From my own library, with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.

Mira. 'Would I might

But ever see that man!

Pro. Now I arise :

Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
Here in this island we arriv'd ; and here

Have I, thy school-master, made thee more profit
Than other princes can, that have more time
For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful.

Mira. Heavens thank you for't! And now,
you, sir,

(For still 'tis beating in my mind,) your reason For raising this sea-storm?

Pro. Know thus far forth.

By accident most strange, bountiful fortune,
Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore: and by my prescience
I find my zenith doth depend upon

A most auspicious star; whose influence

If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes

I

pray

Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions;
Thou art inclin'd to sleep; 'tis a good dulness, 6
And give it way;-I know thou canst not choose.
[Miranda sleeps.
Come away, servant, come: I am ready now;
Approach, my Ariel; come.

Enter ARIEL.

Ari. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,

To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride

On the curl'd clouds; to thy strong bidding, task
Ariel, and all his quality.

Pro. Hast thou, spirit,

Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?
Ari. To every article.

I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,7
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,

[6] Dr. Warburton rightly observes, that this sleepiness, which Prospero by his art had brought upon Miranda, and of which he knew not how soon the effect would begin, makes him question her so often whether she is attentive to his story. JOHNSON.

[7] The beak was a strong pointed body at the head of the ancient gallies; it is used here for the forecastle, or the boltsprit. JOHNSON. [8] The part between the quarter-deck and the forecastle. JOHNS.

I flam'd amazement: Sometimes, I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the top-mast,

The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet, and join: Jove's lightnings, the precursors
O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-out-running were not: The fire, and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune
Seem'd to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake.

Pro. My brave spirit!

Who was so firm, so constant that this coil
Would not infect his reason?

Ari. Not a soul

But left a fever of the mad, and play'd

Some tricks of desperation: All, but mariners, Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel, Then all a-fire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand, With hair up-staring (then like reeds, not hair,) Was the first man that leap'd; cried, Hell is empty, And all the devils are here.

Pro. Why, that's my spirit!

But was not this nigh shore?
Ari. Close by, my master.

Pro. But are they, Ariel, safe?
Ari. Not a hair perish'd ;

On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before: and, as thou bad'st me,
In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle :
The king's son have I landed by himself;
Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs,
In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting,
His arms in this sad knot.

Pro. Of the king's ship,

The mariners, say, how thou hast dispos'd,
And all the rest o' the fleet?

Ari. Safely in harbour

Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid:

[9] Fletcher, in his Women Pleased, says, "The devil should think of purchasing that egg-shell to victual out a witch for the Beermoothes." Smith, in his account of these islands, p. 172, says, "that the Bermudas were so fearful to the world, that many called them the Isle of Devils."-P.174. " to all seamen no less terrible than an inchanted den of furies," And no wonder,

The mariners all under hatches stow'd;

Whom, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour,
I have left asleep and for the rest o' the fleet,

Which I dispers'd, they all have met again ;
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,

Bound sadly home for Naples ;

Supposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd,
And his great person perish.

Pro. Ariel, thy charge

Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work:
What is the time o' the day?

Ari. Past the mid season.

Pro. At least two glasses: The time 'twixt six and now, Must by us both be spent most preciously.

Ari. Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains, Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd, Which is not yet perform'd me.

Pro. How now ? moody?

What is't thou canst demand?

Ari. My liberty.

Pro. Before the time be out? no more.

Ari. I pray thee

Remember, I have done thee worthy service;

Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, serv'd

Without or grudge, or grumblings: thou didst promise To bate me a full year.

Pro. 2 Dost thou forget

From what a torment I did free thee?

Ari. No.

for the clime was extremely subject to storms and hurricanes; and the islands were surrounded with scattered rocks,lying shallowly hid under the surface of the water. WARBURTON.

The epithet here applied to the Bermudas will be best understood by those who have seen the chafing of the sea over the rugged rocks by which they are surrounded, and which render access to them so dangerous. It was in our poet's time the current opinion, that Bermudas was inhabited by monsters and devils.-Setebos, the god of Caliban's dam, was an American devil, worshipped by the giants of Patagonia. HENLEY.

