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But let us follow this "poor man" whose "library was dukedom large enough." In the words of Chaucer

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The name of Prospero might be added to the list of the calamities of genius. After recounting his twelve years banishment, he intimates the period of their release.

"Prospero.-Know thus far forth:

By accident most strange, bounteous Fortune,
Now, my dear lady, hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore: and by my prescience

I find my xenith doth depend upon

A most auspicious star; whose influence,
If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop."

This passage exactly corresponds to that of Brutus, "There is a tide in the affairs of men," and also in Troilus and Cressida, “I have important business, the tide whereof is now." The period in which Shakspeare lived was remarkable for the twilight which hung long dawning over the ignorant and besotted mind, when knowledge was concentrated in the individual; then study meant mystery, and science witchcraft. Chemistry had not risen out of the alchymist's crucible, and astronomy lay hidden beneath the jargon of astrology. Thus, our poet refers to the "auspicious stars," but, like a true philosopher, he does not make the stars do all the work, but rather trusts to the energy of his own character. Prospero advantaged the time, and thus the "flood of fortune" might oftener return if we were ready to take our venture. In the next scene “quaint Ariel" appears, that delicate spirit. Prospero interrogates Ariel respecting the tempest

"Hast thou, spirit,

Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?

Ariel. To every article.

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

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The phenomenon called St. Elmo's light, will be readily recognized in this elegant description of Ariel's. It is supposed to be an electrical phenomenon, which generally appears before tempestuous weather. It is mentioned by Pliny in his Hist. Nat., as also by Seneca and many subsequent writers. Douce supposes that Shakspeare consulted the works of Stephen Batman, who, speaking of Castor and Pollux, says, they were figured like two lamps, or cresset lights, one on the toppe of a maste, the other on the stemme or foreshippe." Douce adds, that "if the light first appears on the stem, or foreship, and ascends, it is good luck; but if either lights begin at the top mast, and descend toward the sea, it is a sign of tempest. By taking the latter position, Ariel had raised the storm according to the commands of Prospero."

The following extract from a modern author will be more interesting to the reader:-" St. Elmo's light is a luminous meteor that frequently settles upon the mast-head of vessels, and is, probably of electric origin, though it is never known to produce any of those disastrous effects which so often attend lightning. Sometimes it is confined to the mast-head, while at other times it gradually descends the mast to the deck itself. It was formerly supposed, by mariners, to be the visible representation of the spirit St. Elmo, who is the tutelar deity of those who traverse the mighty deep. When it is confined to the top-mast, it is a proof, in their opinion, that although bad weather may be present, yet it will not continue, and cannot injure the vessel: but when it descends the mast, it prognosticates a gale of wind, or a disaster, &c., &c."

The unfortunate poet, Falconer, alludes to this phenomenon :
"High on the mast, with pale and livid rays,
Amid the gloom portentous meteors blaze."

How beautifully Ariel describes the terror and furious broil of shipwreck it is all noise and wild contention,-"not a soul was firm"

:

"Ferdinand,

With hair up-starting, (then like reeds, not hair),

Was the first man that leaped."

Shakspeare has frequently alluded to this effect of fear; as in Richard the Third:-

"My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.”

.

Also in Henry VI., &c. This is a physical fact, and produced by the erectile tissue of the scalp, of course involuntary.

We leave Ariel to plead his liberty with his stern master, whose introduction of the birth of Caliban, the "duke's jester," is admirably managed

"Prospero. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself
Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!

Caliban. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen,

Drop on you both!"

Though Shakspeare must have read very extensively, and probably works not confined to his own language, yet, for the most part, his observations are practical; he saw readily, and judged correctly. Subtle in his scrutiny of natural phenomena, he ascended from effects to causes, or by a comparison of causes predicted their effects. Stagnation is the matrix of infectious breath, or miasm. The " unwholesome fen" is the abode of plague, pestilence, and death. In the catalogue of mortal ills, pestilence is the most direful; millions are yearly sacrificed to the ". vapours of decay" that float off the green and livid pools and lakes so common in India. In our own county of Lincolnshire, intermittent fevers are indigenous to the cold, damp soil and marshes that generate them. In America the same evils occur, and from the same causes.

