Him that you term'd The good old lord, Gonzalo,
His tears run down his beard, like winter drops
From eaves of reeds: your charm fo ftrongly works

'em,

That if you now beheld them, your affections

Would become tender.

Pro. Do'st thou think fo, fpirit?

Ari. Mine would, fir, were I human.

Pro. And mine fhall.

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 as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am ftruck to the
quick,

Yet, with my nobler reason, 'gainst my fury
Do I take part: the rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,

5a touch, a feeling] A touch is a fenfation.

So in Cymbeline: 66

a touch more rare

"Subdues all pangs, all fears."

So in the 141ft fonnet of Shakespeare:

"Nor tender feeling to bafe touches prone."

Again in the Civil Wars of Daniel, b. I:

6

"I know not how their death gives fuch a touch."

that relish all as sharply,

Paffion as they,

STEEVENS.

Paffion is a verb in Shakespeare. I feel every thing with the fame quick fenfibility, and am moved by the fame paffions as they are. So in The Gent. of Verona : "Madam, 'twas Ariadne paffioning

"For Thefeus' perjury," &c.

Again, in his Venus and Adonis:

"Dumbly the paffions, frantickly fhe doateth."

Again, in Love's Labour's Loft, act I. sc. i:

I paffion to fay wherewith."

Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, b. II. c. 9:

to fee the maid

"So ftrangely paffioned"

A fimilar thought occurs in K. Rich. II:

Tafte grief, need friends, like you," &c. STEEVENS.

The

The fole drift of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown further: Go, release them, Ariel;
My charms I'll break, their fenfes I'll restore,
And they fhall be themselves.

Ari. I'll fetch them, fir.

[Exit.

Pro. Ye elves of hills, brooks, ftanding lakes, and groves;

8

And ye, that on the fands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him,
When he comes back; you demy-puppets, that
By moon-fhine do the green four ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whofe paftime
Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice
To hear the folemn curfew; by whofe aid

" (Weak mafters though ye be) I have be-dimm'd

The

Ye elves of hills, of ftanding lakes, and groves;] This fpeech Dr. Warburton rightly obferves to be borrowed from Medea's in Ovid: and it proves, fays Mr. Holt, beyond contradiction, that Shakespeare was perfectly acquainted with the fentiments of the ancients on the subject of inchantments." The original lines are these :

"Auræque, & venti, montefque, amnefque, lacufque, "Diique omnes nemorum, difque omnes noctis adefte.' The tranflation of which, by Golding, is by no means literal, and Shakespeare hath closely followed it:

"Ye ayres and winds; ye elves of hills, of brookes, of "woods alone;

"Of ftanding lakes, and of the night, approche ye everych one. FARMER.

66

Te elves of bills, &c.] Fairies and elves are frequently in the poets mentioned together, without any diftinction of character that I can recollect. Keyfler fays that alp and alf, which is elf with the Suedes and English, equally fignified a mountain, or a dæmon of the mountains. This feems to have been its original meaning; but Somner's Dict. mentions elves or fairies of the mountains, of the woods, of the fea and fountains, without any diftinction between elves and fairies. TOLLET.

8

with printless foot

Do chafe the ebbing Neptune,-] So Milton in his Mafque: "Whilt from off the waters fleet,

"Thus I fet my printless feet." STEEVENS.

9 (Weak mafters though ye be)-] The meaning of this paffage may be; Though you are but inferior mafters of thefe fupernatural

H 3

powers,

The noon-tide fun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green fea and the azur'd vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's flout oak
With his own bolt: the ftrong-bas'd promontory
Have I made shake; and by the fpurs pluck'd up
The pine, and cedar: graves, at my command,
Have wak'd their fleepers; op'd, and let them forth
By my fo potent art: But this rough magick
I here abjure: and, when I have requir'd
Some heavenly mufick, (which even now I do)
To work mine end upon their fenfes, that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And, deeper than did ever plummet found,
I'll drown my book.

[Solemn mufick.]

Re-enter Ariel: after him Alonfo with a frantick gefture, attended by Gonzalo. Sebaftian and Anthonio in like manner, attended by Adrian and Francifco. They all enter the circle which Profpero had made, and there ftand charm'd; which Profpero obferving, speaks.

A folemn air, and the best comforter

To an unfettled fancy, cure thy brains,

Now ufelefs, boil'd within thy fkull! there ftand, For you are spell-stopp'd.

Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,

Mine eyes, even fociable to the fhew of thine,

Fall fellowly drops.-The charm diffolves apace;

And as the morning fteals upon the night,

povers, though you poffefs them but in a low degree. Spenfer ufes the fame kind of expreffion, b. III. cant. 8. ft. 4.

"Where the (the witch) was wont her fprights to entertain, "The mafters of her art: there was the fain

"To call them all in order to her aid."

Dream:

STEEVENS.

boil'd within thy fkull!] So in the Midfummer Night's

"Lovers and madmen have such feething brains, &c."

STEEVENS.

Melting

Melting the darkness, fo their rifing fenfes
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reafon.-O good Gonzalo,
My true preferver, and a loyal fir

To him thou follow'ft; I will pay thy graces
Home, both in word and deed.-Moft cruelly
Didst thou, Alonfo, use me and my daughter:
Thy brother was a furtherer in the act ;-
Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebaftian.-

blood',

-Flesh and

You brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,
Expell'd remorfe, and nature; who, with Sebastian,
(Whofe inward pinches therefore are most strong)
Would here have kill'd your king; I do forgive thee,
Unnatural though thou art!-Their understanding
Begins to fwell; and the approaching tide
Will fhortly fill the reasonable fhore,

That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them,
That yet looks on me, or would know me :-Ariel,
Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell;

[Exit Ariel. quickly, fpirit;

I will dif-cafe me, and myself present,
As I was fometime Milan :
Thou shalt e'er long be free.

Ariel enters finging, and helps to attire him.

Where the bee fucks, there fuck 1;

In a cowflip's bell I lie :

There I couch when owls do

On the bat's back I do fly,

cry.

3 After fummer, merrily:
Merrily, merrily, fhall I live now,
Under the bloffom that hangs on the bough.

Pro.

2 Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebaftian.-Flesh and blood,] Thus the old copy: Theobald points the paffage in a different manner, and perhaps rightly :

"Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebastian, flesh and blood.

STEEVENS.

3 After fummer, merrily:] This is the reading of all the editions. Yet Mr. Theobald has fubftituted fun-fet, because Ariel H 4

talks

Pro. Why, that's my dainty Ariel: I fhall mifs
thee;

But yet thou fhalt have freedom: So, fo, fo.
To the king's fhip, invifible as thou art :

talks of riding on the bat in this expedition. An idle fancy. That circumftance is given only to defign the time of night in which fairies travel. One would think the confideration of the circumftances should have fet him right. Ariel was a spirit of great delicacy, bound by the charms of Profpero to a conftant attendance on his occafions. So that he was confined to the ifland winter and fummer. But the roughnefs of winter is reprefented by Shakefpeare as difagreeable to fairies, and fuch like delicate fpirits, who, on this account, conftantly follow fummer. Was not this then the moft agreeable circumftance of Ariel's new-recovered liberty, that he could now avoid winter, and follow fummer quite round the globe? But to put the matter quite out of question, let us confider the meaning of this line:

There I couch when owls do cry.

Where? in the cowflip's bell, and where the bee fucks, he tells us: this must needs be in fummer. When? when owls cry, and this is in winter:

"When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,

"Then nightly fings the ftaring owl."

The Song of Winter in Love's Labour Loft. The confequence is, that Ariel flies after fummer. Yet the Oxford Editor has adopted this judicious emendation of Mr. Theobald. WARBURTON.

Ariel does not appear to have been confined to the island, fummer and winter, as he was fometimes fent on fo long an errand as to the Bermoothes. When he fays, On the bat's back I do fly, &c. he fpeaks of his prefent fituation only, nor triumphs in the idea of his future liberty, till the last couplet;

Merrily, merrily, &c.

The bat is no bird of pailage, and the expreffion is therefore probably used to fignify, not that he pursues fummer, but that after fummer is pafi, he rides upon the foft down of a bat's back, which fuits not improperly with the delicacy of his airy being.

Shakespeare, who, in his Midsummer Night's Dream, has placed the light of a glow-worm in its eyes, might, through the fame ignorance of natural history, have fuppofed the bat to be a bird of paffage. Owls cry not only in winter. It is well known that they are to the full as clamorous in fummer; and as a proof of it, Titania, in the Midfummer Night's Dream, the time of which is fuppofed to be May, commands her faeries to keep back The clamerous owl, that nightly boots.- STEEVENS.

There