Professes to persuade) the king, his son's alive; Seb. I have no hope Ant. O, out of that no hope, What great hope have you ! no hope, that way, is Another way so high an hope, that even Ambition cannot pierce 4 a wink beyond, But doubts discovery there. Will you grant, with me, That Ferdinand is drown's ? Seb. He's gone. Ant. Then, tell me, Seb. Claribel. Ant. She that is queen of Tunis; the that dwells Ten leagues beyond man's life; s she that from Naples Can have no note, unless the sun were post, (The man i' the moon's too flow) till new-born chins Be rough and razorable ; she, from whom The meaning may be-He is a mere rhetorician, one who profelles the art of persuasion, and nothing else ; i. c, he professes to persuade another to believe that of which he himself is not convinced : he is content to be plausible, and has no further aim, The construction from which I draw this sense, is undoubtedly harsh ; but in a writer like Shakespeare, all that is perplexed and irregular is not to be regarded as a corruption of the text. STEEYENS. 4 a wink beyond,] That this is the utmost extent of the prospect of ambition, the point where the eye can pass no farther, and where objects lose their distinctness, so that what is there discovered, is faint, obscure, and doubtful. Johnson. 5- be that from Naples Can have no note, &c.] Shakespeare's great ignorance of geography is not more conspicuous in any instance than in this, where he supposes Tunis and Naples to have been at such an immeasurable distance from each other. He may however be countenanced by Apollonius Rhodius, who says, that both the Rhone and Po meet in one, and discharge themselves into the gulph of Venice; and by Æschylus, who has placed the river Eridanus in Spain. STEEVENS. We We were all sea-swallow'd, though some cast again ; Seb. What stuff is this? How fay you? Ant. A space, whose every cubit Seems to cry out, How mall that Claribel Measure us back to Naples ? - Keep in Tunis, And let Sebastian wake !- Say, this were death That now hath seiz'd them ; why, they were no worse Than now they are: There be, that can rule Naples, As well as he that sleeps ; lords, that can prate o These lines stand in the old edition thus : - though some cast again; In your and my discharge. The reading in the latter editions is without authority. The old text may very well stand, except that in the last line in should be is, and perhaps we might better say—and that by destiny. It being a common plea of wickedness to call temptation destiny. JOHNSON. It should be remembered, that cast is here used in the same sense as in Macbeth, act II. sc. iii. " though he took my « legs from me, I made a shift to cast him." The modern editors published, Is yours and my discharge. I think we may safely retain the old reading in the last hemistich, what is yet to come, In yours and my discharge. i, e. Depends on what you and I are to perform. STEEVENS. 1 -destiny. ] I should prefer defin'd. MUSGRAVE. Keep in Tunis.] There is in this pallage a propriety loft, which a slight alteration will restore: Sleep in Tunis, And let Sebastian wake! Johnson. The old reading is sufficiently explicable. Claribel, (says he) kecp where thou art, and allow Sebastian time to awaken those renses, by the help of which he may perceive the advantage which now presents itfelfSTEEVENS, As amply, and unnecessarily, Seb. Methinks, I do. Ant. And how does your content Seb. I remember, Ant. True: Seb. But, for your conscience Ant. Ay, sir; where lies that ? if it were a kybe, 'Twould put me to my slipper; But I feel not This deity in my bofom : twenty consciences, That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candy'd be they, * And melt, e'er they moleft. Here lies your brother, No better than the earth he lies upon, If he were that which now he's like, that's dead”; ? A chough is a bird of the jack-daw kind. STEEVENS. And melt e’er they moleft.] I had rather read, Would melt e'er they moleft. i. e. Twenty consciences, such as stand between me and my hopes, though they were congcaled, would melt before they could moleft one, or prevent the execution of my purposes. Johnson. The old copy reads- And meit, which is as intelligible as or which was substituted in its place. - Let twenty consciences be forf congealed, and then disolved, ere, &c. MALONE. In the later editions, these lines are thus arranged : . Ay, hr, where lyes that? Here lies your brother This modern reading was quite arbitrary, as appears by the neceflity of changing twenty to ten. STEEVENS. 2 —that's dead;] i. e. that is, id eft. STEEVENS. Whom hie, dear fräs thou geword: one Whom I with this obedient steel, three inches of it, Seb. Thy case, dear friend, Ant. Draw together : And when I rear my hand, do you the like To fall it on Gonzalo. Seb. O, but one word. [They converse apart. Enter Ariel, with musick and Jong. Ari. My master through his art foresees the danger, That you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth (For else his project dies) to keep them living. , [Sings in Gonzalo's ear. While 3 — for aye] - i, e. for ever. So in K. Lear, - I am come « To bid my king and master aye good night." STEEVENS. 4 This ancient morsel, --] For morsel Dr. Warburton reads ancient moral, very elegantly and judiciously, yet I know not whether the author might not write morsel, as we say a piece of a man. JOHNSON. So in Hamlet, What, is Horatio there? A piece of him. Again in Measure for Measure, “ How doth my dear morsel; thy mistress ?” In Coriolanus, -" Hence you fragments." STEEVENS, So in Ant, and Cleopatra, " As a morsell cold " Upon dead Cæsar's trencher." Malone. s take suggestion,–] i, e. Receive any hint of villainy. Johnson, o t o keep them living.] i. e. Alonso and Anthonio; for it was on their lives that his project dependedYet the Oxford Editor E 3 While you here do snoring lie, His time doth take : Awake! awake! [They wake. Alon. Why, how now, ho! awake? Why are you drawn? Wherefore this ghastly looking ? Gon. What's the matter? Seb. Whiles we stood here securing your repose, Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing Like bulls, or rather lions ; did it not wake you? It strook mine ear most terribly. Alon. I heard nothing. Ant. 0, 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear; Alon. Heard you this, Gonzalo ? Editor alters them to you, because in the verse before, it is said - you his friend; as if, because Ariel was sent forth to save bis friend, he could not have another purpose in sending him, viz. to save his project too. WARBURTON." I think Dr. Warburton and the Oxford Editor both mistaken. The sense of the passage, as it now stands, is this : He fees your danger, and will therefore fave them. Dr. Warburton has mistaken Anthonio for Gonzalo. Ariel would certainly not tell Gonzalo, that his master faved him only for his project. He speaks to him. self as he approaches, My master through his art foresees the danger That these bis friends are in. These written with a y, according to the old practice, did not much differ from you. Johnson, ? — drawn?] Having your swords drawn. So in Romeo end Juliet : *** What art thou drawn among these heartless hinds ?" JOHNSON. And |