We leave Ariel to plead his liberty with his stern master, whose introduction of the birth of Caliban, the "duke's jester," is admirably managed Prospero Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Caliban. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd 'Drop on you both!” Though Shakspeare must have read very extensively, and probably works not confined to his own language, yet, for the most part, his observations are practical; he saw readily, and judged correctly. Subtle in his scrutiny of natural phenomena, he ascended from effects to causes, or by a comparison of causes predicted their effects. Stagnation is the matrix of infectious breath, or miasm. The "unwholesome fen" is the abode of plague, pestilence, and death. In the catalogue of mortal ills, pestilence is the most direful; millions are yearly sacrificed to the ". vapours of decay" that float off the green and livid pools and lakes so common in India. In our own county of Lincolnshire, intermittent fevers are indigenous to the cold, damp soil and marshes that generate them. In America the same evils occur, and from the same causes. The poet has admirably chosen the "wicked dew" for the curse of Caliban, who must be supposed ignorant of the evils which society inflicts on herself; while the "breath of the noxious south" was slow, insiduous, and fatal, working as a charm. In the 2nd scene, act 2nd, the monster appears again, and renews his curse "Caliban. All the infections that the sun sucks up From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him, By inch-meal, a disease." This resembles the arrows of Apollo, in the 1st book of the Iliad, "Whose direful darts inflict the raging pest," and exhibits the real workings, cause, and effect of the "pestilence that walketh in darkness." How shudderingly horrible, "inchmeal, a disease!" human revenge could not conceive nor utter such a curse; the language is part of the monster. In the second Act, appear Alonzo, Sebastian, Antonio, and others. This scene somewhat resembles the "Forest of Ardennes, with the deposed Duke and his gay brothers in exile;"—they come to an encounter of their keen wits, making their "words wanton.” VOL. V.-NO. XVII. F The anecdote of Dominie Sampson's wearing apparel strikingly coincides with the following speech of Gonzalo, and was probably suggested by it: "The only remark he (Dominie Sampson) was ever known to make upon the subject, was, that the air of a town like Kippletringan, seemed favourable unto wearing apparel, for he thought his coat looked almost as new as the first day he put it on." "Gonzalo. That our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold, notwithstanding their freshness and glosses; being rather new dyed, than stained with salt-water. Antonio.-If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say, he lies? Sebastian.-Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report. Gon. Methinks our garments are now as fresh as when we put them on in Afric." The old courtier, again, asks— "Is not, Sir, my doublet As fresh as the first day I wore it." The images of one of the most exquisite verses of Byron conform nicely to the following passage relating to the loss of Ferdinandthey are both real and powerfully true. The masculine strength displayed in Ferdinand's exertions is most exciting.* "Francisco. Sir, he may live ; I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs; he trod the water, Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd, As stooping to relieve him." Foscari, looking from his dungeon on the fresh waves of the blue Adriatic, breaks out, with all the delighted eloquence of a young unbow'd heart, "How many a time have I Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more daring, Shakspeare's heroes are genuine flesh and blood, the very opposite of the sickly sentimental offspring of "a modern gentleman." The same peculiar excellence belongs to Fielding, Smollett, and Scott. Which kiss'd it like a wine cup; rising o'er How beautiful! How voluptuous! He even swims like a lover. Byron is the Shakspeare of the "world within us," not that of untaught nature, but of man in the highest state of civilization. Among the opinions of men, none are so eccentric as those of human happiness; and while every individual, however mean, has somewhat to hope, it is only great minds who have wandered into this many-coloured speculation, and laid down schemes for its reality. From the time of Plato to the Owenites of to-day, the golden age of universal love has been imagined and sighed for; as though the lingering regrets of our first parents had clung to our natures as one of its elements. The Eden of earth, by an easy transition, is transfigured in the blissfulness of heaven: what was imagined possible in time, is interwoven in our religious faith as the reality of eternity. The Eutopiists can number names the most illustrious in the history of the world," who have set forth the law of their own minds." The French philosophers, nationally speculative, too eager for perfection to be patient of reform, would anticipate the "final doom," and foretell a new earth rising out of the universal overthrow. The Owenites of the present day, advance irrefutable arguments, and with an almost divine prescience, arrogate to themselves the millenium of the christian. It is probable that Shakspeare had read the Republic of Plato: not that a mind so expansive could not have imagined what is so essential an element in poetry, but the following striking passage is, at least, a precedent for successive Atalantists, where Bacon and Moore might have beheld their Edens :— "Gonzalo.-Had I the plantation of this isle, my lord,- • Petrarch. Gon. And were the king of it, what would I do? No occupation; all men idle, all; And women too, but innocent and pure; Seb. And yet he would be king on't. Ant.-The latter end of his commonwealth Forgets the beginning." Gon. All things in common nature should produce Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine Of its own kind, all foizon, all abundance, To feed my innocent people." The "wilderness of sweets" with which Milton has sated the fancy in his "Eden" is not more comprehensive than this fine passage. The best comment which modern writers offer on the golden age is that of Coleridge, in his Friend;† a work, with all its excellence, so little known that a quotation will be sure of novelty; I hope the reader's attention may be directed to the work itself. Of the very few friends whose "adoption I have tried" Coleridge is the most constant, the wisest, the best. "Antecedent to all history, and long glimmering through it as a holy tradition, there presents itself to our imagination an indefinite period, dateless as eternity; a state rather than a time. For even the sense of succession is lost in the uniformity of the stream." It was towards the close of this "golden age" when conscience acted in man with the ease and uniformity of instinct-when labour was a sweet name for the activity of sane minds in healthful bodies, and all enjoyed in common the bounteous harvest, produced and gathered in by common effort-when there existed in the sexes, and in the individuals of each sex, just variety enough to permit and call forth the gentle restlessness and final union of chaste love and individual attachment, each seeking and finding the beloved one by the natural affinity of their beings-when the dread Sove • Landmark. + The Friend; a series of essays, in three volumes, to aid in the formation of fixed principles in politics, morals, and religion, &c., by S. T. Coleridge. reign of the Universe was known only as the Universal Parent, no altar but the pure heart, and thanksgiving and grateful love the sole sacrifice. How far we are to receive the doctrine of human perfectibilitynot by conversion, but rather creation-from infancy to age, the reader must determine by a self-examination of the arguments. Certainly all inclination implies acquirement, which also involves agency or cause, and that cause must be independent of our will, otherwise a contradiction in terms. But it may be dangerous for an individual to pursue this inquiry; the world is not yet ripe for reason. "Alonzo. I would with such perfection govern, Sir, To excel the golden age." Thus discoursing, they "lose and neglect the creeping hours of time." Ariel enters, and with his music "charms up their sense in sleep." "Alonzo.-What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts: I find They are inclined to do so. Sebastian. Please you, Sir, Do not omit the heavy offer of it: It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth It is a comforter." That is, the consciousness of thought. Shakspeare has minutely relations: there is nothing within its verge but he has described. Dr. Young's apostrophe to sleep, though fine, is but an amplification of this one line anatomised sleep, in all its states and "It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth It is a comforter." How perfectly the balm of sleep is appreciated!—it is raised into positive enjoyment. "Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care." Shakspeare must often have shuddered at the agonies he depicted, and thereby grew finely sensible of "the balm of hurt minds."His personification of sleep, in Henry IV., is above all praise. "Sebastian. What a strange drowsiness possesses them! Antonio. It is the quality o' the climate." This is another of those signs of observation, and expresses more * Owenism. |