gined his father was wrecked, when he fuddenly hears with aftonishment aërial mufic creep by him upon the waters, add the spirit gives him the following information in words not proper for any but a fpirit to utter:

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth fuffer a fea-change,
Into fomething rich and fìrange.
And then follows a mott lively circumftance:
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell.

Hark! now I hear them-Ding-dong-bell!

This is fo truly poetical, that one can farce forbear exclaiming with Ferdinand,

This is no mortal bufinefs, nor no found

That the earth owns!

The happy verfatility of Shakespeare's genius enables bim to excel in lyric as well as in dramatic poely.

But the poet rifes ftill higher in his management of this character of Ariel, by making a moral ufe of it, that is, I think, incomparable, and the greatest effort of his art. Ariel informs Profpero, that he has fulfilled his orders, and punished his brother and companions fo feverely, that if he himself was now to behold their fufferings, he would greatly compaffionate them. To which Profpero answers,

Doft thou think so, spirit?

ARIEL. Mine would, fir, were I human.

PROSP. And mine fhall.

He then takes occafion, with wonderful dexterity and humanity, to draw an argument from the incorporeality of Ariel, for the juftice and neceffity of pity and forgiveness:

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 sharply,

Paffion'd as they. be kindlier mov'd than thou art ?

The poet is a more powerful magician than his own Profpero we are transported into fairy land; we are wrapt in a delicious dream, from which it is mifery to be disturbed; VOL. I.

D

1

all around is enchantment!

-The ifle is full of noises,

Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twanging inftruments

Will hum about mine ears, and fometimes voices;
That if I then had wak'd after long fleep,

Would make me fleep again: and then in dreaming,
The clouds, methought, would open, and fhew riches
Ready to drop upon me:- -when I waked,

I cry'd to dream again!

THE ADVENTURER, No. 97.

Χρὴ δὲ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἤθεσιν, ὥσπερ καὶ ἐν τῇ τῶν πραγμάτων συςάσει, αεὶ ζητεῖν, ἡ τὸ ἀναίκαῖον, ἥ τὸ εἰκὸς.

ARIST. POET.

As well in the conduct of the manners as in the conftitution of the fable, we must always endeavour to produce either what is neceffary or what is probable.

"WHOEVER ventures, fays Horace, to form á character totally original, let him endeavour to preserve it with uniformity and confiftency: but the formation of an original character is a work of great difficulty and hazard." In this arduous and uncommon tafk, however, Shakespeare has wonderfully fucceeded in his tempeft: the monfter Caliban is the creature of his own imagination, in the formatian of which he could derive no affiftapce from obfervation or experience.

Caliban is the fon of a witch, begotten by a demon: the forceries of his mother were fo terrible, that her countrymen banished her into this defert ifland as unfit for human fociety in conformity therefore, to this diabolical propagation, he is represented as a prodigy of cruelty, malice, pride, ignorance, idleness, gluttony and luft. He is introduced with great propriety, curfing Profpero and Miranda whom he had endeavoured to defile; and his execrations are artfully contrived to have reference to the occupations of his mother:

As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd
With raven's feather from unwholfome fen,

Drop on you both!

All the charms

Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! His kindness is, afterwards, expreffed as much in character, as his hatred, by an enumeration of offices, that could be of value only in a defolate ifland, and in the esti mation of a favage:

I pr'ythee, let me bring thee where crabs grow;
And I with my long nails will dig the pig-nuts;
Shew thee a jay's neft; and inftruct thee how
To fnare the nimble marmozet. I'll bring thee
To cluft'ring filberds; and fometimes I'll get thee
Young fea-malls from the rock-

I'll fhew thee the best springs;. I'll pluck thee berries;
I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.

Which laft is, indeed, a circumftance of great ufe in a place, where to be defended from the cold was neither eaty nor ufual; and it has a farther peculiar beauty, because the ga thering wood was the occupation to which Caliban was fubjected by Profpero, who, therefore, deemed it a fervice of high importance.

