This mufick crept by me upon the waters; ARIEL fings. Full fathom five thy father lies; However, as our author fometimes forgot to compare the different parts of his play, I have made no change. MALONE. By the word-again, I fuppofe the Prince means only to defcribe the repetition of his forrows. Befides, it appears from Miranda's defcription of the ftorm, that the fhip had been fwallowed by the waves, and, confequently, could no longer be an object of fight. STEEVENS. This mufick crept by me upon the waters ;] So, in Milton's Mafque: a foft and folemn breathing found And stole upon the air." STEEVENS. "Full fathom five thy father lies ; &c.] Ariel's lays, [which have been condemned by Gildon as trifling, and defended not very fuccessfully by Dr. Warburton,] however seasonable and efficacious, muft be allowed to be of no fupernatural dignity or elegance; they exprefs nothing great, nor 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 order of beings to which tradition has always afcribed a fort of diminutive agency, powerful but ludicrous, a humorous and frolick controlment of nature, well expreffed by the fongs of Ariel. JOHNSON. The fongs in this play, Dr. Wilson, who refet and published two of them, tells us, in his Court Ayres, or Ballads, published at Oxford, 1660, that " Full fathom five," and "Where the bee fucks," had been first set by Robert Johnson, a composer contemporary with Shakspeare. BURNEY. I Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth fuffer a fea-change-] The meaning is-Every thing about him, that is liable to alteration, is changed. STEEVENS. But doth fuffer a fea-change Hark! now I hear them,-ding-dong, bell.3 [Burden, ding-dong.+ FER. The ditty does remember my drown'd father: This is no mortal business, nor no found 2 But doth fuffer a fea-change-] So, in Milton's Mafque: "And underwent a quick immortal change." STEEVENS. 3 Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell : Burden, ding-dong.] So, in The Golden Garland of Princely Delight, &c. 13th edi tion, 1690: Corydon's doleful knell to the tune of Ding, dong." "Yet will I ring her knell, Ding, dong." The fame burthen to a fong occurs in The Merchant of Venice, A& III. fc. ii. STEEVENS. Burden, ding-dong.] It fhould be Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong bell. FARMER. 5 That the earth owes :] To owe, in this place, as well as many others, fignifies to own. So, in Othello: that fweet fleep "Which thou ow'dfi yesterday.” Again, in the Tempest: thou doft here ufurp "The name thou ow'ft not." To ufe the word in this fenfe, is not peculiar to Shakspeare. I meet with it in Beaumont and Fletcher's Beggar's Bufh: "If now the beard be fuch, what is the prince "That owes the beard?" STEEVENS. The fringed curtains, &c.] The fame expreffion occurs in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609: 66 her eyelids "Begin to part their fringes of bright gold." And fay, what thou seest yond'. MIRA. What is't? a fpirit? Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, fir, It carries a brave form :-But 'tis a spirit. PRO. No, wench; it eats and fleeps, and hath fuch fenfes As we have, fuch: This gallant, which thou feeft, A goodly perfon: he hath loft his fellows, MIRA. A thing divine; for nothing natural goes on," I might call him [Afide. As my foul prompts it:-Spirit, fine fpirit! I'll free thee Within two days for this. FER. Moft fure, the goddess On whom these airs attend !8-Vouchfafe, my prayer Again, in Sidney's Arcadia Lib. I: "Sometimes my eyes would lay themfelves open-or caft my lids, as curtains, over the image of beauty her prefence had painted in them." STEEVENS. ? It goes on,] The old copy reads-" It goes on, I fee," &c. But as the words I fee, are ufelefs, and an incumbrance to the metre, I have omitted them. STEEVENS. * Moft fure, &c.] It seems, that Shakspeare, in The Tempeft, hath been fufpected of tranflating fome expreflions of Virgil; witness the O Dea certe. I prefume we are here directed to the paffage, where Ferdinand fays of Miranda, after hearing the longs of Ariel: Moft fure, the goddess On whom thefe airs attend!