused by him, would work upon Alonzo's temper. It might either soften him, or increase his aversion for Profpero as the author. On the other hand, to engage Ferdinand, without the confent of his father, was difficult. For, not to speak of his quality, where such engagements are not made without the confent of the sovereign, Ferdinand is represented (to shew it a match worth seeking) of a most pious temper and difpofition, which would prevent him contracting himself without his father's knowledge. The poet therefore, with the utmost address, has made Ariel perfuade him of his father's death, to remove this remora. Thus far W. J. adds, "The reason 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 expressed by the fongs 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. Most sure the goddess

On whom these airs attend.

Mir. There's nothing ill can dwell in such a tem

ple:

If the ill fpirit love so fair a house,

Good things will strive to dwell with 't.

A Lover's Speech.

My (13) spirits, 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 destitute of force,
Our finking limbs forfake us in the course:
In vain we heave for breath, in vain we cry,
The nerves unbrae'd their ufsual strength deny,

And on the tongue the falt'ring accents die.

}

Dryden.

Taffo, 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 sleep, and slumber short,
And think they run fome speedy course, and feem
To move their legs and feet in haity fort;

2

Yet

4

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 else o' th' earth
Let liberty make use of: space enough
Have I in such a prifon.

Yet feel their limbs far flower than the stream

ACT

Of their vain thoughts, that bears them in this sport, And oft wou'd speak, wou'd cry, wou'd call or shout, Yet neither found, nor voice, nor word fent out.

Fairfax.

The following part of the speech is greatly exceeded by another of the same fort in the Second Part of King Henry VI. Act 3. which fee and n. There is too in the MidSummer 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 respect are all the world,
Then how can it be faid I am alone;
When all the world is here to look on me?

Act 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.

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

These woods, Severino,

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