( Exit.

SEB. Let's take leave of hiin.

Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground ; long heath , brown furze, 8 any thing : The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death, (Exit,

The island : before the cell of Prospero.

Enter PROSPERO 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 stinking pitch,
But that the sea,' mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out.

0, I have suffer'd
With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel,
Who had no doubt some noble creatures : in her,

the shipwreck of Pyrocles is described with this concluding circumstance : . But a monstrous cry, begotten of many roaring voyces , was able to infe&t with fcarc," &c. STEEVENS,

8 An acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, &c. ) Sir T. Hanmer reads ling, heaih, broom, furze. Perhaps rightly, though he has been charged with lauiology. -I find in Harrison's description of Britain , prefixed to our author's good friend Holinihed, p. 91; « Brome, heth, firze, brakes, whinocs, ling," &c.

FARMER. Mr. Tollet has sufficiently vindicated Sir Thomas Hanmer from the charge of tautology, by favouring me with specimens of three different kinds of heath which grow in his own neighbourhood. I would gladly have inserted his observations at length; but, to say the truth, our author , like one of Cato's soldiers who was bit by a serpent ,

Ipfe latet penitus congefto corpore mersus. STEEVENS. 9 But that the sea, &c. ) So, in King Lear :

6. The fea in such a storm as his bare head
« In hell-black night endur'd, would have buoy'd up.

And quench'd the ftelled fires." MALONE.
creatures in her , ) The old copy scads creature ; but

Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls ! they perishd.
Had I been any god of power , I would
Have funk the fea within the earth, or e'er 3
It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and
The freighting souls within her,
PRO.

Be collected;
No more amazement: tell your piteous hcart,
There's no harm done.
MIRA.

O, woe the day!
PRO.

No harm. 4 I have done nothing but in care of thee, (Of thee, my dear one! thee, my daughter!) who Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing Of whence I am ; nor that I am more betters

the preceding as well as subsequent words of Miranda scem to demand thc emendation which I have received from Theobald.

STEEVENS. or e'er - 1 i. ¢. before. So, in Ecclefiafles, xii. 6: Or ouer the filver cord be loofed

or the golden bowl be broken Again, in our author's Cymbeline :

or c'er I could « Give him that parting kiss -." STEEVENS, • Pro. No harm.) I know not whether Shakspeare did not make Miranda speak thus :

0, woe the day! no harm ? To which Prospero properly answers :

I have done nothing but in care of thee. Miranda, when she speaks the words, 0, woe the day! supposes, not that the crew had escaped ; but that her father thought differ. ently from her, and counted their deftru&ion no harm. JOHNSON.

more better -) This ungrammatical expresion is very frequent among our oldest writers. So , in the History of Helyas Knight of the Swan, bl. I. no date : imprinted by William Copland. « And also the more sooner to come, without prolixity, to the truc Chronicles , » &c. 'Again, in the True Tragedies of Marius and Scilla , 1594.

“. To wait a message of more better worth. ». Again, ibid.

“ That bale more greater than Cassandra gow.' STELVENS.

Than Prospero , master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.
MIRA.

More to know
Did never meddle with my thoughts.?'
Pro.

'Tis time I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand, And pluck my magick garment from me. - So;

( Lays down his mantle. Lie there my art. Wipe thou thine eyes , have

comfort. The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd The

very virtue of compassion 9 in thee, I have with such provision in mine art So safely order'd, that there is no soul — 2

.

8

-- full poor cell, ) i. c, a cell in a great degree of poverty. So in Antony and Cleopatra : « I am full sorry, is

ŞTĘEVENS. * Did never meddle with my thoughts.) i. c. mix with them. To meddle is often used, with this sense, by Chaucer. Hence the sub. ftantive medley. The modern and familiar phrase by which that of Miranda may be explained, is never catered my thoughts never came into my head. STEEVENS.

