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Which any print of goodness will not take,
Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,

Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other: 5 when thou didst not, favage,
Know thy own meaning, but wouldft gabble like
A thing more brutish, I endow'd thy purposes

s-When thou DIDST not, favage,

KNOW thy own meaning, but wouldfi gabble like

A thing moft brutish, lendow'd thy purposes

With words to make them known.] The benefit which Profpero here upbraids Caliban with having beftowed, was teaching him language. He fhews the greatnefs of this benefit by marking the inconvenience Caliban lay under for want of it. What was the inconvenience? This, that he did not know his own meaning. But fure a brute, to which he is compared, doth know its own meaning, that is, knows what it would be at. This, indeed, it cannot do, it cannot fhew its meaning to others. And this certainly is what Profpero would fay:

When thou COULDST not, favage,

SHOW thy own meaning,

The following words make it evident,

-but wouldft gabble like

A thing moft brutish,

And when once [show] was corrupted to [know] the transcribers would of courfe change [couldft] into [didft] to make it agree with the other false reading. There is indeed a fenfe, in which Know thy own meaning, may be well applied to a brute. For it may fignify the not having any reflex knowledge of the operations of its own mind, which, it would feem, a brute hath not. Though this, I fay, may be applied to a brute, and confequently to Caliban, and though to remedy this brutality be a nobler benefit than even the teaching language; yet fuch a sense would be impertinent and abfurd in this place, where only the benefit of language is talked of by an exact and learned speaker. Befides, Profpero exprefly fays, that Caliban had purposes; which, in other words, is, that he did know his own meaning.

When thou didst not, favage,

WARBURTON.

Know thy own meaning, 1 By this expreffion, however defective, the poet feems to have meant- When thou didst utter founds, to which thou hadst no determinate meaning: but the following expreffion of Mr. Addifon, in his 389th Spectator, concerning the Hottentots, may prove the beft comment on this paffage, having no language among them but a confufed gabble, which is neither well underfood by themselves, or others."

STEEVENS.

With words that made them known: But thy vild

race

Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good

natures

Could not abide to be with; therefore waft thou
Defervedly confin'd into this rock,

Who hadft deferv'd more than a prifon.

Cal. You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curfe: 7 The red plague rid you, For learning me your language!

Pro. Hag-feed, hence!

Fetch us in fewel; and be quick, thou we'rt beft,
To answer other bufinefs. Shrug'ft thou, malice?
If thou neglect'ft, or doft unwillingly

What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps;
Fill all thy bones with aches; make thee roar,
That beafts fhall tremble at thy din.

Cal. No, 'pray thee !

I must obey: his art is of fuch power,

It would controul my dam's god Setebos,

And make a vaffal of him.

Pro. So, flave; hence!

[Afide.

[Exit Caliban.

Enter

But thy wild race] Race, in this place, feems to fignify original difpofition, inborn qualities. In this fenfe we still fayThe race of wine; thus in Maflinger's New Way to pay old Debts. "There came, not fix days fince, from Hull, a pipe "Of rich Canary.

"Is it of the right race?"

and fir W. Temple has fomewhere applied it to works of litera ture. STEEVENS.

? -the red plague-] I fuppofe from the redness of the body, univerfally inflamed. JOHNSON.

The eryfipelas was anciently called the red plague. STEEVENS. "My dam's god, Setebos."

A gentleman of great merit, Mr. Warner, has obferved on the authority of John Barbot, that "the Patagons are reported to "dread a great horned devil, called Setcbos.' It may be asked however, how Shakespeare knew any thing of this, as Barbet was a voyager of the prefent century?-Perhaps he had read Eden's Hiftory of Travayle, 1577, who tells us, P. 434. that

the

Enter Ferdinand at the remoteft part of the stage, and Ariel invifible, playing and finging.

Ariel's Song.

Come unto thefe yellow fands,

And then take hands:

• Court'fied when you have, and kifs'd,
(The wild waves whift)

Foot it featly here and there;

And, fweet fprites, the burden bear.

Hark, bark!

Bur. Bowgh, wowgh.

The watch-dogs bark:

Bur. Bowgh, wowgh.

Hark, bark! I hear

The ftrain of ftrutting chanticlere

Cry, Cock-a-doodle-doo.

[difperfedly.

[difperfedly.

Fer. Where fhould this mufick be? i' the air, or the earth?

"the giantes, when they found themfelves fettered, roared like bulls, and cryed upon Setebos to help them."-The metathefis in Caliban from Canibal is evident. FARMER.

