"it way; I know thou can't not

And give it

choofe.

(MIRANDA Лeeps. Come away, fervant, come: I am ready now; Approach, my Ariel; come.

- Enter ARIEL.

ARI. All hail, great mafter! grave fir, hail! I

come

To answer thy beft pleafure; be't to fly,"

To fwim, to dive into the fire, to ride

On the curl'd clouds; to thy ftrong bidding, task
Ariel, and all his quality.'

PRO.

Haft thou, fpirit. Perform'd to point the tempeft that I bade thee? ARI. To every article.

All hail, great master! grave fir, hail! I come

To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly, &c.) Imitated by Fletcher in The Faithful Shepherdess:

HENLEY.

Crifp heaven. STEEVENS.

3 and all his quality.) i. e. all his confederates, all who are of the fame profeffion. So, in Hamlet:

Come, give us a tafte of your quality." See notes on this paffage. STEEVEns.

4 Perform'd to point) i. e. to the minuteft article.

So, in the Chances, by Beaumont and Fletcher :

are you all fit?

"To point, fir." STEEVENS.

2

I boarded the king's fhip; now on the beak,'
Now in the waift, the deck, in every cabin,
I flam'd amazement: Sometimes, I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the top-maft,
The yards and bowfprit, would I flame diftinctly,
Then meet, and join: Jove's lightnings, the
precurfors

O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And fight-out-running were not: The fire, and

cracks

Of fulphurous roaring, the moft mighty Neptune Seem'd to befiege, and make his bold waves tremble, Yea, his dread trident fhake.9

PRO.

My brave spirit!

S - now on the beak, ) The beak was a ftrong pointed body at the head of the ancient gallies; it is ufed here for the forecastle, or the boltfprit. JOHNSON.

6 Now in the waift,) The part between the quarter-deck and the forecastle. JOHNSON.

7 Sometimes, I'd divide,

And burn in many places;) Perhaps our author, when he wrote thefe lines, remembered the following paffage in Hackluyt's Voyages, 1598: «I do remember that in the great and boyfterous ftorme of this foule weather, in the night there came upon the toppe of our maine yard and maine-maft a certaine little light, much like unto the light of a little candle, which the Spaniards call the Cuerpo Santo. This light continued aboord our fhip about three houres, flying from mate to mafte, and from « top to top; and fometimes it would be in two or three places at once."

MALONE.

Burton fays, that the Spirits of fire, in form of fire-drakes and blazing ftars, "oftentimes fit on fhip-mafis," &c. Melanch. P. I. 2. p. 30. edit. 1632. T. WARTON.

O' the dreadful thunder-claps,) So, in King Lear:

« 'Vant couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts." STEEVENS, 9 Yea, his dread trident hake.) Left the metre fhould appear defective, it is neceffary to apprize the reader, that in Warwick hire and other midland counties, Shake is fill pronounced by the common people as if it was written haake, a diffyllable. FARMER.

Who was fo firm, fo conftant, that this coil
Would not infect his reafon?

Not a foul

ARI.
But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd

2

Some tricks of desperation: All, but mariners, Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the veffel,3

Then all a-fire with me: the king's fon, Ferdinand, With hair up-ftaring (then like reeds, not hair) Was the firft man that leap'd; cried, Hell is empty, And all the devils are here.

PRO.

Why, that's my spirit!

But was not this nigh fhore?

ARI.

Close by, my master.

Not a hair perish'd;

PRO, But are they, Ariel, fafe?

4

ARI. On their fuftaining garments not a blemish, But frefher than before: and as thou bad'ft me, In troops I have difpers'd them 'bout the ifle:

2 But felt a fever of the mad,) If it be at all neceffary to explain the meaning, it is this: Not a foul but felt fuch a fever as madmen feel, when the frantick fit is upon them. STEEVENS.

3

and quit the veffel,) Quit is, I think, here used for quitted, So, in K. Lear:

64- 'Twas he inform'd against him,

And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment
Might have the freer courfe."

So, in King Henry VI. P. I. lift, for lifted:

He ne'er lift up his hand, but conquered."

