Re-enter ARIEL, with the Master and Boatswain amazedly following.

O look, sir, look, sir; here are more of us!

I prophesied if a gallows were on land,
This fellow could not drown: now, blasphemy,
That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on shore?
Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news?
Boats. The best news is that we have safely found
Our king, and company: the next our ship,―
Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split,—
Is tight, and yare, and bravely rigg'd, as when
We first put out to sea

Ari.

Sir, all this service Have I done since I went.

Pro.

Aside.

My tricksy spirit! Alon. These are not natural events; they strengthen, From strange to stranger :-Say, how came you hither? Boats. If I did think, sir, I were well awake, I'd strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep, And (how, we know not) all clapp'd under hatches, Where, but even now, with strange and several noises Of roaring, shrieking, howling, gingling chains, And more diversity of sounds, all horrible, We were awak'd; straightway, at liberty: Where we, in all our trim, freshly beheld Our royal, good, and gallant ship; our master Capering to eye her: on a trice, so please you, Even in a dream, were we divided from them, And were brought moping hither.

Ari. Was 't well done?

Pro. Bravely, my diligence. Thou shalt Aside.

be free.

Alon. This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod: And there is in this business more than nature Was ever conduct of some oracle

Must rectify our knowledge.

Pro.

Sir, my liege,

Do not infest your mind with beating on The strangeness of this business: at pick'd leisure, Which shall be shortly, single I'll resolve you (Which to you shall seem probable) of every These happen'd accidents: till when, be cheerful, And think of each thing well.-Come hither, spirit; [Aside

Set Caliban and his companions free:

Untie the spell. [Exit ARIEL.] How fares my gracious sir?

There are yet missing of your company

Some few odd lads that you remember not.

Re-enter ARIEL, driving in CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, in their stolen Apparel.

Ste. Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man take care for himself; for all is but fortune:-Coragio, bully-monster, Coragio!

Trin. If these be true spies which I wear in my head, here's a goodly sigut.

Cal. O Setebos, these be brave spirits, indeed! How fine my master is! I am afraid

He will chastise me.

What things are these, my lord Antonio? Will money buy them?

Ant.

Very like; one of them Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable.

Pro. Mark but the badges of these men, my lords,
Then say if they be true: this mis-shapen knave,—
His mother was a witch, and one so strong
That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,
And deal in her command, without her power:
These three have robb'd me: and this demi-devil
(For he 's a bastard one) had plotted with them
To take my life: two of these fellows you
Must know, and own; this thing of darkness I
Acknowledge mine.

Cal.
I shall be pinch'd to death.
Alon. Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler?
Seb. He is drunk now: where had he wine?
Alon. And Trinculo is reeling ripe: Where should

they

Find this grand liquor that hath gilded them?—
How cam'st thou in this pickle?

Trin. I have been in such a pickle, since I saw you last, that, I fear me, will never out of my bones: 1 shall not fear fly-blowing.

Seb. Why, how now, Stephano?

Ste. O, touch me not; I am not Stephano, but a

cramp.

Pro. You'd be king o' the isle, sirrah?
Ste. I should have been a sore one then.
Alon. This is as strange thing as e'er I look'd on.
[Pointing to Ca.

Pro. He is as disproportion'd in his manners
As in his shape :-Go, sirrah, to my cell;
Take with you your companions; as you look
To have my pardon, trim it handsomely.

Cal. Ay, that I will; and I'll be wise hereafter,
And seek for grace: What a thrice-double ass
Was 1, to take this drunkard for a god,
And worship this dull fool!

Pro.

Go to; away!

folio collection of his plays, in 1623. We have followed the text of this edition almost literally. King John' is one of the plays of Shakspere enumerated by Francis Meres, in 1598.

