I flam'd 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: Jove's lightnings, the precursors
O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-out-running were not: The fire, and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune
Seem'd to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake.

Pro. My brave spirit!

Who was so firm, so constant that this coil
Would not infect his reason?

Ari. Not a soul

But left a fever of the mad, and play'd

Some tricks of desperation: All, but mariners,
Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel,
Then all a-fire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring (then like reeds, not hair,)
Was the first man that leap'd; cried, Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here.

Pro. Why, that's my spirit!
But was not this nigh shore?
Ari. Close by, my master.
Pro. But are they, Ariel, safe?
Ari. Not a hair perish'd ;

On their sustaining garments not a blemish,

But fresher than before: and, as thou bad'st me,
In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle :
The king's son have I landed by himself ;
Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs,
In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting,
His arms in this sad knot.

Pro. Of the king's ship,

The mariners, say, how thou hast dispos'd,
And all the rest o' the fleet?

Ari. Safely in harbour

Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, 9 there she's hid:

[9] Fletcher, in his Women Pleased, says, "The devil should think of purchasing that egg-shell to victual out a witch for the Beermoothes." Smith, in his account of these islands, p. 172, says, "that the Bermudas were so fearful to the world, that many called them the Isle of Devils."-P.174. " to all seamen no less terrible than an inchanted den of furies." And no wonder,

The mariners all under hatches stow'd;

Whom, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour,
I have left asleep and for the rest o' the fleet,

Which I dispers'd, they all have met again;
And are upon the Mediterranean flote, 1

Bound sadly home for Naples ;

Supposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd,
And his great person perish.

Pro. Ariel, thy charge

Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work:
What is the time o' the day?

Ari. Past the mid season.

Pro. At least two glasses: The time 'twixt six and now, Must by us both be spent most preciously.

Ari. Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains, Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd, Which is not yet perform'd me.

Pro. How now ? moody?

What is't thou canst demand?

Ari. My liberty.

Pro. Before the time be out? no more.

Ari. I pray thee

Remember, I have done thee worthy service;

Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, serv'd

Without or grudge, or grumblings: thou didst promise To bate me a full year.

Pro. 2Dost thou forget

From what a torment I did free thee?

Ari. No.

for the clime was extremely subject to storms and hurricanes; and the islands were surrounded with scattered rocks, lying shallowly hid under the surface of the water. WARBURTON.

The epithet here applied to the Bermudas will be best understood by those who have seen the chafing of the sea over the rugged rocks by which they are surrounded, and which render access to them so dangerous. It was in our poet's time the current opinion, that Bermudas was inhabited by monsters and devils.-Setebos, the god of Caliban's dam, was an American devil, worshipped by the giants of Patagonia. HENLEY.

[] Flote is wave. Flot. Fr. STEEV.

[2] That the character and conduct of Prospero may be understood, something must be known of the system of enchantment, which supplied all the marvellous, found in the romances of the middle ages. This system seems to be founded on the opinion that the fallen spirits, having different degrees of guilt, had different habitations allotted them at their expulsion; some being confined in hell. "some (as Hooker, who delivers the opinion of our poet's age, expresses it) dispersed in air, some on earth, some in water, others in caves, dens, or minerals under the earth." Of these, some were more malignant and mischievous than others. The earthy spirits seem to have been

Pro. Thou dost and think'st

It much, to tread the ooze of the salt deep;
To run upon the sharp wind of the north;
To do me business in the veins o' the earth,
When it is bak'd with frost.

Ari. I do not, sir.

Pro. Thou ly'st, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who, with age, and envy, Was grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her? Ari. No, sir.

Pro. Thou hast: Where was she born? speak; tell me. Ari. Sir, in Argier.

Pro. O, was she so? I must,

Once in a month, recount what thou hast been,

Which thou forget t'st. This damn'd witch, Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible

To enter human hearing, from Argier,

Thou know'st, was banish'd; for one thing she did,
They would not take her life: Is not this true?
Ari. Ay, sir.

