on the topmast, The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, This, as Douce remarks, is a description of the well-known meteor, called by the several names of Saint Helen, Saint Elm, Saint Herm, Saint Clare, Saint Peter, and Saint Nicholas. "Whenever it appeared as a single flame, it was supposed by the ancients to be Helena, the sister of Castor and Pollux; and in this state to bring ill-luck from the calamities which this lady is known to have caused in the Trojan war. When it came double, it was called Castor and Pollux, and accounted a good omen." Hakluyt's collection of the "Voyages, Navigations, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation," furnishes an interesting account of this meteor, as seen during the "Voyage of Robert Tomson Marchant, into Nova Hispania, in the yeere 1555 :" "I do remember that in the great and boysterous storme of this foule weather, in the night, there came upon the toppe of our maine yarde and maine maste, a certaine little light, much like unto the light of a little candle, which the Spaniards called the Cuerpo santo, and saide it was S. Elmo, whom they take to be the advocate of sailers. *** This light continued aboord our ship about three houres, flying from maste to maste, and from top to top and sometime it would be in two or three places at once. I informed myself of learned men afterward what that light should be, and they said, that it was but a congelation of the winde and vapours of the sea congealed with the extremitie of the weather, which, flyinge in the winde, many times doeth chance to hit on the masts and shrowds of the ships that are at sea in foule weather. And in trueth I do take it to be so: for that I have seene the like in other ships at sea, and in sundry ships at once."-HAKLUYT, III. 450, ed. 1600. (4) SCENE II.-The still-vex'd Bermoothes.] Shakespeare's first knowledge of the storm-vex'd coast of the Bermudas, was probably acquired from Sir Walter Raleigh's "Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana," 1596, wherein, after speaking of the Channel of Bahama, the author adds,-"The rest of the Indies for calms, and diseases, are very troublesome; and the Bermudas a hellish sea, for thunder, lightning, and storms. (See Chalmers' Apology, p. 578.) Or he might have derived his information from Hakluyt's Voyages, 1600, in which there is a description of Bermuda, by Henry May, who was shipwrecked there in 1593. (5) SCENE II.-CALIBAN.] It has been surmised that the idea of this marvellous creation was derived from the subjoined passage in Eden's "History of Travayle in the West and East Indies," 4to., London, 1577-a book from which it is exceedingly probable that Shakespeare borrowed the names of some of the principal characters of this piece, as Alonso, Ferdinand, Sebastian, Gonzalo, Antonio, &c. "Departyng from hence, they sayled to the 49 degree and a halfe under the pole antartike; where being wyntered, they were inforced to remayne there for the space of two monethes: all which tyme they sawe no man, excepte that one day by chaunce they espyed a man of the stature of a giant, who came to the haven daunsing and singing, and shortly after seemed to cast dust over his head. The captayne sent one of his men to the shore, with the shyppe boate, who made the lyke signe of peace. The which thyng the giant seeyng, was out of feare, and came with the captayne's servaunt, to his presence, into a little ilande. When he sawe the captayne with certayne of his company about hym, he was greatly amased, and made signes, holdyng up his hande to heaven, signifying thereby, that our men came from thence. This giant was so byg, that the head of one of our men of a meane stature came but to his waste. He was of good corporature, and well made in all partes of his bodie, with a large visage painted with divers colours, but, for the most parte, yelow. Uppon his cheekes were paynted two hartes, and red circles about his eyes. The heare of his head was coloured whyte, and his apparell was the skynne of a beast sowde togeather. This beast, as seemed unto us, had a large head, and great eares lyke unto a mule, with the body of a camell and tayle of a horse. The feete of the giant were foulded in the sayde skynne, after the maner of shopes. * The captayne caused him to eate and drynke, and gave him many thinges, and among other a great lookyng glasse, in the which, as soone as he sawe his owne lykenesse, was sodaynly afrayde, and started backe with such violence, that hee overthrewe two that stoode nearest about him. When the captayne had thus gyven him certayne haukes belles, and other great belles, with also a lookyng glasse, a combe, and a payre of beades of glasse, he sent him to lande with foure of his owne men well armed." (6) SCENE II.— As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd Wicked, in the sense of baneful, hurtful, is often met with in old medical works applied to sores and wounds. "A wykked felone," i. e. a bad sore, is mentioned in a tract on hawking, MS. Harl. 2340. An analogous use of the word, fierce, savage, is mentioned in A Glossary of Provincial Words used in Herefordshire, 1839, p. 119, as still current.