4

four days after "The Tempest" had been exhibited. In point of construction, it must be admitted at once that there is the most obvious dissimilarity, inasmuch as "The Winter's Tale" is a piece in which the unities are utterly disregarded, while in "The Tempest" they are most strictly observed. It is only in the involved and parenthetical character of some of the speeches, and in psychological resemblances, that we would institute a comparison between "The Tempest" and "The Winter's Tale," and would infer from thence that they belong to about the same period.

Without here adverting to the real or supposed origin of the story, or to temporary incidents which may have suggested any part of the plot, we may remark that there is one piece of external evidence which strongly tends to confirm the opinion that “The Tempest" was composed not very long before Ben Jonson wrote one of his comedies: we allude to his "Bartholomew Fair," and to a passage in "the Induction," frequently mentioned, and which we concur in thinking was intended as a hit not only at "The Tempest," but at "The Winter's Tale." Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair" was acted in 1614, and written perhaps in the preceding year', during the popularity of Shakespeare's two plays; and there we find the following words, which we reprint, for the first time, exactly as they stand in the original edition, where Italic type seems to have been used to make the allusions more distinct and obvious:-" If there bee never a Servant-monster i̇' the Fayre, who can helpe it, he sayes; nor a nest of Antiques? Hee is loth to make Nature afraid in his Playes, like those that beget Tales, Tempests, and such like Drolleries." The words servant-monster," "antiques," "Tales," "Tempests," and "drolleries," which last Shakespeare himself employs in "The Tempest' (Act iii. sc. 3) seem so applicable, that they can hardly relate to any thing else.

It may be urged, however, that what was represented at Court in 1611 was only a revival of an older play, acted before 1596, and such may have been the case: we do not, however, think it probable, for several reasons. One of these is an apparently trifling circumstance, pointed out by Farmer; viz. that in "The Merchant of Venice," written before 1598, the name of Stephano is invariably to be pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, while in "The Tempest" the proper pronunciation is as constantly required by the verse. It seems certain, therefore, that

* See "The Alleyn Papers," printed by the Shakespeare Society, p. 67, where Daborne, under the date of Nov. 13th, 1613, speaks of "Jonson's play" as then about to be performed. Possibly it was deferred for a short time, as the title-page states that it was acted in 1614. It may have been written in 1612, for performance in 1613.

Shakespeare found his error in the interval, and he may have learnt it from Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his Humour," in which Shakespeare performed, and in the original list of characters to which, in the edition of 1601, the names not only of Stephano, but of Prospero occur.

Another circumstance shows, we think almost decisively, that "The Tempest was not written until after 1603, when the translation of Montaigne's Essays, by Florio, made its first appearance in print. In Act ii. sc. 1, is a passage so closely copied from Florio's version, as to leave no doubt of identity. If it be said that these lines may have been an insertion subsequent to the original production of the play, we answer, that the passage is not such as could have been introduced, like some others, to answer a temporary or complimentary purpose, and that it is given as a necessary and continuous portion of the dialogue.

The Reverend Mr. Hunter, in his very ingenious and elaborate "Disquisition on The Tempest," has referred to this and to other points, with a view of proving that every body has hitherto been mistaken, and that this play, instead of being one of his latest, was one of Shakespeare's earliest works. With regard to the point derived from Montaigne's Essays by Florio, 1603, he has contended, that if the particular essay were not separately printed before, (of which we have not the slightest hint) Shakespeare may have seen the translation in manuscript; but unless he so saw it in print or manuscript as early as 1595, nothing is established in favour of Mr. Hunter's argument; and surely when other circumstances show that "The Tempest" was not written until 1610', we need not hesitate long in deciding that our great dramatist went to no manuscript authority, but took the passage almost verbatim as he found it in the complete edition. In the same way Mr. Hunter has argued, that "The Tempest" was not omitted by Meres in his list in 1598, but that it is found there under its second title, of "Love's Labours Won;" but this is little better than a gratuitous assumption, even supposing we were to admit that "All's Well that Ends Well" is not the play intended by Meres. Our notion is (see Vol. ii. p. 530), that "All's Well that

• Malone (Shakespeare by Boswell, Vol. xv. p. 78) quotes this important passage from Florio's translation of Montaigne with a singular degree of incorrectness : with many minor variations, he substitutes partitions for “dividences," and omits the words "no manuring of lands" altogether. This is a case in which verbal, and even literal, accuracy is important.

In the Introduction to "The Winter's Tale," Vol. iii. p. 6, we have assigned a reason, founded upon a passage in R. Greene's "Pandosto," for believing that "The Tempest" was anterior in composition to that play.

• Mr. Hunter contends that in "The Tempest" "love's labours" are "won ;" but such is the case with every play in which the issue is successful passion, after

Ends Well" was originally called "Love's Labours Won," and that it was revived, with some other changes, under a new name in 1605 or 1606.

