Been juftled from your fenfes, know for certain, That I am Profpero, and that very duke

Which was thruft forth of Milan; who most ftrangely

Upon this fhore, where you were wreck'd, was landed,

To be the lord on't. No more yet of this;
For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,

Not a relation for a breakfast, nor

Befitting this firft meeting. Welcome, fir;
This cell's my court: here have I few attendants,
And fubjects none abroad: pray you, look in.
My dukedom fince you have given me again,
I will requite you with as good a thing;
At leaft, bring forth a wonder, to content ye,
As much as me my dukedom.

The entrance of the cell opens, and discovers FERDINAND and MIRANDA playing at chefs."

MIRA. Sweet lord, you play me falfe.

FER.

I would not for the world.

No, my dearest love,

2

MIRA. Yes, for a fcore of kingdoms, you fhould wrangle,

And I would call it fair play.

them." They doubt, fays he, whether what they fee and hear is a mere illufion; whether the perfon they behold is a living mortal, whether the words they hear are fpoken by a human creature.

MALONE,

9-playing at chefs.] Shakspeare might not have ventured to engage his hero and heroine at this game, had he not found Huon de Bordeaux and his Princefs employed in the fame manner. See the Romance of Huon, &c, chapter 53. edit. 1601: "How King Ivoryn caufed his daughter to play at the cheffe with Huon," &c.

STEEVENS.

Yes, for a fcore of kingdoms, &c.] I take the fenfe to be only this: Ferdinand would not, he fays, play her falfe for the world: yes,

ALON.

If this prove

A most high miracle!

A vifion of the island, one dear fon
Shall I twice lofe.

SEB.

FER. Though the feas threaten, they are mer

ciful:

I have curs'd them without cause.

[FERD. kneels to ALON. Now all the bleffings

ALON.
Of a glad father compass thee about!
Arife, and fay how thou cam'st here.

O! wonder!

MIRA. How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has fuch people in't!

PRO.

'Tis new to thee.

ALON. What is this maid, with whom thou waft at play?

Your eld❜ft acquaintance cannot be three hours: Is fhe the goddess that hath sever'd us,

And brought us thus together?

FER. Sir, fhe's mortal; But, by immortal providence, she's mine; I chofe her, when I could not ask my father For his advice; nor thought I had one: fhe

anfwers fhe, I would allow you to do it for fomething less than the world, for twenty kingdoms, and I wish you well enough to allow you, after a little wrangle, that your play was fair. So likewife Dr. Grey. JOHNSON.

I would recommend another punctuation, and then the sense would be as follows:

"Yes, for a fcore of kingdoms you should wrangle,
"And I would call it fair play;

because fuch a contest would be worthy of you.

"'Tis honour, with moft lands to be at odds,"

fays Alcibiades, in Timon of Athens. STEEVENS.

Is daughter to this famous duke of Milan,
Of whom so often I have heard renown,
But never faw before; of whom I have
Receiv'd a fecond life, and fecond father
This lady makes him to me.

ALON.
I am hers:
But O, how oddly will it found, that I
Must ask my child forgiveness!

PRO.

Let us not burden our remembrances 3
With a heavinefs that's gone.

GON.

Or fhould have spoke ere this.

gods,

There, fir, ftop;

And on this couple drop a bleffed crown;
For it is you, that have chalk'd forth the way
Which brought us hither!

ALON.

I fay, amen, Gonzalo!

GON. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his iffue Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice Beyond a common joy; and fet it down With gold on lafting pillars: In one voyage Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis ; And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife, Where he himself was loft; Profpero his dukedom, In a poor ifle; and all of us, ourselves,

When no man was his own.4

3 -our remembrances-] By the mistake of the transcriber the word with being placed at the end of this line, Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors, for the fake of the metre, read-remembrance. The regulation now made renders change unneceffary. MALONE. 4 When no man was his own.] For when perhaps should be read— where. JOHNSON.

When is certainly right; i. e. at a time when no one was in his fenfes. Shakspeare could not have written where, [i. e. in the

ALON.

Give me your hands:

[To FER. and MIR.

Be't fo! Amen!

Let grief and forrow ftill embrace his heart,
That doth not with you joy!

GON.

Re-enter ARIEL, with the Mafter and Boatswain amazedly following.

O look, fir, look, fir; here are more of us!
I prophefy'd, if a gallows were on land,

This fellow could not drown: Now, blafphemy, That fwear'ft grace o'erboard, not an oath on fhore?

Haft thou no mouth by land? What is the news? BOATS. The beft news is, that we have fafely

found

Our king, and company: the next, our ship,Which, but three glaffes fince, we gave out fplit,Is tight, and yare, and bravely rigg'd, as when We first put out to fea.

ifland,] because the mind of Profpero, who lived in it, had not been difordered. It is ftill faid, in colloquial language, that a madman is not his own man, i. e. is not mafter of himself.

STEEVENS.

5 My trickfy Spirit!] Is, I believe, my clever, adroit spirit, Shakspeare ufes the fame word in The Merchant of Venice:

66

that for a tricky word

"Defy the matter."

So, in the interlude of the Disobedient Child, bl. 1. no date:

-invent and feek out

"To make them go trickfie, gallaunt and cleane."

STEEVENS.

From strange to ftranger :-Say, how came you

hither?

BOATS. If I did think, fir, I were well awake, I'd strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep," And (how, we know not,) all clapp'd under hatches, Where, but even now, with ftrange and several

noifes

Of roaring, fhrieking, howling, gingling chains,
And more diversity of founds, all horrible,
We were awak'd; ftraitway, at liberty:
Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld
Our royal, good, and gallant fhip; our master
Cap'ring to eye her: On a trice, so please you,
Even in a dream, were we divided from them,
And were brought moping hither.

ARI.

Was't well done?

PRO. Bravely, my diligence. diligence. Thou Thou [Afide.

fhalt be free.

ALON. This is as ftrange a maze as e'er men trod:

And there is in this business more than nature

aleep.

dead of fleep,] Thus the old copy. Modern editors

Mr. Malone would fubftitute-on; but on (in the prefent inftance) is only a vulgar corruption of of. We ftill fay, that a perfon dies of fuch or fuch a diforder; and why not that he is dead of fleep?

STEEVENS.

"On fleep" was the ancient English phrafeology. So, in Gafcoigne's Suppofes: "—knock again; I think they be an fleep." Again, in a fong faid to have been written by Anna Boleyn: "O death, rock me on flepe."

Again, in Campion's Hiftory of Ireland, 1633: "One officer in the house of great men is a tale-teller, who bringeth his lord on fleep with tales vaine and frivolous." MALONE.

In these inftances adduced by Mr. Malone, on fleep, moft certainly means afleep; but they do not militate against my explanation of the phrafe dead of fleep." STEEVENS.