-HALLIWELL. The following passage in Batman uppon Bartholome kis booke De proprietatibus rerum, 1582, folio, will not only throw considerable light on these lines, but furnish at the same time grounds for a conjecture that Shakespeare was indebted to it, with a slight alteration, for the name of Caliban's mother, Sycorax the witch. 66 The raven is called corvus of CORAX . . . . it is said that ravens birdes be fed with deaw of heaven all the time that they have no black feathers by benefite of age," lib. xii. c. 10. The same author will also account for the choice which is made, in the monster's speech, of the south-west wind. "This southern wind is hot and moyst. Southern winds corrupt and destroy; they heat and maketh men fall into sicknesse," lib. xi. c. 3.-DOUCE. (7) SCENE II.-It would control my dam's god, Setebos.] The same work, Eden's History of Travayle, contains a curious notice, showing that Setebos was a mythological personage in the creed of the Patagonians : "The captayne retayned two of these [giants] which were youngest and beste made. He tooke them by a deceite in this maner,-that givyng them knyves, sheares, looking glasses, bells, beades of crystall and suche other trifles, he so filled theyr handes, that they could holde no more; then caused two payre of shackels of iron to be put on theyr legges, makyng signes that he would also give them those chaynes, which they lyked very wel, bycause they were made of bright and shining metall. *** When they felte the shackels faste about theyr legges, they began to doubt; but the captayne dyd put them in comfort, and bad them stand still. In fine, when they sawe how they were deceived, they roared lyke bulles, and cryed uppon theyr great devill, Setebos, to helpe them. *** They say, that when any of them dye, there appeare X or XII devils, leaping and daunsing about the bodie of the dead, and seeme to have their bodies paynted with divers colours, and that among other there is one scene bigger then the residue, who maketh great mirth and rejoysing. This great devyll they call Setebos."-P. 434. (1) SCENE I.— but nature should bring forth Of it own kind, all foizon, all abundance, To feed my innocent people.] ACT II. Among the most treasured rarities in the library of the British Museum, is Shakespeare's own copy of Florio's Montaigne, 1603, with his autograph, "Willm. Shakspere," on the fly-leaf. This work, intituled, "The Essayes, or Morall, Politike and Millitarie Discourses, of Lo: Michaell de Montaigne, Knight," was evidently a favourite of the poet, and furnished him with the materials for Gonzalo's Utopian commonwealth. The passage he has adopted occurs in the thirtieth chapter of the First Book, and is headed, "Of the Caniballes:" Those nations seeme therefore so barbarous unto mee, because they have received very little fashion from humane The wit, and are yet neere their originall naturalitie. lawes of nature do yet commaund them, which are but little bastardized by ours. And that with such puritie, as I am sometimes grieved the knowlege of it came no sooner to light, at what time ther were men, that better than wee could have judged of it. I am sorie, Licurgus and Plato had it not: for me seemeth that what in those nations we see by experience, doth not onlie exceede all the pictures wherewith licentious Poesie hath prowdly imbellished the golden age, and al hir quaint inventions to faine a happy condition of man, but also the conception and desire of Philosophie. They could not imagine a genuitie so pure and simple, as we see it by experience; nor ever beleeve our societie might be maintained with so little arte and humane combination. It is a nation, would I answere Plato, that hath no kinde of traffike, no knowledge of Letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politike superioritie; no use of service, of riches, or of poverty; no contracts, no successions, no dicidences, no occupation but idle; no respect of kinred, but common, no apparell but naturall, no manuring of lands, no use of wine, corne, or mettle. The very words that import lying, falshood, treason, dissimulation, covetousnes, envie, detraction, and pardon, were necer heard of amongst them." (2) SCENE I.-We would so, and then go a bat-fouling.] The instructions for Bat-fouling in Markham's "Hunger's Prevention," &c. 1600, afford an accurate description of the way in which this sport was pursued in former times : For the manner of Bat-fowling it may be vsed either with Nettes, or without Nettes: If you vse it without Nettes (which indeede is the most common of the two) you shall then proceede in this manner. First, there shall be one to cary the cresset of fire (as was showed for the Lowbell) then a certain number as two, three, or foure (according to the greatnesse of your company), and these shall haue poales bound with dry round wispes of hay, straw, or such like stuffe, or else bound with pieces of Linkes, or Hurdes dipt in Pitch, Rosen, Grease, or any such like matter that will blaze. Then another company shall be armed with long poales, very rough and bushy at the vpper endes, of which the Willow, Byrche, or long Hazell are best, but indeed acording as the Country will afford, so you must be content