Shrink his thin essence like a shrivell'd flower: Or as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel The giddy motion of the whirling wheel; In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, And tremble at the sea that froths below.-POPE. The method which is taken to induce Ferdinand to believe that his father was drowned in the late tempest, is exceedingly solemn and striking. He is sitting upon a solitary rock, and weeping overagainst the place where he imagined his father was wrecked, when he suddenly hears with astonishment aerial music creep by him upon the waters, and the spirit gives him the following information in words not proper for any but a spirit to utter. Full fathom five thy father lies: Of his bones are coral made: But doth suffer a sea-change, Into something rich and strange. And then follows a most lively circumstance; Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell. Hark! now I hear them-ding-dong-bell! This is so truly poetical, that one can scarce forbear exclaiming with Ferdinand, This is no mortal business, nor no sound That the earth owns! The happy versatility of Shakspeare's genius enables him to excel in lyric as well as in dramatic poesy. But the poet rises still higher in his management of this character of Ariel, by making a moral use of it, that is, I think, incomparable, and the greatest effort of his art. Ariel informs Prospero that he has fulfilled his orders, and punished his brother and companions so severely, that if he himself was now to behold their sufferings, he would greatly compassionate them. To which Prospero answers, Dost thou think so, Spirit? PROSPERO. He then takes occasion, with wonderful dexterity. and humanity, to draw an argument from the incorporeality of Ariel, for the justice and necessity of pity and forgiveness: Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling One of their kind, that relish all as sharply, Passion'd as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art? The poet is a more powerful magician than his own Prospero: we are transported into fairy land; we are wrapped in a delicious dream, from which it is misery to be disturbed; all around is enchantment! The isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twanging instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices; That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then in dreaming, U 6 The clouds, methought, would open and show riches I cry'd to dream again! JOSEPH WARTON." Adventurer, No. 93, September 25th, 1753. These observations on the Tempest, written about seventy-five years ago, and in a work of great popular acceptation, contributed not a little to refix the attention of all classes on our admirable poet; nor, though occasionally insisting somewhat too much on a strict adherence to the rules of the classical drama, have they been on the whole superseded or surpassed by any subsequent critique on the same play. No. II. OBSERVATIONS ON THE TEMPEST CONCLUDED. WHOEVER Ventures,' says Horace, 'to form a character totally original, let him endeavour to preserve it with uniformity and consistency; but the formation of an original character is a work of great difficulty and hazard.' In this arduous and uncommon task, however, Shakspeare has wonderfully succeeded in his Tempest: the monster Caliban is the creature of his own imagination, in the formation of which he could derive no assistance from observation or experience. Caliban is the son of a witch, begotten by a demon: the sorceries of his mother were so terrible, that her countrymen banished her into this desert island as unfit for human society; in conformity, therefore, to this diabolical propagation, he is represented as a prodigy of cruelty, malice, pride, ignorance, idleness, gluttony, and lust. He is introduced with great propriety cursing Prospero and Miranda, whom he had endeavoured to defile; and his execrations are artfully contrived to have reference to the occupation of his mother: As wicked dew, as e'er my mother brush'd -All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! His kindness is, afterwards, expressed as much in character as his hatred, by an enumeration of offices that could be of value only in a desolate island, and in the estimation of a savage. I pr'ythee, let me bring thee where crabs grow; I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries; Which last is, indeed, a circumstance of great use in a place where to be defended from the cold was neither easy nor usual; and it has a farther peculiar beauty, because the gathering wood was the occupation to which Caliban was subjected by Prospero, who, therefore, deemed it a service of high importance. The gross ignorance of this monster is represented with delicate judgment: he knew not the names of the sun and moon, which he calls the bigger light and the less; and he believes that Stephano was the man in the moon, whom his mistress had often shown him; and when Prospero reminds him that he first taught him to pronounce articulately, his answer is full of malevolence and rage: |