Some tricks of desperation : All, but mariners, Plung'd in the foaining 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 empix And all the devils are bere.

Pro. Why, that's my spirit !
But was not this nigh fhore?

Ari. Close by, my master.
Pro. But are they, Ariel, safe ?

Ari. Not a hair perish'd ;
On their ' sustaining garments not a blemish,

If it be at all necessary to explain the meaning, it is this : Not a foul but felt such a fever as madmen feel, when the frantic fit is upon them. STEBVENS.

- Sustaining — ) i. e. Their garments that bore them up and supported them. So K. Lear, act IV. sc. iv.

" In our sustaining corn.” Mr. Edwards was of opinion that we should read sea-stained garments ; for (says he) it was not the floating of their cloaths, but the magic of Prospero which preserved, as it it had wrecked them. Nor was the miracle, that their garments had not been at first discoloured by the fea-water, which even that fuftaining would not have prevented, unless it had been on the air, not on the water; but, as Gonzalo says, “ that their garments “ being (as they were) drenched in the sea, held notwithitanding “ their freshness and gloss, being rather new-dyed than itained 66 with salt-water.”

For this, and all such notes as are taken from the MSS. of the late Mr. Edwards, I am indebted to the friendship of Benjamin Way, Esq; who very obligingly procured them from the executors of that gentleman, with leave for their publication. Such of them as are omitted in this edition had been sometimes fore. stalled by the remarks of others, and sometimes by my own. The reader, however, might have been juftly offended, had any other reasons prevented me from communicating the unpublished sentiments of that sprightly critick and most amiable man, as entire as I received them. Steevens.

This note of Mr. Edwards, with which I suppose no reader is satisfied, thews with how much greater ease critical emendations are destroyed than made, and how willingly every man would be changing the text, if his imagination would furnish alterations. JOHNSON.

But

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 fighs,
In an odd angle of the isle, and fitting,
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, there she's hid :

The

? From the fill-vex'd Bermoothes.-) Theobald says Ber. moothes is printed by mistake for Bermudas. No. That was the name by which the islands then went, as we may see by the voyages of that time; and by our author's contemporary poets. Fletcher, in his Women Pleased, says, The devil should think of purchasing that egg-Shell to victual out a witch for the Bermoothes. Smith, in his account of these islands, p. 172. says, that the Bermudas were fo 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, 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.

Again in Decker's If this be not a good Play, the Devil is in it, 1612.

“ Sir, if you have made me tell a lye, they'll send me on a voyage to the island of Hogs and Devils, the Bermudas.”

STEEVENS. The opinion that Bermudas was haunted with evil spirits continued. fo late as the civil wars. In a little piece of fir John Berkinhead's, intitled, Two Centuries of Paul's Church-yard, una cum indice expurgatorio, &c. 12°, in page 62, under the title of Cafes of Conscience, is this.

34. Whether Bermudas and the parliament-house lie under one planet, seeing both are haunted with devils." Percy.

Bermudas was on this account the cant name for some privileged place, in which the cheats and riotous bullies of Shakespeare's time affembled. So in The Devil is an Ass, by Ben. Jonson,

keeps he still

your quarter
" In the Bermudas ?”
C3

Again

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,
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:
4 What is the time o'the day?

Ari. Past the mid season.
Pro. At least two glasses : The time 'twixt fix 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 can'ft 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 thee no mistakings, serv'd

3

Again in one of his Epistles,

“ Have their Bermudas, and their straights i'th' Strand." Again in The Devil is an Afs,

I gave my word “ For one that's run away to the Bermudas.” Steevens. the Mediterranean flote.] Flote is wave. Flot. Fr.

STEVENS. 4 What is the time o' the day?] This passage needs not be disturbed, it being common to ask a question, which the next moment enables us to answer; he that thinks it faulty may eafily adjust it thus :

Pro. What is the time o' the day? Paft the mid fcafon?
Ari. At least two glasses.
Pro. The time 'twixt fix and now JOHNSON.

Without

Without or grudge, or grumblings : thou didst pro

mise
To bate me a full year.

Pro. S Dost thou forget
From what a torment I did free thee?

Ari. No.
Pro. Thou dost; and think'st it much, to tread

the ooze s Dost thou forget] That the character and conduct of Prospero may be understood, fomething 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 {pirits, having different degrees of guilt, had different habitations allotted them at their expulsion, fome being confined in hell, fome (as Hooker, who delivers the opinion of our poet's age, expresses it) dispersed in air, fome on earth, fome 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 thought the most depraved, and the aerial the least vitiated. Thus Prospero observes of Ariel:

Thou was 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 ferves 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 furely never practised, were of opinion, with more reaton, that the power of charms arose only from compact, and was no more than the spirits voluntary allowed them for the seduction of man. The art was held by all, though not equally criminal, yet unlawful, and therefore Casaubon, ipeaking of one who had commerce with spirits, blames him, though he imagines him one of the best qind who dealt with them by way of command. Thus Prospero repents of his art in the lost scene. The spirits were always confidered as in some measure entlaved to the enchanter, at least for a time, and as serving with unwillingness, therefore Ariel so often begs for liberty; and Caliban observes, that the spirits serve Prospero with no good will, but hate bim rootedly. Of these trifles enough.

JOHNSON.

!

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, fir.

Pro. Thou ly'it, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who, with age,

and

envy, Was grown into a hoop? haft thou forgot her?

Ari. No, sir.
Pro. Thou haft: Where was the born ? speak; tell

me.

Ari. Sir, in Argier ?.

Pro. Oh, was the so? I must,
Once in a month, recount what thou hast been,
Which thou forgett’st. This damn’d witch, Sycorax,
For mischiefs manifold, and forceries terrible
To enter human hearing, from Argier,
Thou know'st, was banilh’d; for one thing she did,
They would not take her life: Is not this true?

Ari. Ay, fir.
Pro. This blue ey'd hag was hither 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,
By help of her more potent ministers,
And in her moft unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine ; within which rift
Imprison’d, thou didst painfully remain

6 To run upon the sharp wind of the north ;] Sir W. Davenant
and Dryden, in their alteration of this play, have made a very
wanton change in the line, and read,
To run against, &c.

STEEVENS. in Argier.) Argier is the ancient English name for Algiers. See a pamphlet entitled, “ A true Relation of the Tra· vailes, &c. of William Davies, barber-surgeon, &c.” 1614. Ia this is a chapter“ on the description, &c. of Argier." STEVENS.

A dozen

7