to take. "Thus being prepared and comming into the Bushy or rough ground where the haunts of Birds are, you shall then first kindle some of your fiers as halfe, or a third part, according as your prouision is, and then with your other bushy and rough poales you shall beat the Bushes, Trees and haunts of the Birds, to enforce them to rise, which done you shall see the Birds which are raysed, to flye and their play about the lights and flames of the fier, for it nature through their amazednesse, and affright at the strangenes of the lightt and the extreame darknesse round about it, not to depart from it, but as it were almost to scorch their wings in the same: so that those which haue the rough bushye poales may (at their pleasures) beat them down with the same, and so take the. Thus you may spend as much of the night as is darke, for longer is not conuenient; and doubtlesse you shall finde much pastime, and take great store of birds, and in this you shall obserue all the obseruations formerly treated of in the Lowbell; especially, that of silence, vntill your lights be kindled, but then you may vse your pleasure, for the noyse and the light when they are heard and seene a farre of, they make the birds sit the faster and surer. "The byrdes which are commonly taken by this labour or exercise are, for the most part, the Rookes, Ring-doues, Blackebirdes, Throstles, Feldufares, Linnets, Bulfinches, and all other Byrdes whatsoeuer that pearch or sit vpon small boughes or bushes." (3) SCENE II.-They will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.] Some verses written by Henry Peacham, about the year 1609, give a curious list of most of the popular exhibitions then to be seen in the metropolis, together with a few notices of some of the sights of the country :— 'Why doe the rude vulgar so hastily post in a madnesse, The Tombe of Beauchampe, and sword of Sir Guy a Warwicke; ACT III. (1) SCENE II.-The picture of Nobody.] "No-body" was a ludicrous figure often found on street signs, and of which a representation is prefixed to the comedy of "No-body and Some-body," 1600. The following verses form the beVOL. III. 49 ginning of a popular old ballad, called "The Well-spoken Nobody," the unique copy of which, in the Miller collection at Britwell-house, supplied Mr. Halliwell with a curious engraving, showing a floor all bestrewed with domestic E utensils and implements broken to pieces, and a fantastic figure in the midst bearing a scroll with the words, "Nobody is my name that begreth every bodyes blame." "Many speke of Roben Hoode that never shott in his bowe, So many have layed faultes to me, which I did never knowe; But now beholde here I am, Whom all the worlde doeth diffame Long hath they also skorned me, And locked my mouthe for speking free. (2) SCENE II.—I would I could see this taborer ] "Several of the incidents in this scene," Steevens remarks, “viz. — Ariel's mimickry of Trinculo, the tune played on the tabor, and Caliban's description of the twangling instruments, &c., might have been borrowed from Marco Paolo, the old Venetian voyager; who, in lib. I. ch. 44, describing the desert of Lop, in Asia, says:-'Audiuntur ibi voces dæmonum, &c. voces fingentes eorum quos comitari se putant. Audiuntur interdum in aere concentus musicorum instrumentorum."" This work was translated into English by John Frampton in 1579, under the title of "The Most Noble and famous Travels of Marcus Paulus, one of the Nobilitie of the State of Venice," &c., and the above passage is rendered:-"You shall heare in the ayre the sound of tabers and other instruments, to put the travellers in feare, &c., by evill spirites that make these soundes, and also do call diverse of the travellers by their names," &c.— ch. 36, p. 32. (1) SCENE I. And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind.] ACT IV. It is impossible to doubt that Shakespeare in this sublime passage remembered the lines in Lord Sterline's "Tragedie of Darius," 1604 : "Let greatnesse of her glascie scepters vaunt, Not sceptors, no, but reeds, soone brus'd, soone broken; Those statelie courts, those sky-encountring walles, With regard to the disputed word, "rack," which some editors, Mr. Dyce among them, conceive to be no more than an old form of wreck, the reader is recommended to consult Whiter's "Specimen of a Commentary on Shakspeare," &c., pp. 194-198, and Horne Tooke's Enea Птeрuevтa, Vol. II. pp. 389-396. To what those writers have said on the subject we have only to add, that while it is evident that by rack was understood the drifting vapour, or scud as it is now termed, it would appear that Shakespeare, in the present instance, as in another, occurring in "Antony and Cleopatra," Act IV. Sc. 12, "That which is now a horse, even with a thought -was thinking not more of the actual clouds than of those gauzy semblances which, in the pageants of his day as in the stage-spectacles of ours, were often used partly or totally to obscure the scene behind. Ben Jonson, in the descriptions of his masques, very frequently mentions this scenic contrivance. Thus in his "Entertainment at Theobalds: -"The King and Queen, with the princes of Wales and Lorrain, and the nobility, being