Him that you term'd The good old lord, Gonzalo,
His tears run down his beard, like winter drops
From eaves of reeds: your charm fo ftrongly works

'em,

That if you now beheld them, your affections

Would become tender.

Pro. Do'st thou think fo, fpirit?

Ari. Mine would, fir, were I human.

Pro. And mine shall.

Haft thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions? and fhall not myself,

One of their kind, that relish all as fharply,
Paffion as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am ftruck to the
quick,

Yet, with my nobler reason, 'gainst my fury
Do I take part: the rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,

5

a touch, a feeling] A touch is a fenfation.

So in Cymbeline: 66

a touch more rare

"Subdues all pangs, all fears."

So in the 141ft fonnet of Shakespeare:

"Nor tender feeling to base touches prone."

Again in the Civil Wars of Daniel, b. I:

6

"I know not how their death gives such a touch.”

that relish all as fharply,

STEEVENS.

Paffion as they,] Paffion is a verb in Shakespeare. I feel every thing with the fame quick fenfibility, and am moved by the fame paffions as they are. So in The Gent. of Verona: "Madam, 'twas Ariadne paffioning

"For Thefeus' perjury," &c.

Again, in his Venus and Adonis:

"Dumbly the paffions, frantickly fhe doateth."

Again, in Love's Labour's Loft, act I. fc. i:

"I paffion to fay wherewith."

Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, b. II. c. 9:

66 -

to fee the maid

"So ftrangely paffioned"

A fimilar thought occurs in K. Rich. II:

"Tafie grief, need friends, like you," &c. STEEVENS,

The

The fole drift of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown further: Go, release them, Ariel;
My charms I'll break, their fenfes I'll restore,
And they fhall be themselves.

Ari. I'll fetch them, fir.

[Exit.

Pro. 7 Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;

8

And ye, that on the fands with printless foot
Do chafe the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him,
When he comes back; you demy-puppets, that
By moon-fhine do the green four ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whofe paftime
Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice
To hear the folemn curfew; by whofe aid
(Weak mafters though ye be) I have be-dimm'd

The

"re elves of bills, of ftanding lakes, and groves;] This fpeech Dr. Warburton rightly obferves to be borrowed from Medea's in Ovid: and it proves, fays Mr. Holt, beyond contradiction, that Shakespeare was perfectly acquainted with the fentiments of the ancients on the subject of inchantments." The original lines are these :

"Auræque, & venti, montefque, amnefque, lacufque, "Diique omnes nemorum, diíque omnes noctis adefte." The tranflation of which, by Golding, is by no means literal, and Shakespeare hath closely followed it:

"Ye ayres and winds; ye elves of hills, of brookes, of woods alone;

"Of ftanding lakes, and of the night, approche ye everych 66 one." FARMER.

Ye elves of bills, &c.] Fairies and elves are frequently in the poets mentioned together, without any diftinction of character that I can recollect. Keyfler fays that alp and alf, which is elf with the Suedes and English, equally fignified a mountain, or a dæmon of the mountains. This feems to have been its original meaning; but Somner's Dict. mentions elves or fairies of the mountains, of the woods, of the fea and fountains, without any diftinction between elves and fairies. TOLLET.

with printless foot

Do chafe the ebbing Neptune,-] So Milton in his Mafque: "Whilft from off the waters fleet,

"Thus I fet my printless feet." STEEVENS.

• (Weak mafters though ye be)-] The meaning of this paffage may be; Though you are but inferior mafters of thefe Supernatural

H 3

powers,

The noon-tide fun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green fea and the azur'd vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt: the ftrong-bas'd promontory
Have I made shake; and by the fpurs pluck'd up
The pine, and cedar: graves, at my command,
Have wak'd their fleepers; op'd, and let them forth
By my fo potent art: But this rough magick
I here abjure: and, when I have requir'd
Some heavenly mufick, (which even now I do)
To work mine end upon their fenfes, that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And, deeper than did ever plummet found,
I'll drown my book.

[Solemn mufick.]

Re-enter Ariel: after him Alonso with a frantick gefture, attended by Gonzalo. Sebaftian and Anthonio in like manner, attended by Adrian and Francifco. They all enter the circle which Profpero had made, and there fand charm'd; which Profpero obferving, fpeaks.

A folemn air, and the best comforter

To an unfettled fancy, cure thy brains,

Now useless, boil'd within thy fkull! there ftand, For you are spell-stopp'd.

Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,

Mine eyes, even fociable to the fhew of thine,
Fall fellowly drops.-The charm diffolves apace;
And as the morning fteals upon the night,

powers, though you poffefs them but in a low degree. Spenfer ufes the fame kind of expreffion, b. III. cant. 8. ft. 4.

"Where the (the witch) was wont her fprights to entertain, "The mafters of her art: there was the fain

"To call them all in order to her aid." STEEVENS. -boil'd within thy full!] So in the Midfummer Night's

Dream:

"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, &c."

STEEVENS.

Melting

Melting the darkness, fo their rifing fenfes
Begin to chafe the ignorant fumes that mantle.
Their clearer reafon.-O good Gonzalo,
My true preferver, and a loyal fir

To him thou follow'ft; I will pay thy graces
Home, both in word and deed.-Moft cruelly
Didft thou, Alonfo, ufe me and my daughter:
Thy brother was a furtherer in the act ;—
Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebastian.-
blood",

-Flesh and

You brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,
Expell'd remorse, and nature; who, with Sebaftian,
(Whofe inward pinches therefore are most strong)
Would here have kill'd your king; I do forgive thee,
Unnatural though thou art!-Their understanding
Begins to fwell; and the approaching tide
Will fhortly fill the reasonable shore,

That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them,
That yet looks on me, or would know me :-Ariel,
Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell;-

I will dif-cafe me, and myself prefent,
[Exit Ariel.
As I was fometime Milan:-quickly, fpirit;
Thou fhalt e'er long be free.

Ariel enters finging, and helps to attire him.
Where the bee fucks, there fuck 1;
In a corflip's bell I lie:

There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly,

3 After fummer, merrily
Merrily, merrily, Shall I live now,
Under the bloom that hangs on the bough.

Pro.

2 Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebaftian.-Flesh and blood,] Thus the old copy: Theobald points the paffage in a different manner, and perhaps rightly:

"Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebastian, flesh and blood.

STEEVENS.

3 After fummer, merrily:] This is the reading of all the editions. Yet Mr. Theobald has fubftituted fun-fet, because Ariel

H 4

talks

Pro. Why, that's my dainty Ariel: I fhall mifs
thee;

But yet thou shalt have freedom: So, fo, fo.-
To the king's fhip, invifible as thou art:

talks of riding on the bat in this expedition. An idle fancy. That circumftance is given only to defign the time of night in which fairies travel. One would think the confideration of the circum. stances fhould have fet him right. Ariel was a spirit of great delicacy, bound by the charms of Profpero to a constant attendance on his occafions. So that he was confined to the island winter and fummer. But the roughness of winter is represented by Shakefpeare as difagreeable to fairies, and fuch like delicate spirits, who, on this account, conftantly follow fummer. Was not this then the moft agreeable circumftance of Ariel's new-recovered liberty, that he could now avoid winter, and follow fummer quite round the globe? But to put the matter quite out of question, let us confider the meaning of this line:

There I couch when owls do cry.

Where? in the corflip's bell, and where the bee fucks, he tells us: this must needs be in fummer. When? when owls cry, and this is in winter:

"When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,

"Then nightly fings the ftaring owl."

The Song of Winter in Love's Labour Loft. The confequence is, that Ariel flies after fummer. Yet the Oxford Editor has adopted this judicious emendation of Mr. Theobald. WARBURTON.

Ariel does not appear to have been confined to the island, summer and winter, as he was fometimes fent on fo long an errand as to the Bermoothes. When he fays, On the bat's back I do fly, &c. he fpeaks of his prefent fituation only, nor triumphs in the idea of his future liberty, till the last couplet;

Merrily, merrily, &c.

The bat is no bird of paffage, and the expreffion is therefore probably used to fignify, not that he purfues fummer, but that after Summer is paft, he rides upon the foft down of a bat's back, which fuits not improperly with the delicacy of his airy being.

Shakespeare, who, in his Midfummer Night's Dream, has placed the light of a glow-worm in its eyes, might, through the fame ignorance of natural hiftory, have fuppofed the bat to be a bird of paffage. Owls cry not only in winter. It is well known that they are to the full as clamorous in fummer; and as a proof of it, Titania, in the Midfummer Night's Dream, the time of which is fuppofed to be May, commands her faeries to-keep back The clamorous owl, that nightly boots.- STEEVENS.

There