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Some tricks of defperation: All, but mariners,
Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the veffel,
Then all a-fire with me: the king's fon, Ferdinand,
With hair up-ftaring (then like reeds, not hair)
Was the firft man that leap'd; cried, Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here.

Pro. Why, that's my fpirit!
But was not this nigh fhore?
Ari. Close by, my mafter.
Pro. But are they, Ariel, fafe?
Ari. Not a hair perifh'd;

On their fuftaining garments not a blemish,

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

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

"In our fuftaining corn."

Mr. Edwards was of opinion that we should read fea-ftained garments; for (fays he) it was not the floating of their cloaths, but the magic of Profpero which preferved, 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 fays, "that their garments "being (as they were) drenched in the fea, held notwithstanding "their freshnefs and glofs, being rather new-dyed than stained

"with falt-water."

For this, and all fuch notes as are taken from the MSS. of the late Mr. Edwards, I am indebted to the friendship of Benjamin Way, Efq; who very obligingly procured them from the execu tors of that gentleman, with leave for their publication. Such of them as are omitted in this edition had been fometimes forestalled by the remarks of others, and fometimes by my own. The reader, however, might have been justly offended, had any other reafons prevented me from communicating the unpublished fentiments of that fprightly critick and most amiable man, as entire as I received them. STEEVENS.

This note of Mr. Edwards, with which I fuppofe no reader is fatisfied, fhews 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'ft me,
In troops I have difpers'd them 'bout the ifle:
The king's fon have I landed by himself;
Whom I left cooling of the air with fighs,
In an odd angle of the ifle, and fitting,
His arms in this fad knot.

Pre. Of the king's fhip,

The mariners, fay how thou haft difpos'd,
And all the reft o' the fleet?

Ari. Safely in harbour

Is the king's fhip; in the deep nook, where once Thou call'dft me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there fhe's hid:

The

2 From the fill-vex'd Bermoothes.-] Theobald fays Bermoothes is printed by mistake for Bermudas. No. That was the name by which the islands then went, as we may fee by the voyages of that time; and by our author's contemporary poets. Fletcher, in his Women Pleafed, fays, The devil fhould think of purchafing that egg-fhell to victual out a witch for the Bermoothes. Smith, in his account of these islands, p. 172. fays, that the Bermudas were fo fearful to the world, that many called them The Ifle of Devils.-P. 174.-to all feamen no less terrible than an inchanted den of furies. And no wonder, for the clime was extremely fubject to ftorms and hurricanes; and the islands were furrounded with fcattered 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 fend me on a 66 voyage to the island of Hogs and Devils, the Bermudas.”

STEEVENS,

The opinion that Bermudas was haunted with evil fpirits 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 Confcience, is this.

66

34.

Whether Bermudas and the parliament-house lie under one planet, feeing both are haunted with devils." PERCY. Bermudas was on this account the cant name for fome privileged place, in which the cheats and riotous bullies of Shakespeare's time affembled. So in The Devil is an Afs, by Ben. Jonfon, 66 keeps he ftill your quarter C 3

"In the Bermudas?"

Again

The mariners all under hatches ftow'd;

Whom, with a charm join'd to their fuffer'd labour,
I have left afleep and for the rest o' the fleet,
Which I difpers'd, they all have met again;
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,
Bound fadly home for Naples ;

Suppofing that they faw the king's ship wreck'd,
And his great perfon perish.

Pro. Ariel, thy charge

Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work:
What is the time o' the day?

Ari. Paft the mid feafon.

Pro. At least two glaffes: The time 'twixt fix and

now,

Muft by us both be fpent most precioufly.

Ari. Is there more toil? Since thou doft give me
pains,

Let me remember thee what thou haft promis'd,
Which is not yet perform'd me.

Pro. How now? moody?

What is't thou can't 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, ferv'd

Again in one of his Epiftles,

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

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I gave my word

"For one that's run away to the Bermudas." STEEVENS. -the Mediterranean flote.] Flote is wave.

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Flot. Fr.

STEEVENS.

What is the time o' the day?] This paffage needs not be disturbed, it being common to afk a question, which the next moment enables us to anfwer; he that thinks it faulty may eafily adjuft it thus:

Pro. What is the time o' the day? Paft the mid feafon?

Ari. At least two glaffes.

Pro. The time 'twixt fix and now.

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Without or grudge, or grumblings: thou didst pro

mife

To bate me a full

year.

Pro. Doft thou forget

From what a torment I did free thee?

Ari. No.

Pro. Thou doft; and think'ft it much, to tread the ooze

5 Doft thou forget] That the character and conduct of Profpero may be understood, fomething must be known of the fyftem of enchantment, which fupplied all the marvellous found in the romances of the middle ages. This fyftem feems to be founded on the opinion that the fallen fpirits, having different degrees of guilt, had different habitations allotted them at their expulfion, fome being confined in hell, fome (as Hooker, who delivers the opinion of our poet's age, expreffes it) difperfed in air, fome on earth, fome in water, others in caves, dens, or minerals under the earth. Of thefe, fome were more malignant and mischievous than others. The earthy fpirits feem to have been thought the moft depraved, and the aerial the leaft vitiated. Thus Profpero obferves of Ariel:

--

Thou waft a fpirit 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 obferves in his Demonology) one who commands the devil, whereas the switch ferves him. Thofe who thought beft of this art, the existence of which was, I am afraid, believed very feriously, held, that certain founds and characters had a phyfical power over fpirits, and compelled their agency; others, who condemned the practice, which in reality was furely never practifed, were of opinion, with more reason, that the power of charms arofe only from compact, and was no more than the spirits voluntary allowed them for the feduction of man. The art was held by all, though not equally criminal, yet unlawful, and therefore Cafaubon, fpeaking of one who had commerce with fpirits, blames him, though he imagines him one of the beft kind who dealt with them by way of command. Thus Profpero repents of his art in the loft fcene. The fpirits were always confidered as in fome measure enflaved to the enchanter, at least for a time, and as ferving with unwillingness, therefore Ariel fo often begs for liberty; and Caliban obferves, that the fpirits ferve Profpero with no good will, but bate him rootedly. Of thefe trifles enough.

JOHNSON.

Of the falt deep;

To run upon the fharp wind of the north; To do me business in the veins o' the earth, When it is bak'd with froft.

Ari. I do not, fir.

Pro. Thou ly'ft, malignant thing! Haft thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who, with age, and envy, Was grown into a hoop? haft thou forgot her? Ari. No, fir.

Pro. Thou haft: Where was fhe born? fpeak; tell

me.

Ari. Sir, in Argier 7.

Pro. Oh, was the fo? I muft,

Once in a month, recount what thou hast been,
Which thou forgett'ft. This damn'd witch, Sycorax,
For mischiefs manifold, and forceries terrible
To enter human hearing, from Argier,

Thou know'ft, was banish'd; for one thing fhe did,
They would not take her life: Is not this true?
Ari. Ay, fir.

Pro. This blue cy'd hag was hither brought with child,

And here was left by the failors: Thou, my flave,
As thou report'ft thyself, waft then her fervant :
And, for thou waft a spirit too delicate
To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,
Refufing her grand hefts, fhe did confine thee,
By help of her more potent ministers,
And in her moft unmitigable rage,

Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprifon'd, thou didst painfully remain

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,

7

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-furgeon, &c." 1614. In this is a chapter" on the defcription, &c. of Argier." STEEVENS,

A dozen

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