I have done nothing but in care of thee,
(Of thee, my dear one! thee, my daughter !) who
Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing
Of whence I am ; nor that I am more better 8
Than Profpero, master of a full poor cell ',
And thy no greater father.

Mira. More to know
Did never meddle' with my thoughts.

Pro. 'Tis time,
I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand,
And pluck my magick garment from me.-So;

[Lays down his mantle, Lye there my art.-Wipe thou thine eyes; have com

tort. The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd The very..virtue of compassion in theę, Miranda, when the speaks the words, O, woe the day! supposes, not that the crew had escaped, but that her father thought differently from her, and counted their destruction no barro.

JOHNSON 8- more better. ---} This ungrammatical expression is very frequent among our oldeft writers. So in the History of Helyas Knight of the Sivan. bl. L. no date : imprinted by William Copland . And who the more joier to come, without prolixity, to the true Chronicles, &c.” Again in the True Tragedies of Harims and Scilla. 1594.

" To wait a metlage of more better worth." Again, ibid

46 That hale more greater than Cassandra now." STEEVENS. 9 full peor cell, i e. a cell in a great degree of poverty. So in Aitany and Cleopatra, act I. sc. i. - I am full sorry.

STEEVENS. id Din nav'er meddle chith my thonghts.) To meddle, in this infance, 'feems to fignity to mingle. Hence the substantive Fin diy. To meddle for to mix is used at least twenty times in The incient Book of Hawking, &c. commonly called the Book of St. Mhar's, and yet more often by Chaucer. STEEVENS.

& Lyre there my art.) Sir W. Cecil, lord Burleigh, lord high treasurer, &c. in the reign of queen Elizabeth, when he put ofi his goin at night, used to say, Lie there, lord treasurer. See Peck's Defiderata Curiofa. STEEVENS. : : virtue of companion ) Virtue ; the most efficacious part, the energetic quality; in a like sense we say, The virtue of s plant is in the exirst. JOHNSON.

I have with such provision in mine art
So safely order'd, 4 that there is no soul-
No, not so much perdition as an hair,
Betid to any creature in the vessel
Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'ft fink. Sit

down;
For thou must now know further.

Mira. You have often
Begun to tell me what I am ; but stopp'd,
And left me to a bootless inquisition;
Concluding, Stay, not yet.-

Pro. The hour's now come;
The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;
Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell ?
I do not think, thou canst; for then thou wast not
s Out three years old.

Mira, Certainly, fir, I can.
Pro. By what? by any other house, or person?

4 --that there is no soul-] 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 substitutes no foil, and Mr. Pope follows him. To come so near the right, and yet to miss it, is unlucky: the author probably wrote no foil, no stain, no spot : for so Ariel tells,

Not a hair perill’d;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,

But frejher than before. And Gonzalo, The rarity of it is, that our garments being drench'd in the sea, keep notwithstanding their freshness and glosses. 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 Shakespeare. He lometimes begins a sentence, and before he concludes it, entirely changes the construction, because another, more forcible, occurs. As this change frequently happens in conversation, it may be suffered to pass uncensured in the language of the stage. Steevens.

s Out three years old.] i.e. Quite three years old, three years old full-out, complete. Mr. Pope, without occasion, reads, Full three years old. STEEVENS.

OF

Of any thing the intage tell me, that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.

Mira. "'Tis far off ;
And rather like a dream, than an assurance
That my reineinbrance warrants : Had I not
Four or five women once, that tended me?
Pro. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda : But how

is it, That this lives in thy mind? What feest thou else In the dark back-ward and abysm of time ? If thou remember'st aught, ere thou cam'ft here; How thou cam'ft here, thou may’lt.

Mira. But that I do not.

Pro. Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years since, 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 said thou wast my daughter; and thy father Was duke of Milan ; 7 thou his only heir And princess, no worse iflu’d.