It should rather mean to interfere, to trouble, to busy itself, as ftill used in the North, 6. g. Don't meddle with me; i, e. Let me alone, Don't moleft me. Ritson. See Howell's Dial, 1660, in v. to meddle; « sc mefter de,

MALONE. * Lie there my art. ) Sir W. Cecil , lord Burleigh, lord high treasurer , &c. in the reign of queen Elizabeth, when he put off his gown at night, used to say , Lic there , lord treasurer. Fuller's Holy State , p. 257. STEEVENS.

virtue of compassion | Virtue ; the most efficacious part, the energetic quality; in a like senso wo say, The virtue of a plant is in the extra&t. JOHNSON,

that there is no soul -) Thus tho old editions read ; but this is apparently defe&ive. Mr. Rowe, and after him Dr. Warburton, read that there is no foul lot , without any notice of the variation. Mr. Theobald subftitutes no foil, and Mr. Pope follows him. To come sa ncar the right, and yet to miss it, is

3

No, not so much perdition as an hair ,
Betid to any creature in the vessel ?
Which thou heard't cry, which thou saw'st sink.

Sit down ;
For thou must now know further.
MIRA.

You have often
Begun to tell me what I am ; but stopp'd
And left me to a bootless inquisition ;
Concluding, Stay, not yet.
PRO.

The hour's now come;
The very minute bids thee ope thine ear.
Obey, and be attentive. Can'st thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell ?
I do not think thou can'ít ; for then thou wast not
Out three years old."
MIRA.

Certainly, sir, I can.

ܪ

not uncommon

to

unlucky : the author probably wrote no soil, no fain, no spot:
for so Ariel tells ,

Not a hair perish'd ;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,

Bat fresher than before.
And Gonzalo , The rarity of it is, that our garments being drench'd
in the sea, keep notwithstanding their freshness and glosses. Of this
emendation I find that the author of notes on The Tempest had a
glimpse , but could not keep it. JOHNSON.

no soul -- ) Such interruptions are Shakspeare. He sometimes begins a sentence, and before he conclu. des it, entirely changes its conftru&ion, because another, more forcible, occurs. As this change frequently happens in conversation, it may be suffered to pass uncensured in the language of the stage.

STEEYENS. not to much perdition as an hair,

Betid to any creature in the vessel – ) Had Shakspeare in his mind St. Paul's consolatory speech to the ship's company, where he assures them that, though they were to suffer shipwreck snot an hair Mould fall from the head of any of them?” Ads, xxvii. 34. Ariel afterwards says, is Not a hair perish'd." HOLT WHITE.

* Out three years old.) i. c. Quite three years old, three years old full-out, complete.

So, in the 4th a& : « And be a boy right out." STEEVENS.

3

Pro. By what? by any other house, or person?
Of any thing the image tell me, that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.
MIRA.

"Tis far off ;
And rather like a dream, than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants : Had I not
Four or five women once, that tended me ?
PRO. Thou had'ft, and more , Miranda : But

how is it ,
That this lives in thy mind? What feest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
If thou reinember'st aught, ere thou cam'ft here,
How thou cam'st here, thou may'st.
MIRA.

But that I do not.
Pro. Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years

since,
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 said thou wast my daughter; and thy father
Was duke of Milan ; and his only heir
A princess ;

- no worse issued. 6
abysm of time? ) i. e, abyss.
This method of spelling the word, is common to other ancient
writers. They took it from the French abysme , now written
abime. So, in Heywood's Brazen Age , 1613 :

6. And chasc him from the deep aby/ins below." STEEVENS.
s Twelve years since, Miranda , twelve years since , ) Years, in
the first instance, is used as a dilsyllable, in the second as a mopo.
syllable. But this, I believc, is a licence peculiar to the prosody
of Shakspeare. STEEVENS.
6 A princess ;
no worfe issued.) The old

copy

reads
« And princess." For the trivial change in the text I am answer.
able. Ilued is descended. So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608 :

For I am by birth a gentleman, and ifued of such parcats,"

&c. STEEVENS.

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