— And fo very fmall Latin is fufficient for this formidable tranflation, that, if it be thought any honour to our poet, I am loth to deprive May know, if you remain upon this island; MIRA. But, certainly a maid.9 No wonder, fir; him of it; but his honour is not built on such a sandy foundation. Let us turn to a real tranflator, and examine whether the idea might not be fully comprehended by an English reader, fuppofing it neceffarily borrowed from Virgil. Hexameters in our language are almost forgotten; we will quote therefore this time from Stanyhurst: 66 "O to thee, fayre virgin, what terme may rightly be fitted? Thy tongue, thy vifage no mortal frayĺtie refembleth. -No doubt, a goddeffe!" Edit. 1583. FARMER. -certainly a maid.] Nothing could be more prettily imagined, to illuftrate the fingularity of her character, than this pleafant mistake. She had been bred up in the rough and plain-dealing documents of moral philofophy, which teaches us the knowledge of ourselves; and was an utter ftranger to the flattery invented by vicious and defigning men to corrupt the other fex. So that it could not enter into her imagination, that complaisance, and a defire of appearing amiable, qualities of humanity which the had been inftructed, in her moral leffons, to cultivate, could ever degenerate into fuch excefs, as that any one thould be willing to have his fellow-creature believe that he thought her a goddess, or an immortal. WARBURTON. 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 queftion which, if he meant it, he has ill expreffed, but whether she was unmarried; for after the dialogue which Profpero's interruption produces, he goes on purfuing his former question: O if a virgin, I'll make you queen of Naples. JOHNSON. A paffage in Lyly's Galathea feems to countenance the prefent text: "The question among men is common, are you a maide ?” -yet I cannot but think, that Dr. Warburton reads very rightly: "If you be made, or no." When we meet with a harth expreffion in Shakspeare, we are usually to look for a play upon words. FER. My language! heavens!I am the beft of them that speak this speech, Fletcher closely imitates The Tempeft in his Sea Voyage: and he introduces Albert in the fame manner to the ladies of his Defert Inland : "Be not offended, goddeffes, that I fall "Thus proftrate," &c. Shakspeare himself had certainly read, and had probably now in his mind, a paffage in the third book of The Fairy Queen, between Timias and Belphebe: 66 Angel or goddess! do I call thee right? "Nor goddess I, nor angel, but the maid "And daughter of a woody nymph," &c. FARmer. So Milton, Comus, 265: Hail foreign wonder! "Whom certain thefe rough fhades did never breed, Milton's imitation explains Shakspeare. Maid is certainly a created being, a Woman in oppofition to Goddess. Miranda immediately destroys this first sense by a quibble. In the mean time, I have no objection to read made, i. e. created. The force of the fentiment is the fame. Comus is univerfally allowed to have taken fome of its tints from The Tempest. T. WARTON. The firft copy reads-if you be maid, or no. Made was not fuggefted by Dr. Warburton, being an emendation introduced by the editor of the fourth folio. It was, I am perfuaded, the author's word: There being no article prefixed adds ftrength to this fuppofition. Nothing is more common in his plays than a word being used in reply, in a fenfe different from that in which it was employed by the firft speaker. Ferdinand had the moment before called Miranda a goddefs; and the words immediately fubjoined, -"Vouchfafe my prayer"-fhow, that he looked up to her as a perfon of a fuperior order, and fought her protection, and inftruction for his conduct, not her love. At this period, therefore, he muft have felt too much awe to have flattered himself with the hope of poffeffing a being that appeared to him celestial; though afterwards, emboldened by what Miranda fays, he exclaims, “O, if a virgin," &c. words that appear inconfiftent with the fuppofition that he had already asked her whether the was one or not. She had indeed told him, the was; but in his astonishment at hearing her speak his own language, he may well be supposed to have forgotten |