Tempest and The Midsummer Night's Dream are the noForts of that sublime and amazing imagination, peculiar to eare, which soars above the bounds of nature, without forsense; or, more properly, carries nature along with him her established limits. Fletcher seems particularly to Amired these two plays, and hath wrote two in imitation , The Sea Voyage and The Faithful Shepherdess. But, when umes to break a lance with Shakspeare, and write in emuf him, as he does in The False One, which is the rival of and Cleopatra, he is not so successful. After him, Sir John ■g and Milton catched the brightest fire of their imaginam these two plays; which shines fantastically indeed in -blins, but much more nobly and serenely in The Mask at Castle. Warburton. ne has hitherto been lucky enough to discover the romance Ch Shakspeare may be supposed to have founded this play, auties of which could not secure it from the criticism of nson, whose malignity appears to have been more than to his wit. In the introduction to Bartholomew Fair, he If there be never a servant monster in the fair, who can - he says, nor a nest of antiques? He is loth to make naFraid in his plays, like those that beget Tales, Tempests, ch like drolleries." Steevens. as informed by the late Mr. Collins of Chichester, that Deare's Tempest, for which no origin is yet assigned, was I on a romance called Aurelio and Isabella, printed in Italian, h, French, and English, in 1588. But, though this infor- has not proved true on examination, an useful conclusion e drawn from it, that Shakspeare's story is somewhere to nd in an Italian novel, at least that the story preceded Deare. Mr. Collins had searched this subject with no less than judgment and industry; but his memory failing in t calamitous indisposition, he probably gave me the name novel for another. I remember he added a circumstance, may lead to a discovery, that the principal character of nance, answering to Shakspeare's Prospero, was a chemiCromancer, who had bound a spirit like Ariel to obey his nd perform his services. It was a common pretence of s in the occult sciences to have a demon at command. At Aurelio, or Orelio, was probably one of the names of this ce, the production and multiplicity of gold being the grand of alchemy. Taken at large, the magical part of The est is founded on that sort of philosophy which was pracby John Dee and his associates, and has been called the Cucian. The name Ariel came from the Talmudistick myswith which the learned Jews had infected this science. T. Warton. Mr Theobald tells us, that The Tempest must ha after 1609, because the Bermuda Islands, wed in it, were unknown to the English until t Chis a mistake. He might have seen in Hacki scription of Bermuda, by Henry May, who was ere in 1593. ws, however, one of our author's last weeks. ared a part in the original Every Man in his H characters are Prospero and Stephano. He t him the pronunciation of the latter word s right in The Tempest: "Is not this Stephano, my drunken butle i always wrong in his earlier play, The Mer ich had been on the stage at least two or th publication in 1600 : "My friend Stephano, signify I pray → litle did Mr. Capell know of his author, sed his school literature might perhaps have b stacion of youth, or the busy scene of publick Lf To contrast the dryness of these speculatio "O SOVEREIGN MASTER, who with lo "Call'd by thy magick from the hos The Tempest must have been writermuda Islands, which are menthe English until that year; but mave seen in Hackluyt, 1600, folio, Henry May, who was shipwrecked author's last works. In 1598, he Every Man in his Humour. Two of and Stephano. Here Ben Jonson n of the latter word, which is al to, my drunken butler?" rlier play, The Merchant of Venice, at least two or three years before no, signify I pray you," &c. now of his author, when he idly sup. ght perhaps have been lost by the disscene of publick life! Farmer. of these speculations with the flowers esented with a passage from the eleV. L. Bowles, whose praise will, pererusal of The Tempest. TER, who with lonely state he Isle's inchanted land, d shadowy spirits wait, Lerie bloom at thy command! orgetful could I lie issolv'd, to thy sweet minstrelsy! Fick from the hoary deep, ald in bright troops ascend, us mask before me sweep; at the earth own'd not, seem to blend Odies, that when the strain ep, and would so dream again." PERSONS REPRESENTED. ACT I.....SCENE I. On a Ship at Sea. A Storm, with Enter a Ship-master and a Boat Master. Boatswain,1- Boats. Heigh, my hearts; cheerly, ch Boatswain,] In this naval dialogue, p pe of sailor's language exhibited on the have been told by a skilful navigator, som tradictory orders. Johnson. The foregoing observation is founded Blow till thou burst thy wind, &c |