Cal. You taught me language, and my profit on't Is, I know how to curfe: the red plague rid you, (9) For learning me your language!

Pro. Hag-feed, hence!

Fetch us in fewel and be quick (thou wer't best)
To answer other bufinefs. Shrug'it 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 pow'r,

It would control my dam's god Setebos,
And make a vaffal of him.

Pro. So, flave, hence!

[afide

[Exit Caliban.

(9) Red Plague] I fuppofe from the rednefs of the body univerfally inflamed.

SCENE

SCENE V.

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

ARIEL'S SONG..

Come unto thefe yellow fands,
And then take hand:

Court'fied when you have, and kift,
The wild waves whift;

Foot it featly bere and there,

And, fweet Sprites, the burden bear.

[Burden, difperfedly.

Hark, bark, baugh-waugh: the watch-dogs bark,
Baugh-waugh.

Ari. Hark, bark, I bear

The ftrain of frutting chanticlere

Cry, Cock a-doodle-do.

Fer. Where should this mufick be, i'th' air, or earth?

It founds no more: and fure, it waits upon
Some God o'th' Inland. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping against the King my father's wreck,
This mufick crept by me upon the waters;
Allaying both their fury and my paffion,
With its fweet 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.

But

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

Hark, now I hear them, ding-dong, bell. (1)

[Burden, ding-dong.

Fer.

Let us

(1) Full fathom five thy father lies, &c] Gildon, who has pretended to criticife our Author, would give this up as an infufferable and fenseless piece of trifling. And I believe this is the general opinion concerning it. But a very unjust one. confider the business Ariel is here upon, and his manner of executing it. The Commiffion Profpero had intrufted to him, in a whisper, was plainly this; to conduct Ferdinand to the fight of Miranda, and to dispose 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 Ferdi nand, 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 fhewn 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 circumstance 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 Alonzo the father's knowledge. For Profpero was ignorant how this form and hipwreck, caused by him, would work upon Alonzo'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 speak of his quality, where fuch engagements are not made without the content of the fovereign, Ferdinand is reprefented [to fhew it a match worth the feeking] of a most pious temper and difpofition, which would prevent his contracting himself 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 successfully defended these songs from Gilden's accufation. Ariel's lays, however feasonable and efficacious, must be allowed to be of no fu pernatural dignity or elegance, they exprefs nothing great, nor reveal any thing above mortal discovery.

The

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

That the earth owns: I hear it now above me.

Pro. The fringed curtains of thine eyes advance, And fay, what thou fee'ft yond.

Mira. What is't, a spirit?

Lord, how it looks about! believe me, Sir,
It carries a brave form. But 'tis a fpirit.

Pro. No, wench, it eats, and fleeps, and hath fuch fenfes

As we have fuch. This gallant, which thou seeft, Was in the wreck: and, but he's fomething ftain'd With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou might'st call

him

A goodly perfon. He hath loft his fellows,

And ftrays about to find 'em.

Mira. I might call him

A thing divine; for nothing natural

I ever faw fo noble.

Pro. It goes on, I fee,

[Afide.

As my foul prompts it. Spirit, fine fpirit, I'll free:

thee

Within two days for this.

Fer. Moft fure, the Goddess

On whom these airs attend!-Vouchfafe, my pray'r
May know, if you remain upon this Inland;
And that you will fome good inftruction give,
How I may bear me here: my prime request
(Which I do laft pronounce) is, O you wonder!
you be maid or no?

If

Mira. No wonder, Sir, But certainly a maid. (2)

Fer.

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, an humorous and frolick controlment of nature, well expreffed by the fongs of Ariel.

(2) certainly a maid.] Nothing could be more prettily imagined to illuftrate the fnularity of her character, than this

plea fant

Fer. My language! heav'ns!

I am the best of them that speak this speech,
Were I but where 'tis fpoken.

Pro. How? the best?"

What wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee?
Fer. A fingle thing, as I am now, that wonders
To hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me;
And, that he does, I weep: myself am Naples,
Who, with mine eyes (ne'er fince at ebb) beheld
The King my father wreckt.

Mira. Alack, for mercy!

Fer. Yes, faith, and all his lords: the Duke of Milan,

And his brave fon, being twain. (3)

Pro.-The Duke of Milan,

And his more braver daughter, could control thee, (4) If now 'twere fit to do't:-At the first fight,

[Afide to Ariel.

They have chang'd eyes:-delicate Ariel,

pleasant mistake. She had been bred up in the rough and plaindealing documents of moral philofophy, which teaches us the knowledge of ourselves: And was an utter ftranger to the flattery invented by vicious and defigning men to corrupt the other fex. So that it could not enter into her imagination, that complaifance and a defire of appearing amiable, qualities of humanity which she had been inftructed, in her moral leffons, to cultivate, could ever degenerate into fuch excefs, as that any one should be willing to have his fellow-creature believe, that he thought her WARBURTON. a Goddefs or an immortal.

Dr. Warburton has here found a beauty which I think the Author never intended. Ferdinand afks her not whether she was a created being, a question which, if he meant it, he has ill expreffed, but whether the was unmarried; for after the dialogue which Profpero's interruption produces, he goes on perfuing his former question.

O, if a Virgin,

I'll make you Queen of Naples,

(3) This is a flight forgetfulness. Nobody was left in the wreck, yet we find no fuch character as the fon of the Duke of Milan.

THEOBALD.

(4)-control thee,] Confute thee, unanswerably contradict

thee.