Mira. () the heavens! What foul play had we, that we came from thence ? Or blessed was't, we did ? · Pro. Both, both, my girl : By foul play, as thou fay'lt, were we heav'd thence; But blefiedly holp hither. 6 -absfin of time.]

This method of spelling the word, is common to other ancient writers. They took it from the French abysme, now written abime. So in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613.

“ And chase him from the deep abysms below. STEVENS. 7 Perhaps—and thou his orly beir. JONNSON. The old copy reads -- and his only heir

and princess Perhaps we should read, -and his only heir

A princess: no worse issued. Ifjucd is descended. So in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608. *** For I am by birth a gentleman, and ilüed of such parents," &c. STEEVENS.

Mira. O, my heart bleeds
To think o'the 8 teen that I have turn'd you to, .
Which is from my remembrance ! Please you, further.

Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, called Anthonio,
I pray thee, mark me,-that a brother should .
Be so perfidious !he whom, next thyself,
Of all the world I lov’d, and to him put
The manage of my state; as, at that time, ,
Through all the, figniories it was the first, ..
And Prospero the prime duke; being so reputed
In dignity, and, for the liberal arts,
Without a parallel ; those being all my study,
The government I caft upon my brother,
And to my state grew stranger, being transported,
And wrapp'd in secret studies. Thy false uncle
Dost thou attend me?

Mira. Sir, most heedfully.

Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom 9 To trash for over-topping; new created The creatures that were mine; I say, or chang’d 'em, Or else new form'd 'em : having both the key

Of

8-teen. Is forrow, grief, trouble. So in Romeo and Juliet:

" - to my teen be it spoken.” Steevens. 9 To trash for over-topting ;] To trash, as Dr. Warburton ob. serves, is to cut away the superfluities. This word I have met with in books containing directions for gardeners, published in the time of queen Elizabeth.

The present explanation may be countenanced by the following: passage in Warner's Albions England, 1602. b. x. ch. 57.

" Who suffreth none by might, by wealth or blood to overtopp,

“ Himself gives all preferment, and whom lifteth him, doth lop. Again in our author's K. Richard II.

Go thou, and like an executioner,
Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays

That look too lofty in our commonwealth. Mr. Warton's note, however, on " trash for his quick hunting,” in the second act of Othello, leaves my interpretation of this passage exceedingly disputable. STEEKENS.

1-both the key ] Key in this place seems to signify the key of a musical instrument, by which he fet Hearts to tune, Johnson.

Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state
To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was
The ivy; which had hid my princely trunk,
And fuck'd my verdure out on't.-Thou attend'ft mot.

Mira. O good Sir, I do.

Pro. I pray thee, mark me. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated To closeness, and the bettering of my mind With that, which, but by being so retir'd, O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother Awak'd an evil nature: and my trust, Like a good parent’, did beget of him A falfhood, in its contrary as great As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit, A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded, Not only with what my revenue yielded, But what my power might else exact, -3 like one,

Who This doubtless is meant of a key for tuning the harpsichord, spinner, or virginal; we call it now a tuning hammer, as it is used as well to 1trike down the iron pins whereon the strings are wound, as to turn them. As a key it acts like that of a watch. Sir J. HAWKINS.

? Like a good, &c.] Alluding to the observation, that a father above the common rate of men has commonly a fon below it. Heroum filii noxæ. Johnson. 3

like one,
Who having, Into truth, by telling of it,

Made such a finner of his memory, To credit his own lie, - ] The corrupted reading of the sea cond line has rendered this beautiful fimilitude quite unintelligible. For what is (having into truth?] or what doth [it] refer to? not to (truth,] because if he told truth he could never credit a lie. And yet there is no other correlative to which [it] can belong. I read and point it thus :

like one
Who having, UNTO truth, by telling OFT,
Made such a finner of his memory,

To credit his own lie, i.e. by often repeating the same story, made his memorý such a finner unto truth, as to give credit to his own lie. A miserable delusion, to which story-tellers are frequently subject. The