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The fole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further: Go, release them, Ariel;

My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,

And they shall be themselves.

ARI.

I'll fetch them, fir. [Exit.

PRO. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes,

and groves;*

2 Ye elves of hills, brooks, ftanding lakes, and groves;) This speech Dr. Warburton rightly observes to be borrowed from Medea's in Ovid: and, it proves, says Mr. Holt, beyond contradition, that Shakspeare was perfectly acquainted with the fentiments of the ancients on the subject of enchantments." The original lines are these:

"Auræque, & venti, montesque, amnesque, lacusque,

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Diique omnes nemorum, diique omnes noctis, adefte." The tranflation of which, by Golding, is by no means literal, and Shakspeare hath closely followed it. FARMER.

Whoever will take the trouble of comparing this whole passage with Medea's speech, as tranflated by Golding, will fee evidently that Shakspeare copied the tranflation, and not the original. The particular expressions that feem to have made an impression on his mind, are printed in Italicks:

" Ye ayres and windes, ye elves of hills, of brookes, of woodes

alone,

"Of Standing lakes, and of the night, approache ye everych one. Through help of whom (the crooked bankes much wondering at the thing)

"I have compelled streames to run clear backward to their spring, " By charms I make the calm fea rough, and make the rough

feas playne,

" And cover all the skie with clouds, and chase them thence again.

By charms I raise and lay the windes, and burst the viper's jaw, "And from the bowels of the earth both stones and trees do draw. "Whole woods and forrests I remove, I make the mountains Shake, And even the earth itself to groan aud fearfully to quake. " I call up dead men from their graves, and thee, O lightsome

moone,

" I darken oft, though beaten brass abate thy peril soone. "Our forcerie dimmes the morning faire, and darks the fun at

noone.

"The flaming breath of fierie bulles ye quenched for my fake, And caused their unwieldy neckes the bended yoke to take.

/

And ye, that on the fands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him,
When he comes back; you demy-puppets, that
By moon-fhine do the green-four ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose paf-

time

Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice
To hear the folemn curfew; by whose aid
(Weak masters though ye be,)* I have be-dimm'd
The noon-tide fun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green fea and the azur'd vault

Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder

"Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortal warre did fet,
" And brought affeep the dragon fell, whose eyes were never shet."

MALONE.

Ye elves of hills, &c.] Fairies and elves are frequently, in the poets mentioned together, without any distinction of character that I can recollect. Keyfler says, that alp and alf, which is elf with the Suedes and English, equally fignified a mountain, or a dæmon of the mountains. This feems to have been its original meaning; but Somner's Dict. mentions elves or fairies of the mountains, of the woods, of the fea and fountains, without any diftin&ion between elves and fairies. TOLLET.

3 with

printless atless foot

Do chase the ebbing Neptune, So Milton, in his Masquez

" Whilft from off the waters fleet,

"Thus I set my printless feel." STEEVENS.

4 (Weak mafters though ye be,) The meaning of this paffage may be, Though you are but inferior masters of these fupernatural powers though you poffefs them but in a low degree. Spenser uses the fame kind of expression in the The Fairy Queen, B. III. cant. 8. ft. 4. " Where she (the witch) was wont her sprights to entertain. "The masters of her art: there was the fain

"To call them all in order to her aid."

by whofe aid,

STEEVENS.

(Weak mafters though ye be,) That is; you are powerful auxiliaries, but weak if left to yourselves; -your employment is then to make green ringlets, and midnight muthrooms, and to play the idle pranks mentioned by Ariel in his next fong; -yet by your aid I have been enabled to invert the course of nature We say proverbially, "Fire is a good fervant but a bad master."

:

BLACKSTONE.

1

Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt: the strong-bas'd promontory
Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine, and cedar; graves, at my command,
Have wak'd their fleepers; oped, and let them forth
By my fo potent art: But this rough magick'
I here abjure: and, when I have requir'd
Some heavenly musick, (which even now I do,)
To work mine end upon their senses, that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And, deeper than did ever plummet found,
I'll drown my book.

[Solemn musick.

