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A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes
With words that made them known. But thy vile race

(Thơ' thou didst learn) had that in't, which good

natures

Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou

Deservedly confin'd into this rock,

Who hadit deserv'd more than a prifon

8

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!

Pro. Hag-feed, hence!

Fetch us in fewel and be quick (thou wer't best)
To answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice?
If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly

What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps;
Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar,
That beasts shall tremble at thy din.

Cal. No, 'pray thee.
I must obey; his art is of such pow'r,
It would control my dam's god Setebos,
And make a vassal of him.

Pro. So, lave, hence!

tions of its own mind, which, it would feem, a Brute hath not, Tho' this, I say, may be applied to a brute, and consequently to Caliban, and tho' to remedy this brutality be a nobler benefit than even the teaching language; yet such a sense would be impertinent and absurd in this place, where only the benefit of language

[afide.

[Exit Caliban.

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SCENE V.

Enter Ferdinand, at the remotest part of the stage; and Ariel invisible, playing and finging.

ARIEL'S SONG.

Come unto those yellow fands,

And then take hand:

Court'fied when you have, and kist,

The wild waves whift;

Foot it featly here and there,

And, Sweet fprites, the burden bear.

[Burden dispersedly.

Hark, bark, baugh-waugh: the watch-dogs bark,

Baugh-waugh.

Ari. Hark, bark, I hear

The strain of strutting chanticlere

Cry, Cock a-doodle-do.

Fer. Where should this musick be, i'th' air, or

earth?

It founds no more: and fure, it waits upon
Some God o' th' Island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the King my father's wreck,
This musick crept by me upon the waters;
Allaying both their fury and my paffion,
With its sweet air; thence I have follow'd it,
Or it hath drawn me rather-but 'tis gone.
No, it begins again.

ARIEL'S SONG.

Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls, that were bis eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,

Bat

But doth fuffer a fea-change, Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring bis knell. Hark, now I bear them, ding-dong, bell. 9

9 Full fathom five thy father. lies, &c.] Gildon, who has pre tended to criticise our Author, would give this up as an infufferable and fenfeless piece of trif ling. 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 Profpero had intrusted to him, in a whisper, was plainly this; to conduct Ferdinand to the fight of Miranda, and to dispose him to the quick fentiments of love, while he, on the other hand, prepared his daughter for the fame impreffions. Ariel fets about his business by acquainting Ferdinand, in an extraordinary manner, with the afflictive news of his father's death. A very odd Apparatus, one would think, for a love-fit. And yet as odd as it appears, the Poet has shewn in it the fineft conduct for carrying on his flot. Prospero had faid,

Ifind my Zenith doth depend upon A most anypicious star; whose influence

If now I court not, but omit, my Fortunes

Will ever after droop

In confequence of this his prescience, he takes advantage of every favourable circumftance

[Burden, ding-dong.

Fer.

that the occasion offers. The principal affair is the Marriage of his daughter with young Ferdinand. But to fecure this point it was necessary they should be contracted before the affair came to Alonzo the Father's knowledge. For Profpero was ignorant how this storm and shipwreck, caused 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 consent 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 the feeking) of a most pious temper and disposition, which would prevent his 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.

WARBURTON.

I know not whether Dr.War. burton has very fuccessfully defended these Songs from Gildon's accufation. Ariel's lays, however seasonable and efficacious, must be allowed to be of no fupernatural dignity or elegance, they express nothing great, nor

Fer. The ditty does remember my drown'd father.

This is no mortal business, nor no found

That the earth owns: I hear it now above me.

Pro. The fringed curtains of thine eyes advance,

And say, what thou see'st yond.

Mira. What is't, a spirit?

Lord, how it looks about! believe me, Sir,
It carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit.

Pro. No, wench, it eats, and sleeps, and hath fuch senses

As we have, such. This gallant, which thou seest, Was in the wreck: and, but he's something stain'd With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou might'st

call him

A goodly person. He hath lost his fellows,

And strays about to find 'em.

Mira. I might call him

A thing divine; for nothing natural

I ever saw so noble.

Pro. It goes on, I fee,

[Afide,

As my foul prompts it. Spirit, fine spirit, I'll free

thee

Within two days for this.

Fer. Most sure, the Goddess

On whom these airs attend !-Vouchsafe, my pray'r
May know, if you remain upon this Island;
And that you will some good instruction give,
How I may bear me here: my prime request
(Which I do last pronounce) is, O you wonder!
If you be maid or no ?

Mira. No wonder, Sir,

reveal any thing above mortal discovery.

The reason for which Ariel is introduced thus trifling is, that he and his companions are evidently of the fairy kind, an or

der of beings to which tradition has always ascribed a fort of diminutive agency, powerful but ludicrous, a humorous and frolick controlment of nature, well expressed by the Songs of Ariel.

But

But certainly a maid.

Fer. My language! heav'ns!
I am the best of them that speak this speech,
Were I but where 'tis spoken.

Pro. How? the best?

What wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee?
Fer. A fingle thing, as I am now, that wonders
To hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me;
And, that he does, I weep: myself am Naples,
Who, with mine eyes (ne'er since at ebb) beheld
The King my father wreckt.

Mira. Alack, for mercy !

Fer. Yes, faith, and all his lords: the Duke of Milan,

And his brave Son, being twain. *
Pro. - The Duke of Milan.

And his more braver daughter, could control thee,
If now 'twere fit to do't: At the first sight,

[Afide to Ariel.

They have chang'd eyes:-delicate Ariel,

Dr. Warburton has here found a beauty which I think the Author never intended. Ferdinand asks her not whether she was a created being, a question which, if he meant it he has ill expressed, but whether she was unmarried; for after the dialogue which Profpero's interruption produces, he goes on pursuing his former question.

certainly a maid.] Nothing could be more prettily imagined to illustrate the fingularity of her character, than this pleasant miftake. She had been bred up in the rough and plain dealing documents of moral philosophy, which teaches us the knowledge of ourselves: And was an utter stranger to the flattery invented by vicious and designing Men to corrupt the other Sex. So that it could not enter into her imagination, that complaisance and a defire of appearing amiable, qualities of humanity which she had been instructed, in her moral leffons, to cultivate, could ever degenerate into such excess, as that any one should be willing to have his fellow-creature believe that he thought her a Goddess or an immortal. WARBURTON. thee.

O, if a virgin,

I'll make you queen of Naples.

2 This is a flight forgetfulness. Nobody was left in the wreck, yet we find no such character as the fon of the Duke of

Milan.

THEOBALD.

3-control thee.] Confute thee, unanswerably contradict

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