For I am all the subjects that you have, Who first was mine own king; and here you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me And again, he promises Trinculo his services thus, if he will free him from his drudgery. "I'll shew thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries, In conducting Stephano and Trinculo to Prospero's cell, Caliban shews the superiority of natural capacity over greater knowledge and greater folly; and in a former scene, when Ariel frightens them with his musick, Caliban, to encourage them, accounts for it in the eloquent poetry of the senses. "Be not afraid, the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. This is not more beautiful than it is true. The poet here shews us the savage with the simplicity of a child, and makes the strange monster amiable. Shakspeare had to paint the human animal rude and without choice in its pleasures, but not without the sense of pleasure or some germ of the affections. Master Barnardine in Measure for Measure, the savage of civilized life, is an admirable philosophical counterpart to Caliban. Shakspeare has, as it were by design, drawn off from Caliban the elements of whatever is ethereal and refined, to compound them in the unearthly mould of Ariel. Nothing was ever more finely conceived than this contrast between the material and the spiritual, the gross and delicate. Ariel is imaginary power, the swiftness of thought personified. When told to make good speed by Prospero, he says, " I drink the air before me." This is something like Puck's boast on a similar occasion, “I'll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes." But Ariel differs from Puck in having a fellow feeling in the interests of those he is employed about. How exquisite is the following dialogue between him and Prospero ! "Ariel. Your charm so strongly works 'em, Prospero. Dost thou think so, spirit? Prospero. And mine shall. Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling It has been observed that there is a peculiar charm in the songs introduced in Shakspeare, which, without conveying any distinct images, seem to recall all the feelings connected with them, like snatches of half-forgotten musick heard indistinctly and at intervals. There is this effect produced by Ariel's songs, which (as we are told) seem to sound in the air, and as if the person playing them were invisible. We shall give one instance out of many of this general power. "Enter FERDINAND; and ARIEL, invisible, playing and singing. ARIEL'S SONG. Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands; Curt'sied when you have, and kiss'd, (The wild waves whist ;) Foot it featly here and there; And sweet sprites the burden bear. [Burden dispersedly. Hark, hark! bowgh wowgh: the watch dogs bark, Bowg wowgh. Ariel. Hark, hark! I hear The strain of strutting chanticleer Cry cock-a-doodle- doo. Ferdinand. Where should this musick be? in air or earth? ARIEL'S SONG. Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made But doth suffer a sea change, [Burden ding-dong. Ferdinand. The ditty does remember my drown'd father. The courtship between Ferdinand and Miranda is one of the chief beauties of this play. It is the very purity of love. The pretended interference of Prospero with it heightens its interest, and is in character with the magician, whose sense of preternatural power makes him arbitrary, tetchy, and impatient of opposition. The TEMPEST is a finer play than the Midsummer Night's Dream, which has sometimes been compared with it; but it is not so fine a poem. There are a greater number of beautiful passages in the latter. Two of the most striking in the TEMPEST are spoken by Prospero. The one is that admirable one when the vision which he has conjured up disappears, beginning "The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces," &c. which has been so often quoted, that every schoolboy knows it by heart; the other is that which Prospero makes in abjuring his art. "Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves, Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime To hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid (Weak masters tho' ye be) I have bedimm'd The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds, We must not forget to mention, among other things in this play, that Shakspeare has anticipated nearly all the arguments on the Utopian schemes of modern philosophy. "Gonzalo. Had I the plantation of this isle, my lord- Sebastian. Or docks or mallows. Gonzalo. And were the king on't, what would I do? Gonzalo. I'th' commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things: for no kind of traffick |