equal to the scene between Ferdinand and Miranda. In Ferdinand, who is a noble creature, we have all the chivalrous magnanimity with which man, in a high state of civilisation, disguises his real superiority, and does humble homage to the being of whose destiny he disposes; while Miranda, the mere child of nature, is struck with wonder at her own new emotions. Only conscious of her own weakness as a woman, and ignorant of those usages of society which teach us to dissemble the real passion, and assume (and sometimes abuse) an unreal and transient power, she is equally ready to place her life, her love, her service beneath his feet.

With much more ease; for my good will is to it,

And yours against.

MIRANDA.

You look wearily.

FERDINAND.

No, noble mistress; 'tis fresh morning with me
When you are by at night. I do beseech you
(Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers),
What is your name?

MIRANDA.

Miranda. O my father,

I have broke your hest to say so!

FERDINAND.

Admir'd Miranda!

Indeed the top of admiration; worth

What's dearest in the world! Full many a lady
I have eyed with best regard: and many a time
The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage
Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues
Have I liked several women; never any
With so full soul, but some defect in her
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed
And put it to the foil. But you, O you,
So perfect and so peerless, are created
Of every creature's best!

MIRANDA.

I do not know

One of my sex: no woman's face remember,
Save, from my glass, mine own! nor have I seen
More that I may call man, than you, good friend,

And my dear father. How features are abroad

I am skill-less of: but, by my modesty

(The jewel in my dower), I would not wish

Any companion in the world but you;
Nor can imagination form a shape,

And prompt me, plain and holy innocence!
I am your wife, if you will marry me;

If not I'll die your maid: to be your fellow
You may deny me; but I'll be your servant
Whether you will or no!

FERDINAND.

My mistress, dearest !

And I thus humble ever.

MIRANDA.

My husband, then?

FERDINAND.

Ay, with a heart as willing,

As bondage e'er of freedom. Here's my hand.

MIRANDA.

And mine with my heart in it. And now farewell

Till half an hour hence.

As Miranda, being what she is, could only have had a Ferdinand for her lover, and an Ariel for her attendant, so she could have had with. propriety no other father than the majestic and gifted being, who fondly claims her as "a thread of his own life-nay, that for which he lives." Prospero, with his magical powers, his superhuman wisdom, his moral worth and grandeur, and his kingly dignity, is one of the most sublime visions that ever swept with ample robes, pale brow, and sceptred hand, before the eye of fancy. He controls the invisible world, and works through the agency of spirits! not by any evil and forbidden compact, but solely by superior might of intellect-by potent spells gathered from the lore of ages, and abjured when he mingles again as a man with his fellow men. He is as distinct a being from the necromancers and astrologers celebrated in Shakspeare's age, as can well be imagined: * and all the wizards of poetry and fiction, even

*Such as Cornelius Agrippa, Michael Scott, Dr Dee. The last was the contemporary of Shakspeare.

Faust and St. Leon, sink into commonplaces before the princely, the philosophic, the benevolent Prospero.

The Bermuda Isles, in which Shakspeare has placed the scene of the Tempest, were discovered in his time: Sir George Somers and his companions having been wrecked there in a terrible storm, brought back a most fearful account of those unknown islands, which they described as "a land of devils-a most prodigious and enchanted place, subject to continual tempests and supernatural visitings." Such was the idea entertained of the "still-vext Bermoothes" in Shakspeare's age; but later travellers describe them as perfect regions of enchantment in a far different sense; as so many fairy Edens, clustered like a knot of gems upon the bosom of the Atlantic, decked out in all the lavish luxuriance of nature, with shades of myrtle and cedar, fringed round with groves of coral; in short, each island a tiny paradise, rich with perpetual blossoms, in which Ariel might have slumbered, and ever-verdant bowers, in which Ferdinand and Miranda might have strayed so that Shakspeare, in blending the wild relations of the shipwrecked mariners with his own inspired fancies, has produced nothing, however lovely in nature and sublime in magical power, which does not harmonize with the beautiful and wondrous reality.

It

There is another circumstance connected with the Tempest, which is rather interesting. It was produced and acted for the first time. upon the occasion of the nuptials of the Princess Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of James I., with Frederic, the elector palatine. is hardly necessary to remind the reader of the fate of this amiable but most unhappy woman, whose life, almost from the period of her marriage, was one long tempestuous scene of trouble and adversity.

The characters which I have here classed together, as principally distinguished by the predominance of passion and fancy, appear to me to rise, in the scale of ideality and simplicity, from Juliet to Miranda; the last being in comparison so refined, so elevated above all stain of earth, that we can only acknowledge her in connection with it through the emotions of sympathy she feels and inspires.

*In 1609, about three years before Shakspeare produced the Tempest, which, though placed first in all the editions of his works, was one of the last of his dramas.