Re-enter ARIEL: after him, ALONSO, with a frantick
gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN and
ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN and
FRANCISCO: They all enter the circle which PROS-
RERO had made, and there Stand charmed; which
PROSPERO obferving, Speaks.

A folemn air, and the best comforter
To an unfettled fancy, cure thy brains,"

$ -But this rough magick, &c.] This speech of Profpero fets out with a long and distinct invocation to the various minifters of his art: yet to what purpose they were invoked does not very diftinaly appear. Had our author written" All this," &c. instead of But this," &c. the conclufion of the address would have been more pertinent to its beginning. STEEVENS.

6 A folemn air, and the best comforter

To an unfettled fancy, cure thy braius, &c.] Prospero does not defire them to cure their brains. His expression is optative, not imperative; and means--May mufic cure thy brains! i. e. fettle them. Mr. Malone reads

"To an unfettled fancy's cure! Thy brains,

" Now useless, boil within thy scull:"- STEEVENS.

The old copy reads--fancy. For this emendation I am anfwere able. So, in King John:

" My widow's comfort, and my forrow's cure."

Now useless, boil'd within thy skull! There stand, For you are spell-stopp'd.-

Holy Gonzalo honourable man,

Mine eyes, even fociable to the shew of thine,
Fall fellowly drops. -The charm dissolves apace;
And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chace the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason.- O my good Gonzalo,
My true preserver, and a loyal fir

To him thou follow'st; I will pay thy graces
Home, both in word and deed. Moft cruelly
Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter:
Thy brother was a furtherer in the act;
Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebastian.-Flesh and

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He

Profpero begins by observing, that the air which had been played was admirably adapted to compose unfettled minds. then addresses Gonzalo and the rest, who had just before gone into the circle: "Thy brains, now useless, boil within thy skull," &c. [the foothing strain not having yet begun to operate.] Afterwards, perceiving that the musick begins to have the effect intended, he adds, "The charm diffolves apace." Mr. Pope and the subsequent editors read boil'd. MALONE.

7 - boil'd within thy skull!] So, in A Midsummer Night's

Dream:

" Lovers and madmen have such feething brains," &c.

STEEVENS.

Again, in The Winter's Tale : "Would any but these boil'd brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty, hunt this weather?"

8

MALONE.

fellowly drops.] I would read, fellow drops. The additi onal fyllable only injures the metre, without enforcing the sense. Fellowly, however, is an adjective use by Tuffer, STEEVENS.

9 --the ignorant fumes--) i. e. the fumes of ignorance.

HEATH

2 Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebastian.-Flesh and blood, Thus

3

You brother mine, that entertain'd ambition, Expell'd remorse, and nature; who, with Sebastian, (Whofe inward pinches therefore are most strong,) Would here have kill'd your king; I do forgive

thee, Unnatural though thou art! - Their understanding Begins to fwell; and the approaching tide Will fhortly fill the reasonable shores, That now lie foul and muddy. Not one of them, That yet looks on me, or would know me:-Ariel, Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell;

Exit ARIEL.]

I will dif-cafe me, and myself present,
As I was fometime Milan: quickly, spirit;
Thou shalt ere long be free.

ARIEL re-enters, finging, and helps to attire
PROSPERO.

ARI. Where the bee fucks there fuck I;

In a cowflip's bell I lie:
There I couch when owls do cry.6
On the bat's back I do fly,

After Summer, merrily:"

Merrily, merrily, Shall I live now,
Under the bloffom that hangs on the bough.

the old copy: Theobald points the passage in a different manner, and perhaps rightly:

" Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebaftian, flesh and blood."

3-that entertain'd ambition, Old copy-entertain.

by the editor of the second folio.

MALONE.

STEEVENS.

Corre&ed

4-remorse and nature;] Remorse is by our author and the contemporary writers generally used for pity, or tenderness of heart.

Nature is natural affe&ion. MALONE.

5

In a cowflip's bell I lie: So, in Drayton's Nymphidia:

"At midnight, the appointed hour;

" And for the queen a fitting bower,

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