Dr. Johnson, in his preface to Shakspere, speaking of the division, by the players, of our author's works into comedies, histories, and tragedies, thus defines what, he says, was the notion of a dramatic history in those times "History was a series of actions, with no other than chronological succession, independent on each other, and without any tendency to introduce and regulate the conclusion." Again, speaking of the unities of the critics, he says of Shakspere-"His histories, being neither tragedies nor comedies, are not subject to any of their laws; nothing more is necessary to all the praise which they expect, than that the changes of action be so prepared as to be understood, that the incidents be various and affecting, and the characters consistent, natural, and distinct. No other unity is intended, and, therefore, none is to be sought. In his other works he has well enough preserved the unity of action." Taking these observations together, as a general definition of the character of Shakspere's histories, we are constrained to say that no opinion can be farther removed from the truth. So far from the "unity of action" not being regarded in Shakspere's histories, and being subservient to the "chronological succession," it rides over that succession whenever the demands of the scene require a unity of a higher order, which connects the events by reference to the workers, gives a reason for them in the motives, and presents men in their causative cha

The great connecting link that binds together all the series of actious in the King John' of Shakspere, which does not hold any actions, or series of actions, which arise out of other causes,is the fate of Arthur. From the first to the last scene, the hard struggles and the cruel end of the young Duke of Brittany either lead to the action, or form a portion of it, or are the direct causes of an ulterior consequence.

As an historical picture the King John' is wonderfully true. What a Gothic grandeur runs through the whole of these scenes! We see the men of six centuries ago, as they played the game of their personal ambition -now swearing hollow friendships, now breathing stern denunciations;—now affecting compassion for the weak and the suffering, now breaking faith with the orphan and the mother;-now

"Gone to be married, gone to swear a peace;" now keeping the feast "with slaughtered men;"-n trembling at, and now braving, the denunciations of spiritual power;-and agreeing in nothing but to bend "their sharpest deeds of malice" on unoffending and peaceful citizens, unless the citizens have some "commodity" to offer which shall draw them

"To a most base and vile-concluded peace."

the spirit of the chivalrous times,-lofty in words, but sordid in acts,—given us a running commentary which interprets the whole in the sarcasms of the Bastard! But amidst all the clatter of conventional dignity which we find in the speeches of John, and Philip, and Lewis, and Austria, the real diguity of strong natural affections rises over the pomp and circumstance of regal ambitiou with a force of contrast which is little less than sublime. The maternal terror and anguish of Constance soon become the prominent objects; and the rival kings, the haughty prelate, the fierce knights, the yielding citizens, appear but as puppets moved by destiny to force on the most bitter sorrows of that broken-hearted mother. Matchless as is the art of the poet in these scenes;— matchless as an exhibition of maternal sorrow only, apart from the whirlwind of conflicting passions that are mixed up with that sorrow;-are we to believe that Shakspere intended that our hearts should sustain this laceration, and that the effects should pass away when Constance quits the stage? Are we to believe that he was satisfied that his "incidents should be various an affecting," but "independent on each other, and without any tendency to produce and regulate the conclusion?" Was there to be no "unity of feeling" to sustain and elevate the action to the end? Was his tragedy to be a mere dance of Fantoccini? No, no. The remembrance of Constance can never be separated from the after-scenes in which Arthur appears; and at the very last, when the poison has done its work upon the guilty king, we can scarcely help believing that the spirit of Constance hovers over him, and that the echo of the mother's cries is even more insupportable than the "burn'd bosom " and the "parched lips," which neither his "kingdom's rivers "nor the "bleak winds" of the north can "comfort with cold." By the magic of the poet, the interval of fourteen years between the death of Arthur and the death of John is annihilated. Causes and consequences, separated in the proper history by long digressions and tedious episodes, are brought together. The attributed murder of Arthur lost John all the inheritances of the house of Anjou, and allowed the house of Capet to triumph in his overthrow. Out of this grew a larger ambition, and England was invaded. The death of Arthur and the events which marked the last days of John were separated in their cause and effect by time only,, over which the poet leaps. It is said that a man who was on the point of drowning saw, in an instant, all the events of his life in connexion with his approaching end. So sees the poet. It is his to bring the beginnings and the ends of events into that real union and dependence which even the philosophical historian may overlook in tracing their course. It is the poet's office to preserve a unity of action; it is the historian's to show a consistency of progress. In the chroniclers we have manifold changes of fortune in the life of John after Arthur of Brittany has fallen. Iu Shakspere, Arthur of Brittany is at once revenged.