Pro. This blue-ey'd hag washither brought with child,
And here was left by the sailors: Thou, my slave,
As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant:
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate

To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,

thought the most depraved, and the aerial the less vitiated. Thus Prospero observes of Ariel:

Thou wast a spirit too delicate

To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands.

Over these spirits a power might be obtained by certain rites performed or charms learned. This power was called the Black Art,' or 'Knowledge of Enchantment.' The enchanter being (as king James observes in his Demonology) "one who commands the devil, whereas the witch serves him." Those who thought best of this art, the existence of which was, I am afraid, believed very seriously, held, that certain sounds and characters had a physical power over spirits, and compelled their agency; others who condemned the practice, which in reality was surely never practised, were of opinion, with more reason, that the power of charms arose only from compact, and was no more than the spirits voluntarily allowed them for the seduction of man. The art was held by all, though not equally criminal, yet unlawful; and therefore Casaubon, speaking of one who had commerce with spirits, blames him, though he imagines him one of the best kind who dealt with them by way of command " Thus Prospero repents of his art in the last scene. The spirits were always considered as in some measure enslaved to the enchanter, at least for a time, and as serving with unwil lingness, therefore Ariel so often begs for liberty; and Caliban observes, that the spirits serve Prospero with no good will, but hate him rootedly."Of these trifles enough. JOHNSON.

9*

VOL. I.

By help of her more potent ministers,
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprison'd, thou didst painfully remain

A dozen years; within which space she died,

And left thee there; where thou didst vent thy groans,
As fast as mill-wheels strike: Then was this island,
(Save for the son that she did litter here,

A freckled whelp, hag-born,) not honour'd with
A human shape.

Ari. Yes; Caliban her son.

Pro. Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban,
Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st
What torment I did find thee in: thy groans
Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts
Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment
To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax
Could not again undo; it was mine art,

When I arriv'd, and heard thee, that made gape
The pine and let thee out.

Ari. I thank thee, master.

Pro. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak, And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till

Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.

Ari. Pardon, master:

I will be correspondent to command,
And do my spiriting gently.

Pro. Do so; and after two days

I will discharge thee.

Ari. That's my noble master!

What shall I do? say what? what shall I do?

Pro. Go make thyself like to a nymph o' the sea; Be subject to no sight but mine; invisible To every eye-ball else. Go, take this shape, And hither come in't: hence, with diligence.

[Exit ARIEL. -Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well; Awake!

Mira. The strangeness of your story put Heaviness in me.

Pro. Shake it off: Come on ;

We'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never

Yields us kind answer.

Mira. 'Tis a villain, sir,

I do not love to look on.

Pro. But, as 'tis,

We cannot miss him he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood; and serves in offices

That profit us.-What ho! slave! Caliban !
Thou earth, thou! speak.

Cal. [Within.] There's wood enough within.

Pro. Come forth, I say; there's other business for thee:

Come forth, thou tortoise! when?

Re-enter ARIEL, like a water-nymph.

Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel,

Hark in thine ear.

Ari. My lord, it shall be done.

[Exit.

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

Enter CALIBAN.

Cal. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, Drop on you both! a south-west blow on ye,

And blister you all o'er !

Pro. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps, Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,9 All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch'd

As thick as honey-combs, each pinch more stinging

Than bees that made them.

Cal. I must eat my dinner.

This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,

Which thou tak'st from me. When thou camest first, Thou strok'dst me, and mad'st much of me; would'st

give me

Water with berries in't ; and teach me how

To name the bigger light, and how the less,

That burn by day and night and then I lov'd thee,
And shew'd thee all the qualities o' the isle,

[9] It should be remembered, that, in the pneumatology of former ages, these particulars were settled with the most minute exactness, and the difterent kinds of visionary beings had different allotments of time suitable to the variety or consequence of their employments. During these spaces,they were at liberty to act, but were always obliged to leave off at a certain hour, that they might not interfere in that portion of night which belonged to others. Among these, we may suppose urchins to have had a part subjected to their dominion. STEEVENS.