entered into the gallery after dinner, there was seen nothing but a traverse of white across the room; which suddenly drawn, was discovered a gloomy obscure place, hung all with black silks," &c. Again, in his "Masque of Hymen :"-" At this, the whole scene being drawn again, and all covered with clouds, as at night, they left off their intermixed dances, and returned to their first places." The evanishing of the actors, then, in Prospero's pageant -who "Melted into air, into thin air," --was doubtless effected by the agency of filmy curtains which, being drawn one over another to resemble the flying mists, gave to the scene an appearance of gradual dissolution; when the objects were totally hidden, the drapery was withdrawn in the same manner, veil by veil, till at length even that too had disappeared and there was left, then, not even a rack behind. (2) SCENE I.-Come, hang them on this line.] Mr. Hunter successfully exposed the error of those editors who deemed it necessary to change the old spelling of "line-grove," to "lime-grove;" see note (a), p. 41; but to our thinking he has committed a graver mistake than theirs in his ingenious endeavour to prove that the "line" in this passage meant a line-tree;-"When," he observes, "Prospero says to Ariel, who comes in bringing the glittering apparel, 'Come, hang them on this line,' he means on one of the line-trees near his cell, which could hardly have been if the word of the original copies, line-grove, had been allowed to keep its place. But the ear having long been familiar with lime-grove, the word suggested not the branches of a tree so-called, but a cord-line, and, accordingly, when the play is represented, such a line is actually drawn across the stage, and the glittering apparel is hung upon it. Anything more remote from poetry than this can scarcely be imagined."-Disquisition on Shakespeare's Tempest. However unpoetic, and perhaps, as Mr. Knight has remarked, the incidents of the scene so far as the drunken butler and his companion are concerned were purposely rendered so, it is hardly possible to conceive that the coarse jesting,-"Mistress line, is not this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line: now, jerkin, you are like to lose your hair, and prove a bald jerkin ;" and,— "we steal by line and level," &c. could have been provoked by, or indeed would have been applicable to any other object than the familiar horse-hair line which was formerly used to hang clothes on. (3) SCENE I.-And all be turn'd to barnacles.] It was anciently believed that the barnacle shell-fish, which is found on timber exposed to the action of the sea, became, when broken off, a kind of goose. Some, indeed, supposed that the barnacles actually grew on trees, and thence dropping into the sea, became geese; and an interesting cut of these birds so growing, from a MS. of the fourteenth century, is given by Mr. Halliwell, who observes that "the barnacle mentioned by Caliban was no doubt the treegoose; and the true absurdity of our old writers, as Douce has observed, consisted in their believing that this bird was really produced from the shell of the fish.” Innumerable allusions to this vulgar error occur in our old writers, but we will adduce only the testimony of Sir John "" weren Maundeville, who declares that in his country ACT V. (1) SCENE I.-By my so potent art.] This speech is founded upon the invocation of Medea in Ovid's Metamorphoses, for which it is evident, from several expressions, that Shakespeare consulted Golding's translation :— "Ye Ayres and Windes, ye Elves of Hilles, of Brookes, of Woods alone, Of standing Lakes, and of the Night, approch ye everychone. Through helps of whom (the crooked bankes much wondring at the thing) I have compelled streames to run cleane backward to their spring. By charmes I make the calm seas rough, and make the rough seas playne, And cover all the Skie with clouds, and chase them thence By charmes I raise and lay the windes, and burst the Viper's jaw, And even the earth it selfe to grone and fearefully to quake. I darken oft, though beaten brass abate thy perill soone: Our Sorcerie dimmes the Morning faire, and darks the Sun at The flaming breath of fierie Bulles ye quenched for my sake, (2) SCENE I. Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.] The beautiful fancy in the second line of Ariel's song,"In a cowslip's bell I lie," was once supposed to have been borrowed from a stanza in "At midnight the appointed hour; It is now, however, generally believed that "Nimphidia," CRITICAL OPINIONS ON THE TEMPEST. "It is observed of 'The Tempest,' that its plan is regular. This the author of 'The Revisal' thinks, what I think too, an accidental effect of the story, not intended or regarded by our author. But whatever might be Shakespeare's intention in forming or adopting the plot, he has made it instrumental to the production of many characters, diversified with boundless invention, and preserved with profound skill in nature, extensive knowledge of opinions, and accurate observation of life. In a single drama are here exhibited princes, courtiers, and sailors, all speaking in their real characters. There is the agency of airy spirits, and of an earthly goblin; the operations of magick; the tumults of a storm, the adventures of a desart island, the native effusion of untaught affection, the punishment of guilt, and the final happiness of the pair for whom our passions and reason are equally interested."