It should the good ship so have swallowed, and PRO. Be collected; No more amazement: tell your piteous heart, MIRA. PRO. O, woe the day! No harm. I have done nothing but in care of thee, (Of thee, my dear one! thee, my daughter!) who "Or ever the filver cord be loofed, or the golden bowl be bro ken." Again, in our author's Cymbeline: or e'er I could "Give him that parting kiss." STEEVENS. 9 Pro. No harm.] I know not whether Shakspeare did not make Miranda speak thus: O, woe the day! no harm? To which Profpero properly anfwers : I have done nothing but in care of thee. Miranda, when the speaks the words, O, woe the day! fuppofes, not that the crew had efcaped, but that her father thought differently from her, and counted their deftruction no harm. JOHNSON. more better-] This ungrammatical expreffion is very frequent among our oldeft writers. So, in The Hiftory of Helyas Knight of the Swan, bl. 1. no date, imprinted by Wm. Copland: "And alfo the more fooner to come, without prolixity, to the true Chronicles," &c. Again, in the True Tragedies of Marius and Scilla, 1594: "To wait a meffage of more better worth." Again, ibid: 2 "That hale more greater than Cassandra now.” STEEVENS. full poor cell,] i. e. a cell in a great degree of poverty. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: "I am full forry." STEEVENS. I fhould inform thee further. Lend thy hand, comfort. The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd 3 Did never meddle with my thoughts.] i. e. mix with them. To meddle is often used, with this fenfe, by Chaucer. Hence the fubftantive medley. The modern and familiar phrafe by which that of Miranda may be explained, is-never entered my thoughts -never came into my head. STEEVENS. It fhould rather mean-to interfere, to trouble, to lufy itself, as ftill used in the North, e. g. Don't meddle with me; i. e. Let me alone; Don't moleft me. RITSON. See Howell's Dia. 1660, in v. to meddle; " se mesler de." MALONE. 4 Lie there my art.] Sir Will. Cecil, lord Burleigh, lord high treasurer, &c. in the reign of queen Elizabeth, when he put off his gown at night, ufed to fay, Lie there, lord treafurer. Fuller's Holy State, p. 257. STEEVENS. -virtue of compaffion-] Virtue; the most efficacious part, the energetic quality; in a like sense we say, The virtue of a plant is in the extract. JOHNSON. 6 that there is no foul-] Thus the old editions read; but this is apparently defective. Mr. Rowe, and after him Dr. Warburton, read-that there is no foul loft, without any notice of the variation. Mr. Theobald fubftitutes no foil, and Mr. Pope follows him. To come fo near the right, and yet to miss it, is unlucky the author probably wrote no foil, no ftain, no spot; for fo Ariel tells : Not a hair perish'd; On their fuftaining garments not a blemish, But fresher than before. And Gonzalo, The rarity of it is, that our garments being No, not fo much perdition as an hair, Which thou heard'ft cry, which thou faw'ft fink. For thou must now know further. You have often MIRA. PRO. The hour's now come; The very minute bids thee ope thine ear; Obey, and be attentive. Can'ft thou remember I do not think thou can'ft; for then thou waft not MIRA. Certainly, fir, I can. PRO. By what? by any other house, or perfon? drenched in the fea, keep notwithstanding their freshness and gloffes. Of this emendation I find that the author of notes on The Tempest had a glimpse, but could not keep it. JOHNSON. no foul-] Such interruptions are not uncommon to Shakspeare. He fometimes begins a fentence, and, before he concludes it, entirely changes its conftruction, because another, more forcible, occurs. As this change frequently happens in conversation, it may be fuffered to pafs uncenfured in the language of the stage. STEEVENS. 7 not fo much perdition as an hair, Betid to any creature in the veffel-] Had Shakspeare in his mind St. Paul's hortatory fpeech to the fhip's company, where he affures them that, though they were to fuffer fhipwreck, “not an hair should fall from the head of any of them?" Acts, xxvii. 34. Ariel afterwards says, "Not a hair perifh'd." HOLT WHIte. 8 Out three years old.] i. e. Quite three years old, three old full-out, complete. years So, in the 4th A&t: "And be a boy right out." STEEVENS. Of any thing the image tell me, that MIRA. 'Tis far off; PRO. Thou had'ft, and more, Miranda: But how is it, That this lives in thy mind? What feeft thou elfe In the dark backward and abyfm of time?9 If thou remember'ft aught, ere thou cam'st here, How thou cam'ft here, thou may'st. MIRA. But that I do not. PRO. Twelve years fince, Miranda, twelve years fince,1 Thy father was the duke of Milan, and A prince of power. MIRA. Sir, are not you my father? PRO. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and She faid—thou waft my daughter; and thy father Was duke of Milan; and his only heir 9 abysm of time?] i. e. Abyss. This method of spelling the word is common to other ancient writers. They took it from the French abyfme, now written abime. So, in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613: "And chafe him from the deep abysms below." STEEVENS. 1 Twelve years fince, Miranda, twelve years fince,] Years, in the first inftance, is used as a diffyllable, in the second as a monofyllable. But this is not a licence peculiar to the profody of Shakspeare. In the fecond book of Sidney's Arcadia are the following lines, exhibiting the fame word with a fimilar profodical variation: "And fhall the die? fhall cruel fier fpill "Those beames that fet fo many hearts on fire ?” STEEVENS. A princefs;-no worfe iffued.* MIRA. O, the heavens! What foul play had we, that we came from thence? Or bleffed was't, we did? PRO. By foul play, as thou fay'ft, MIRA. Both, both, my girl: were we heav'd thence; O, my heart bleeds To think o' the teen 3 that I have turn'd you to, Which is from my remembrance! I further. Please you, PRO. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio, pray Without a parallel; thofe being all my study, And to my state grew ftranger, being transported, MIRA. Sir, moft heedfully. PRO. Being once perfected how to grant fuits, 2 A princefs;-no worfe iffued.] The old copy reads-" And princess." For the trivial change in the text I am answerable. Oued is defcended. So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608: 3 Juliet: "For I am by birth a gentleman, and issued of fuch parents," &c. STEEVENS. 66 teen-] is forrow, grief, trouble. So, in Romeo and to my teen be it spoken." STEEVENS, |