Neither can we agree with Mr. Hunter in thinking that he has established, that nothing was suggested to Shakespeare by the storm, in July, 1609, which dispersed the fleet under Sir George Somers and Sir Thomas Gates, of which an account was published by a person of the name of Jourdan in the following year. This point was, to our mind, satisfactorily made out by Malone; and the mention of "the still-vex'd Bermoothes" by Shakespeare seems directly to connect the drama with Jourdan's "Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called the Isle of Devils," printed in 1610. We are told at the end of the play, in the folio of 1623, that the scene is laid “in an uninhabited island," and Mr. Hunter has contended that this island was Lampedusa, which unquestionably lies in the track which the ships in "The Tempest" would take. Our objection to this theory is two-fold: first, we cannot persuade ourselves, that Shakespeare had any particular island in his mind; and secondly, if he had meant to lay his scene in Lampedusa, he could hardly have failed to introduce its name in some part of his performance: in consequence of the deficiency of scenery, &c. it was the constant custom with our early dramatists to mention distinctly, and often more than once, where the action was supposed to take place. As a minor point, we may add, that we know of no extant English authority to which Shakespeare could have gone for information, and we do not suppose that he consulted the Turco Græcia of Crusius, the only older authority quoted by Mr. Hunter.

No novel, in prose or verse, to which Shakespeare resorted for the incidents of "The Tempest" has yet been discovered; and although Collins, late in his brief career, mentioned to T. Warton that he had seen such a tale, it has never come to light, and we apprehend that he must have been mistaken. We have turned over the pages of, we believe, every Italian novelist, anterior to the age of Shakespeare, in hopes of finding some story containing traces of the incidents of "The Tempest," but without success. The ballad entitled "The Inchanted Island," printed by the editor in "Farther Particulars regarding Shakespeare and his Works,"

difficulties and disappointments: in "The Tempest," they are fewer than in most other plays, since, from first to last, the love of Ferdinand and Miranda is prosperous. At all events "The Tempest" was played at Court under that title in 1611 and 1613. Mr. Hunter also endeavours to establish that Ben Jonson alluded to "The Tempest" in 1596, in the Prologue to " Every Man in his Humour;" but while we admit the acuteness, we cannot by any means allow the conclusiveness, of Mr Hunter's reasoning.

is a more modern production than the play, from which it varies in the names of persons and places, as well as in some points of the story, as if for the purpose of concealing its connexion with a production which was popular on the stage. Our opinion decidedly is, that it was founded upon "The Tempest," and not upon any ancient narrative to which Shakespeare also might have been indebted. It may be remarked, that here also no locality is given to the island: on the contrary, we are told, if it ever had any existence beyond the imagination of the poet, that it had disappeared. As the ballad is in itself a graceful and meritorious production, independently of its immediate and direct connexion with Shakespeare's "Tempest," we subjoin it precisely as it stands in the same MS. volume which contains the ballad on "Othello" (see Vol. vi. p. 4 and p. 7):

"THE INCHANTED ISLAND.

"IN Aragon there livde a king,

Who had a daughter sweete as spring,

A little playfull childe:

He lovde his studie and his booke;

The toyles of state he could not brooke,

Of temper still and milde.

"He left them to his Brother's care,

Who soone usurpde the throne unware,

And turnd his brother forth:

The studious king Geraldo hight
His daughter Ida, deare as sight
To him who knew her worth.

"The brother who usurpd the throne
Was by the name Benormo knowne,
Of cruell hart and bolde.

He turned his niece and brother forth
To wander east, west, south, or north,
All in the winter colde.

"Long time, he journeyd up and downe,
The head all bare that wore a crowne,

And Ida in his hand,

Till that they reachd the broad sea side
Where merchant ships at ankor ride
From many a distant land.

"Imbarking, then, in one of these,
They were, by force of winds and seas,
Driven wide for many a mile;

Till at the last they shelter found,

The master and his men all drownd,

In the inchanted Isle.

' In the original MS. "south or north" are made to change places, but the rhyme detects the error.

"Geraldo and his daughter faire,
The onelie two that landed there,
Were savde by myracle;

And, sooth to say, in dangerous houre
He had some more than human powre,
As seemes by what befell.

"He brought with him a magicke booke,
Whereon his eye did oft times looke,
That wrought him wonders great:
A magicke staffe he had alsoe,
That angrie fiendes compelld to goe
To doe his bidding straight.

"The spirites of the earth and aire,
Unseene, yet fleeting every where,
To crosse him could not chuse.
All this by studie he had gainde,
While he in Arragon remainde,
But never thought to use.

"When landed on th' inchanted Isle,
His little Ida's morning smile
Made him forgett his woe:
And thus within a caverne dreare
They livde for many a yeare ifere,
For heaven had willd it soe.

"His blacke lockes turnd all silver gray,
But ever time he wore away

To teach his child intent;
And as she into beautie grewe
In knowledge she advanced to [o],
As wise as innocent.

"Most lovelie was she to beholde :
Her hair was like to sunn litt golde;

As blue as heaven her eye.

When she was in her fifteenth yeere
Her daintie forme was like the deere",
Sportfull with majestie.

"The Demons who the land had held,
By might of magicke he expelld,
Save such as he did neede;
And servaunts of the ayre he kept,
To watch ore Ida, when she slept,
And on swift message speede.

"And all this while in Arragon
Benormo raignde, who had a son,
Now growne to mans estate:

In the old MS. this line and the one preceding it having been accidentally misplaced, the figures 1 and 2 are written in the margin to indicate how they ought to be read.