MALONE.

4 - fuftaining — ) i. e. their garments that bore them up and fupported them. So, in K. Lear, A& IV. fc. iv:

In our fuftaining corn."

Again, in Hamlet:

«And, mermaid-like, a while they bore her up.”

Mr. M. Mason, however, observes that the word sustaining in this place does not mean fupporting, but enduring; and by their fuftaining garments, Ariel means their garments which bore, without being injured, the drenching of the fea." STEEVENS.

The king's fon have I landed by himself;
Whom I left cooling of the air with fighs,
In an odd angle of the ifle, and fitting,
His arms in this fad knot.

PRO.

Of the kings fhip,

The mariners, fay, how thou haft difpos'd,
And all the reft o' the fleet?

ARI.
Safely in harbour
Is the king's fhip; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'dft me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the ftill-vex'd Bermoothes,' there fhe's hid;

5 From the ftill-vex'd Bermoothes,) Fletcher, in his Women Pleafed, fays, The devil fhould think of purchafing that egg-fhell to victual out a witch for the Bermoothes." Smith, in his account of these iflands, p. 172, fays, that the Bermudas were fo fearful to the world, that many called them The Ife of Devils. - P. 174. to all feamen no lefs terrible than an inchanted den of furies." And no wonder, for the clime was extremely fubje&t to ftorms and hurricanes; and the iflands were furrounded with fcattered rocks lying fhallowly hid under the furface of the water. WARBURTON.

The epithet here applied to the Bermudas, will be beft underftood by thofe who have feen the chafing of the fea qver the rugged rocks by which they are furrounded, and which render access to them fo dangerous. It was in our poet's time the current opinion, that Bermudas was inhabited by monsters, and devils. - Setebos, the god of Caliban's dam, was an American devil, worshipped by the giants of Patagonia. HENLEY.

Again, in Decker's If this be not a good Play, the Devil is in it, 1612: Sir, if you have made me tell a lye, they'll send me on a voyage to the island of Hogs and Devils, the Bermudas." STEEVENS.

The opinion that Bermudas was haunted with evil fpirits continued so late as the civil wars. In a little piece of Sir John Berkinghead's, intitled, Two Centuries of Paul's Church-yard, una cum indice expurgatorio, &c. 12°, in page 62, under the title Cafes of Confcience, is this:

34. Whether Bermudas and the parliament - house lie under one planet, seeing both are haunted with devils." PERCY.

Bermudas was on this account the cant name for fome privileged place, in which the cheats and riotous bullies of Shakspeare's time affembled. So, in The Devil is an Afs, by Ben Jonfoa:

1

The mariners all under hatches flow'd;

Whom, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour,
I have left afleep and for the reft o' the fleet,
Which I difpers'd, they all have met again;
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,"
Bound fadly home for Naples;

Suppofing that they faw the king's fhip wreck'd,
And his great perfon perish.

PRO.

Ariel, thy charge Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work: What is the time o' the day?"

ARI.

Paft the mid season.

PRO. At least two glaffes: The time 'twixt fix and now,

Muft by us both be fpent moft precioufly.

ARI. Is there more toil? Since thou doft give me pains,

Let me remember thee what thou haft promis'd, Which is not yet perform'd me.

keeps he fill your quarter

In the Bermudas?"

Again, in one of his Epiftles:

"Have their Bermudas, and their ftraights i' th' Strand."

Again, in The Devil is an Afs :

I gave my word

"For one that's run away to the Bermudas."

6 -the Mediterranean flote,) Flote is wave.

STEEVENS.

Flot. Fr.

STEEVENS.

7 What is the time o' the day?) This paffage needs not be dif turbed, it being common to afk a queftion, which the next moment enables us to answer: he that thinks it faulty, may easily adjust it thus:

Pro. What is the time o' the day? Paft the mid feason?

Ari. At least two glasses.

Pro. The time 'twixt fix and now

JOHNSON.

Mr. Upton propofes to regulate this paffage differently:
Ariel. Paft the mid feafon, at least two glaffes.

Prof. The time, &c. MALONE.