The grofs ignorance of this monster is reprefented with delicate judgment: he knew not the names of the fun and moon which he calls the bigger light and the lefs; and he believes that Stephano was the man in the moon, whom his mistress had often fhewn him: and when Profpero reminds him that he first taught him to pronounce articulately, his anfwer was full of malevolence ond rage:

vour.

You taght me language; and my profit on't

I know how to curfe :

The propereft return for fuch a fiend to make for fuch a fa-
The fpirits whom he fuppofes to be employed by
Profpero perpetually to torment him, and the many forms
and different methods they take for this purpose, are de
fcribed with the utmost liveliness and force of fancy :
Sometimes like apes, that moe and chatter at me,
And after bite me; then like hedge-hogs, which
Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount
Their pricks at my foot fall: fometimes am I
All wound with adders, who with cloven tongues
Do hifs me into madness.

It is fcarcely poffible for any speech to be more expreffive of the manners and fentiments, than that in which our poet has painted the brutal barbarity, and unfeeling savagenefs of this fon of Sycorax, by making him enumerate, with a kind of horrible delight, the various ways in which it was poffille for the drunken failors to kill and furprize his master:

-There thou may'ft brain him,

Having first feiz'd his books; or with a log
Batter his fkull; or paunch him with a stake;
Or cut his wezand with thy knife-

He adds, in allufion to his own abominable attempt,
<< above
all befure to fecure the daughter; whofe beauty, he tells
them, is incomparable." The charms of Miranda could not
be more exalted, than by extorting this teftimony from so in-
fenfible a monster.

Shakespeare feems to be the only poct, who poffeffes the power of uniting poetry with propriety of character; of which I know not an inftance more ftriking, than the image Caliban makes ufe of to exprefs filence, which is at once highly poetical and exactly fuited to the wildness of the feaker:

Pray you tread foftly, that the blind mole may not

Hear a foot fall.

I always lament that our author has not preferved this fierce and implacable spirit in Caliban, to the end of the play; instead of which, he has, I think, injudiciously put into his mouth, words that imply repentance and understanding:

-I'll be wife hereafter

And feek for grace. What a thrice double afs
Was I to take this drunkard for a God,

And worship this dull fool?

It must not be forgotten, that Shakespeare has artfully taken occafion from this extraordinary character, which is finely contrafted to the mildnefs and obedience of Ariel, obliquely to fatirize the prevailing paffion for new and wonderful fights, which has rendered the English ridiculous. "Were I in England now, fays Trinculo, on firft discovering Caliban, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of filver. When they will

not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to fee a dead Indian."

Such is the inexhaustible plenty of our poet's invention, that he has exhibited another character in this play, entirely his own; that of the lovely and innocent Miranda.

When Profpero first gives her a fight of prince Ferdinand, fhe eagerly exclaims,

-What is't? a fpirit?

Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, fir,

It carries a brave form. But 'tis a fpirit.

Her imagining that as he was fo beautiful he must neceffarily be one of her father's aërial agents, is a ftroke of nature worthy admiration as are likewife her entreaties to her father not to use him harfhly, by the power of his art; Why fpeaks my father fo ungently? This

Is the third man that e'er I saw; the first
That e'er I figh'd for!-

Here we perceive the beginning of that paffion which Profpero was defrous fhe fhould feel for the prince; and which fhe afterwards more fully expreffes upon an occafion which difplays at once the tenderness, the innocence, and the fimplicity of her character. She discovers her lover employed in the laboricus task of carrying wood, which Profpero had enjoined him to perform. Would, fays fhe, the lightning had burnt up thofe logs that you are enjoined to pile!"

If you'll fit down

I'll bear your logs the while. Pray give me that,
I'll carry't to the pile.-

You look wearily.

It is by felecting su h little and almost imperceptible circumftances, that Shakespeare has more truly painted the paffions than any other writer: affection is more powerfully expreffed by this fimple with and offer of affiftance, than by the unnatural eloquence and witticisms of Dryden, or the amorous declamations of Rowe.

The refentment of Profpero for the matchlefs cruelty and wicked ufurpation of his brother; his parental affection and folicitude for the welfare of his daughter, the heiress of his dukedom; and the awful folemnity of his character, as a kilful magician; are all along preferved with equal conûift