The poet has admirably chosen the "wicked dew" for the curse of Caliban, who must be supposed ignorant of the evils which society inflicts on herself; while the "breath of the noxious south" was slow, insiduous, and fatal, working as a charm. In the 2nd scene, act 2nd, the monster appears again, and renews his curse—

"Caliban. All the infections that the sun sucks up From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him, By inch-meal, a disease."

This resembles the arrows of Apollo, in the 1st book of the Iliad,

"Whose direful darts inflict the raging pest,"

and exhibits the real workings, cause, and effect of the "pestilence that walketh in darkness." How shudderingly horrible, "inchmeal, a disease!" human revenge could not conceive nor utter such a curse; the language is part of the monster.

In the second Act, appear Alonzo, Sebastian, Antonio, and others. This scene somewhat resembles the "Forest of Ardennes, with the deposed Duke and his gay brothers in exile;"-they come to an encounter of their keen wits, making their "words wanton."

VOL. V.-NO. XVII.

F

The anecdote of Dominie Sampson's wearing apparel strikingly coincides with the following speech of Gonzalo, and was probably suggested by it :

"The only remark he (Dominie Sampson) was ever known to make upon the subject, was, that the air of a town like Kippletringan, seemed favourable unto wearing apparel, for he thought his coat looked almost as new as the first day he put it on."

"Gonzalo. That our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold, notwithstanding their freshness and glosses; being rather new dyed, than stained with salt-water.

Antonio.—If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say, he lies? Sebastian.-Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report.

Gon. Methinks our garments are now as fresh as when we put them on in Afric."

The old courtier, again, asks—

"Is not, Sir, my doublet

As fresh as the first day I wore it."

The images of one of the most exquisite verses of Byron conform nicely to the following passage relating to the loss of Ferdinandthey are both real and powerfully true. The masculine strength displayed in Ferdinand's exertions is most exciting.*

"Francisco. Sir, he may live;

I saw him beat the surges under him,

And ride upon their backs; he trod the water,
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted

The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd

Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke

To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd,

As stooping to relieve him."

Foscari, looking from his dungeon on the fresh waves of the blue Adriatic, breaks out, with all the delighted eloquence of a young unbow'd heart,

*

"How many a time have I

Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more daring,
The wave all roughen'd; with a swimmer's stroke
Flinging the billows back from my drench'd hair,
And laughing from my lip the audacious brine,

Shakspeare's heroes are genuine flesh and blood, the very opposite of the sickly sentimental offspring of "a modern gentleman." The same peculiar excellence belongs to Fielding, Smollett, and Scott.

Which kiss'd it like a wine cup; rising o'er
The waves as they arose, and prouder still
The loftier they uplifted me; and oft,
In wantonness of spirit, plunging down
Into their green and glassy gulfs, and making
My way to shells and sea-weed, all unseen
By those above, till they wax'd fearful; then
Returning with my grasp full of such tokens
As show'd that I had search'd the deep: exulting
With a far-dashing stroke, and drawing deep
The long-suspended breath, again I spurned
The foam which broke around me, and pursued
My track like a sea-bird. I was a boy then!"

How beautiful! How voluptuous! He even swims like a lover. Byron is the Shakspeare of the "world within us," not that of untaught nature, but of man in the highest state of civilization.

Among the opinions of men, none are so eccentric as those of human happiness; and while every individual, however mean, has somewhat to hope, it is only great minds who have wandered into this many-coloured speculation, and laid down schemes for its reality. From the time of Plato to the Owenites of to-day, the golden age of universal love has been imagined and sighed for; as though the lingering regrets of our first parents had clung to our natures as one of its elements. The Eden of earth, by an easy transition, is transfigured in the blissfulness of heaven: what was imagined possible in time, is interwoven in our religious faith as the reality of eternity. The Eutopiists can number names the most illustrious in the history of the world, "who have set forth the law of their own minds." The French philosophers, nationally speculative, too eager for perfection to be patient of reform, would anticipate the "final doom," and foretell a new earth rising out of the universal overthrow. The Owenites of the present day, advance irrefutable arguments, and with an almost divine prescience, arrogate to themselves the millenium of the christian.

It is probable that Shakspeare had read the Republic of Plato: not that a mind so expansive could not have imagined what is so essential an element in poetry, but the following striking passage is, at least, a precedent for successive Atalantists, where Bacon and Moore might have beheld their Edens :

"Gonzalo.-Had I the plantation of this isle, my lord,-
Antonio.-He'd sow it with nettle-seed.

* Petrarch.

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