صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني
[ocr errors][ocr errors]

The following Mistakes are chargeable on the Editor only.

[blocks in formation]

VOL. III.

18. Note 3. for Campafpe 1591, read, 1584. for, Cyril Tarner's All's loft by Luft, read, Rowley's 452. Note 5. All's loft &c.

VOL. V.

296. Note 8. for, Shirley's Match &c. read, Rowley's Match &c. 347. Note 4. for Sir J. Gresham, real, Sir T. Gretham.

568. End of Note 9. for Dryden, read, Waller.

VOL. VI.

560. For, Melancholy Lover, read, Lover's Melancholy.

VOL. VII.

4. Note 3.
As the date of the Mirror for Magifirates, for, 1587,
read, 1575

VOL. VIII.

142. In Note 6. for, B. and Fletcher, read only, Fletcher.

VOL. X.

219. Note 9. For, Heywood's Jew of Malta, read, Marlowe's:

DIRECTIONS to the BINDER.

The large Head of Shakespeare, to face the title-page to Vol. I. The fmall Head of Shakespeare (marked by mistake No. 3.) to face his will; i. e. to front p. 196 of the Prefaces.

The Fac-fimile, to front the printed fignature to Shakespeare's will; i. e. p. 200.

The Morris-dancers, to be folded in at the end of K. Henry IV. P. I. Vol. V. and not P. II. as marked by mistake.

The two Heads, and the Fac-fimile, are to be cut down to 8vo. fize.

TEMPE S T.

VOL. I.

B

Perfons Reprefented *.

Alonfo, king of Naples.

Sebaftian, his brother.

Profpero, the rightful duke of Milan.

Anthonio, his brother, the ufurping duke of Milan.
Ferdinand, fon to the king of Naples.

Gonzalo, an honeft old counsellor of Naples.

Adrian, } lords.

Francisco,

Caliban, a favage and deformed flave.
Trinculo, a jefter.

Stephano, a drunken butler."

Mafter of a fhip, boatswain, and mariners.

[blocks in formation]

Other Spirits attending on Profpero.

SCENE, the fea, with a ship; afterwards an un inhabited ifland.

This enumeration of perfons is taken from the Folio 1623.

STEEVENS.

1

ACT I. SCENE I.

On a fhip at fea.

A tempeftuous noife of thunder and lightning heard.

Enter a Ship-mafter and a Boatfwain".

Mafter. Boatswain,

Boats. Here, mafter: What cheer?

Maft

Tempeft.] The Tempeft and The Midfummer's Night's Dream, are the nobleit efforts of that fublime and amazing imagination peculiar to Shakespeare, which foars above the bounds of nature without forfaking fenfe: or, more properly, carries nature along with him beyond her established limits. Fletcher feems particularly to have admired thefe two plays, and hath wrote two in imitation of them, The Sea Voyage and The Faithful Shepherdefs. But when he prefumes to break a lance with Shakespeare, and write in emulation of him, as he does in The Falfe One, which is the rival of Anthony and Cleopatra, he is not fo fuccefsful. After him, fir John Suckling and Milton catched the brighteft fire of their imagination from thefe two plays; which shines fantastically indeed in The Goblins, but much more nobly and ferenely in The Mafk at Ludlow-Cafile. WARBURTON.

No one has been hitherto lucky enough to difcover the ro mance on which Shakespeare may be fuppofed to have founded this play, the beauties of which could not fecure it from the criticifm of Ben Jonfon, whofe malignity appears to have been more than equal to his wit. In the induction to Bartholomew Fair, he fays: "If there be never a fervant monster in the "fair, who can help it, nor a neft of antiques? He is loth to make nature afraid in his plays, like thofe that beget Tales, Tempefts, and fuch like drolleries." STEEVENS.

Mr. Theobald tells us, that the Tempeft must have been written after 1609, because the Bermuda iflands, which are men

B 2

tioned

fall to't

Maft. Good: Speak to the mariners yarely, or we run ourselves aground: beftir, bestir.

Enter Mariners.

Exit.]

Boatf. Heigh, my hearts; cheerly, cheerly, my hearts; yare, yare: Take in the top-fail; Tend to the

tioned in it, were unknown to the English until that year; but this is a mistake. He might have feen in Hackluyt, 160c, folio, a defcription of Bermuda, by Henry May, who was fhipwrecked there in 1593.

It was however one of our author's last works. In 1598 he played a part in the original Every Man in his Humour. Two of the characters are Profpero and Stephano. Here Ben Jonson taught him the pronunciation of the latter word, which is always right in the Tempeft.

"Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler?" And always curong in his earlier play, the Merchant of Venice, which had been on the stage at least two or three its publication in 1600.

years before My friend Stephano, fignify, I pray you," &c.

So little did a late editor know of his author, when he idly fuppofed his fchool literature might perhaps have been loft by the diffipation of youth, or the bufy fcenes of publick life!

FARMER.

See a Note on The cloud-capt Towers, &c. act III. STEEVENS. 2 In this naval dialogue, perhaps the first example of failor's language exhibited on the ftage, there are, as I have been told by a fkilful navigator, fome inaccuracies and contradictory or ders. JOHNSON.

[ocr errors]

3-fall to't yarely, i. e. Readily, nimbly. Our author is frequent in his ufe of this word. So in Decker's Satiromafiix. "They'll make his mufe as yare as a tumbler." STEEVENS. Here it is applied as a fea-term, and in other parts of the fcene. So he uses the adjective, act V. fc. v. “Our fhip is

46

tight and yare." And in one of the Henries, "yare are our "fhips." To this day the failors fay, "fit yare to the helm." Again in Anton. and Cleop. II. iii. "The tackles yarely frame the office." It occurs in its general acceptation, in Robert of Glofter's Chronicle; where Edward the Confeffor receives from two pilgrims the notice of his approaching death, edit. Hearne, vol. I. p. 348. In confequence of this unexpected ad monition, fays the chronicler,

"His gold he delde to pouere men, and made his bernes bare, "And his treforie al fo gode, and to God hym made at gare.

[ocr errors]

Gare

« السابقةمتابعة »