[1] Flote is wave. Flot. Fr. STEEV.

[2] That the character and conduct of Prospero may be understood, something must be known of the system of enchantment, which supplied all the marvellous, found in the romances of the middle ages. This system seems to be founded on the opinion that the fallen spirits, having different degrees of guilt, had different habitations allotted them at their expulsion; some being confined in hell, "some (as Hooker, who delivers the opinion of our poet's age, expresses it) dispersed in air, some on earth, some in water, others in caves, dens, or minerals under the earth." Of these, some were more malignant and mischievous than others. The earthy spirits seem to have been

Pro. Thou dost and think'st

It much, to tread the ooze of the salt deep;
To run upon the sharp wind of the north;
To do me business in the veins o' the earth,
When it is bak'd with frost.

Ari. I do not, sir.

Pro. Thou ly'st, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who, with age, and envy, Was grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her? Ari. No, sir.

Pro. Thou hast: Where was she born? speak; tell me. Ari. Sir, in Argier.

Pro. O, was she so? I must,

Once in a month, recount what thou hast been,

Which thou forgett'st. This damn'd witch, Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible

To enter human hearing, from Argier,

Thou know'st, was banish'd; for one thing she did,
They would not take her life: Is not this true?
Ari. Ay, sir.

Pro. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with child,,
And here was left by the sailors: Thou, my slave,
As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant:
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate

To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,

thought the most depraved, and the aerial the less vitiated. Thus Prospero observes of Ariel:

-Thou wast a spirit too delicate

To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands.

Over these spirits a power might be obtained by certain rites performed or charms learned. This power was called the Black Art,' or 'Knowledge of Enchantment.' The enchanter being (as king James observes in his Demon-ology) "one who commands the devil, whereas the witch serves him." Those who thought best of this art, the existence of which was, I am afraid, believed very seriously, held, that certain sounds and characters had a physical power over spirits, and compelled their agency; others who con-demned the practice, which in reality was surely never practised, were of opinion, with more reason, that the power of charms arose only from compaet, and was no more than the spirits voluntarily allowed them for the se.. duction of man. The art was held by all, though not equally criminal, yet unlawful; and therefore Casaubon, speaking of one who had commerce with spirits, blames him, though he imagines him "one of the best kind who dealt with them by way of command" Thus Prospero repents of his art in the last scene. The spirits were always considered as in some measure enslaved to the enchanter, at least for a time, and as serving with unwil lingness, therefore Ariel so often begs for liberty; and Caliban observes, that the spirits serve Prospero with no good will, but hate him rootedly."Of these triffes enough. JOHNSON. 9*

VOL. I.

By help of her more potent ministers,
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprison'd, thou didst painfully remain

A dozen years; within which space she died,

And left thee there; where thou didst vent thy groans, As fast as mill-wheels strike: Then was this island,

(Save for the son that she did litter here,

A freckled whelp, hag-born,) not honour'd with
A human shape.

Ari. Yes; Caliban her son.

Pro. Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban,
Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st
What torment I did find thee in: thy groans
Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts
Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment
To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax
Could not again undo; it was mine art,

When I arriv'd, and heard thee, that made gape
The pine and let thee out.

Ari. I thank thee, master.

Pro. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak, And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till

Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.

Ari. Pardon, master:

I will be correspondent to command,
And do my spiriting gently.

Pro. Do so; and after two days

I will discharge thee.

Ari. That's my noble master!

What shall I do? say what? what shall I do?

Pro. Go make thyself like to a nymph o' the sea; Be subject to no sight but mine; invisible To every eye-ball else. Go, take this shape, And hither come in't: hence, with diligence.

[Exit ARIEL. -Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well; Awake!

Mira. The strangeness of your story put Heaviness in me.

Pro. Shake it off: Come on ;

We'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never

Yields us kind answer.

Mira. 'Tis a villain, sir,