We learn from Magellan's voyage, that Setebos was the fupreme god of the Patagons, and Cheleule was an inferior one. TOLLET. Court'fied when you have, and kifs'd,] As was anciently done at the beginning of fome dances.

The wild waves whift;

i. e. the wild waves being filent (or whift) as in Spenfer's Fairy Queen, b. vii. c. 7. f. 59.

So was the Titanefs put down, and whift.

And Milton feems to have had our author in his eye. ftanza 5. of his Hymn on the Nativity.

The winds with wonder whift,

Smoothly the waters kifs'd.

See

So again, both lord Surrey and Phaer, in their tranflations of the fecond book of Virgil:

-Conticuere omnes.

"They shifted all."

and Lylly in his Maid's Metamorphofis, 1600.

"But every thing is quiet, whift, and ftill." STEEVENS.

It founds no more:-and fure, it waits upon
Some god of the island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wreck,
This mufic crept by me upon the waters';
Allaying both their fury, and my paffion,
With its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it,
Or it hath drawn me rather :-But 'tis gone.
No, it begins again.

Ariel's Song.

Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made;
Thofe are pearls, that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,

This music crept by me upon the waters ;]
So in Milton's Mafque.

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a foft and folemn breathing found "Rofe like a fleam of rich diftill'd perfumes,

"And ftole upon the air." STEEVENS.

But

Let us

Full fathom five thy father lies, &c.] Gildon, who has pretended to criticife our author, would give this up as an infufferable and fenfeless piece of trifling. And I believe this is the general opinion concerning it. But a very unjust one. confider the bufinefs Ariel is here upon, and his manner of executing it. The commiflion Profpero had intrusted to him, in a whifper, was plainly this; to conduct Ferdinand to the fight of Miranda, and to difpofe him to the quick fentiments of love, while he, on the other hand, prepared his daughter for the fame impreffions. Ariel fets about his bufinefs by acquainting Ferdinand, in an extraordinary manner, with the afflictive news of his father's death. A very odd apparatus, one would think, for a love-fit. And yet, as odd as it appears, the poet has shewn in it the finest conduct for carrying on his plot. Profpero had said I find my zenith doth depend upon

A moft aufpicious ftar; whofe influence

If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop.

In confequence of this his prefcience, he takes advantage of every favourable circumftance that the occafion offers. The principal affair is the marriage of his daughter with young Ferdinand. But to fecure this point, it was neceffary they should be contracted before the affair came to Alonfo the father's knowledge. For Profpero was ignorant how this ftorm and fhipwreck, caused by VOL. I. him,

D

But doth fuffer a fea-change3,
Into fomething rich and ftrange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell.

Hark, now I hear them,-ding-dong, bell.

[Burden, ding-dong.

Fer. The ditty does remember my drown'd father:This is no mortal bufinefs, nor no found

That the earth owes :-I hear it now above me.

him, would work upon Alonfo's temper. It might either foften him, or increase his averfion for Profpero as the author. On the other hand, to engage Ferdinand, without the confent of his father, was difficult. For, not to fpeak of his quality, where fuch engagements are not made without the confent of the fovereign, Ferdinand is reprefented (to fhew it a match worth the feeking) of a moft pious temper and difpofition, which would prevent his contracting himfelf without his father's knowledge. The poet therefore, with the utmost address, has made Ariel perfuade him of his father's death to remove this remora.

WARBURTON.

I know not whether Dr. Warburton has very fuccefsfully defended these fongs from Gilden's accufation. Ariel's lays, however seasonable and efficacious, must be allowed to be of no fupernatural dignity or elegance, they exprefs nothing great, nor reveal any thing above mortal difcovery.

The reafon for which Ariel is introduced thus trifling is, that he and his companions are evidently of the fairy kind, an order of beings to which tradition has always afcribed a fort of diminutive agency, powerful but ludicrous, a humorous and frolick controlment of nature, well expreffed by the fongs of Ariel.

3 But doth fuffer a fea-change.]
"And underwent a quick immortal change.”

JOHNSON.

Milton's Mafque.

STEEVENS.

4 That the earth owes :-] To owve, in this place, as well as many others, fignifics to ozen. So in Othello:

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that fweet fleep,
"Which thou ow'dft yesterday."

Again in the Tempel.

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thou doft here ufarp

"The name thou ow' not."

To ufe the word in this fenfe is not peculiar to Shakespeare.

I meet with it in B. and Fletcher's Beggar's Bufh:

"If now the beard be fuch, what is the prince,
"That owes the beard ?" STEEVENS.

Pro.

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