[A confufed noife within.] Mercy on us! We fplit, we fplit! Farewell, my wife and children! 'Farewell, brother! We fplit, we fplit, we split! Ant. Let's all fink with the king. Seb. Let's take leave of him. 2 [Exit. [Exit. Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of fea, for an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, any thing. The wills above be done, but I would fain die a dry death! [Exit. The inchanted island before the cell of Profpero. Enter Profpero and Miranda. Mira. If by your art, my dearest father, you have. Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them: The sky, it seems, would pour down ftinking pitch, But that the fea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffer'd With those that I faw fuffer! a brave veffel, Who had, no doubt, fome noble creatures in her, Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock Against my very heart! Poor fouls! they perifh'd. Had I been any god of power, I would Have funk the fea within the earth, or ere And again in Timon and Othello. Yet Milton writes glutted offal for wallowed, and therefore perhaps the present text may ftand. JOHNSON. 1 Brother, farewell!] All thefe lines have been hitherto given to Gonzalo, who has no brother in the fhip. It is probable that the lines fucceeding the confufed noife within fhould be confidered as fpoken by no determinate characters, but should be printed thus. I Sailor. Mercy on us! We split, we fplit! 2 Sailor. Farewell, my, &c. 3 Sailor. Brother, farewell, &c. 2 JOHNSON. -long heath,-] This is the common name for the erica baccifera. WARBURTON. It should the good fhip fo have fwallow'd, and No more amazement: tell your piteous heart, Mira. 3 O, woe the day! Pro. No harm, I have done nothing but in care of thee, Mira. More to know Did never meddle with my thoughts. I fhould inform thee further. Lend thy hand, fort. The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd The very 4 virtue of compaffion in thee, I have with fuch provision in mine art So fafely order'd, 5 that there is no foul No, 3 Pro. No harm.] I know not whether Shakespeare did not make Miranda fpeak thus: O, woe the day! no harm? To which Profpero properly answers: I have done nothing but in care of thee. Miranda, when she speaks the words, O, woe the day! fuppofes, not that the crew had escaped, but that her father thought differently from her, and counted their destruction no harm. JOHNSON. -virtue of compaffion] Virtue: the most efficacious part, the energetic quality; in a like fenfe we say, The virtue of a plant is in the extract. JOHNSON. 5 that there is no foul-] Thus the old editions read, but this is apparently defective. Mr. Rowe, and after him Dr. Warburton, read that there is no foul loft, without any notice of the No, not fo much perdition as an hair, Betid to any creature in the veffel Which thou heard'ft cry, which thou faw'ft fink. Sit down; For thou must now know further. Mira. You have often Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd, Pro. The hour's now come; The very minute bids thee ope thine ear: I do not think thou canft; for then thou wast not Mira. Certainly, Sir, I can. Pro. By what? by any other house or perfon? Of any thing the image tell me, that Hath kept with thy remembrance. Mira. 'Tis far off, And rather like a dream, than an affurance the variation. Mr. Theobald fubftitutes no foil, and Mr. Pope follows him. To come fo near the right, and yet to miss it, is unlucky: the author probably wrote no foil, no stain, no fpot: for fo Ariel tells, Not a hair perifh'd; On their fuftaining garments not a blemish, But fresher than before. And Gonzalo, The rarity of it is, that our garments being drench'd in the fea, keep notwithstanding their freshness and gloffes. Of this emendation I find that the author of notes on The Tempest had a glimpíe, but could not keep it. JOHNSON. --no foul- Such interrupted fentences are not uncommon to Shakespeare: he fometimes begins a sentence, and before he concludes it, entirely changes the conftruction, becaufe another, more forcible, occurs. As this change frequently happens in conversation, it may be fuffered to pafs uncenfured in the language of the ftage. STEEVENS. Out three years old.] i. e. Quite three years old, three years old full-out, complete. Mr. Pope, without any reafon, reads, FULL three years old. STEEVENS. That That my remembrance warrants. Had I not Four or five women once that tended me? Pro. Thou hadft, and more, Miranda: but how is it That this lives in thy mind? What feest thou elfe If thou remember'ft aught, ere thou cam'ft here; Mira. But that I do not. Pro. Twelve years fince, Miranda-twelve years fince, Thy father was the duke of Milan, and A prince of power. Mira. Sir, are not you my father? Pro. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and She faid, thou waft my daughter; and thy father Was duke of Milan, 7 thou his only heir And princefs, no worse issu’d. Mira. O the heavens ! What foul play had we, that we came from thence? Or bleffed was't, we did? Pro. Both, both, my girl: By foul play, as thou fay'ft, were we heav'd thence; But bleffedly holp hither. Mira. O my heart bleeds To think o' the 8 teen that I have turn'd you to, 7 Perhaps and thou his only heir. JOHNSON. 8 Juliet: A princess. :-no worse ifu'd. STEEVENS. teen] Is forrow, grief, trouble. So in Romeo and to my teen be it spoken." STEEVENS. Through Through all the figniories it was the firft; Without a parallel; thofe being all my study, And to my state grew ftranger; being tranfported, Mira. Sir, moft heedfully. Pro. Being once perfected how to grant fuits, How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom 9 To trash for over-topping; new created The creatures that were mine; I fay, or chang'd 'em, Or else new form'd 'em : having both the key Of officer and office, fet all hearts i' the ftate To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was The ivy, which had hid my princely trunk, And fuck'd my verdure out on't.-Thou attend'st not. Mira. O good Sir, I do. Pro. I pray thee, mark me. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated Like a good parent, did beget of him 9 To trash for over-topping ;] To trafb, as Dr. Warburton obferves, is to cut away the fuperfluities. This word I have met with in books containing directions for gardeners, published in the time of Q. Elizabeth. STEEVENS. 1 Key in this place feems to fignify the key of a mufical inftrument, by which he fet Hearts to tune. JOHNSON. This doubtless is meant of a key for tuning the harpsichord, spinnet, or virginal; we call it now a tuning hammer, as it is used as well to strike down the iron pins whereon the ftrings are wound, as to turn them. As a key it acts like that of a watch. HAWKINS. 2 Alluding to the observation, that a father above the common rate of men has commonly a fon below it. Heroum filii nox. JOHNSON, A falfhood |