-JOHNSON. "The Tempest,' according to all appearance, was written in Shakspeare's later days: hence most critics, on the supposition that the poet must have continued to improve with increasing maturity of mind, have honoured this piece with a marked preference over the Midsummer Night's Dream.' I cannot, however, altogether concur with them: the internal merit of these two works are, in my opinion, pretty nearly balanced, and a predilection for the one or the other can only be governed by personal taste. In profound and original characterisation, the superiority of 'The Tempest' is obvious: as a whole we must always admire the masterly skill which he has here displayed in the economy of his means, and the dexterity with which he has disguised his preparations,-the scaffoldings for the wonderful aërial structure. 51 "The Tempest' has little action or progressive movement; the union of Ferdinand and Miranda is settled at their first interview, and Prospero merely throws apparent obstacles in their way; the shipwrecked band go leisurely about the island; the attempts of Sebastian and Antonio on the life of the King of Naples, and the plot of Caliban and the drunken sailors against Prospero, are nothing but a feint, for we foresee that they will be completely frustrated by the magical skill of the latter; nothing remains therefore but the punishment of the guilty by dreadful sights which harrow up their consciences, and then the discovery and final reconciliation. Yet this want of movement is so admirably concealed by the most varied display of the fascinations of poetry, and the exhilaration of mirth, the details of the execution are so very attractive, that it requires no small degree of attention to perceive that the dénouement is, in some degree, anticipated in the exposition. The history of the loves of Ferdinand and Miranda, developed in a few short scenes, is enchantingly beautiful: an affecting union of chivalrous magnanimity on the one part, and on the other of the virgin openness of a heart which, brought up far from the world on an uninhabited island, has never learned to disguise its innocent movements. The wisdom of the princely hermit Prospero has a magical and mysterious air; the disagreeable impression left by the black falsehood of the two usurpers is softened by the honest gossiping of the old and faithful Gonzalo; Trinculo and Stephano, two good-for-nothing drunkards, find a worthy associate in Caliban; and Ariel hovers sweetly over the whole as the personified genius of the wonderful fable. "Caliban has become a by-word as the strange creation of a poetical imagination. A mixture of gnome and savage, half demon, half brute, in his behaviour we perceive at once the traces of his native disposition, and the influence of Prospero's education. The latter could only unfold his understanding, without, in the slightest degree, taming his rooted malignity: it is as if the use of reason and human speech were communicated to an awkward ape. In inclination Caliban is malicious, cowardly, false, and base; and yet he is essentially different from the vulgar knaves of a civilized world, as portrayed occasionally by Shakspeare. He is rude, but not vulgar; he never falls into the prosaic and low familiarity of his drunken associates, for he is, in his way, a poetical being; he always speaks in verse. He has picked up everything dissonant and thorny in language to compose out of it a vocabulary of his own; and of the whole variety of nature, the hateful, repulsive, and pettily deformed, have alone been impressed on his imagination. The magical world of spirits, which the staff of Prospero has assembled on the island, casts merely a faint reflection into his mind, as a ray of light which falls into a dark cave, incapable of communicating to it either heat or illumination, serves merely to set in motion the poisonous vapours. The delineation of this monster is throughout inconceivably consistent and profound, and, notwithstanding its hatefulness, by no means hurtful to our feelings, as the honour of human nature is left untouched. "In the zephyr-like Ariel, the image of air is not to be mistaken, his name even bears an allusion to it; as, on the other hand, Caliban signifies the heavy element of earth. Yet they are neither of them simple, allegorical personifications, but beings individually determined. In general we find in the 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' in 'The Tempest,' in the magical part of Macbeth,' and wherever Shakspeare avails himself of the popular belief in the invisible presence of spirits, and the possibility of coming in contact with them, a profound view of the inward life of nature and her mysterious springs, which, it is true, can never be altogether unknown to the genuine poet, as poetry is altogether incompatible with mechanical physics, but which few have possessed in an equal degree with Dante and himself."-SCHLEGEL. |