on an uninhabited island, has never learnt to disguise its innocent movements. The wisdom of the princely hermit Prospero has a magical and mysterious air; the disagreeable impression left by the black falsehood of the two usurpers is softened by the honest gossipping of the old and faithful Gonzalo; Trinculo and Stephano, two good-for-nothing drunkards, find a worthy associate in Caliban; and Ariel hovers sweetly over the whole as the personified genius of the wonderful fable. 'Caliban has become a by-word as the strange creation of a poetical imagination. A mixture of gnome and savage, half dæmon, half brute, in his behaviour we perceive at once the traces of his native disposition, and the influence of Prospero's education. The latter could only unfold his understanding, without, in the slightest degree, taming his rooted malignity: it is as if the use of reason and human speech were communicated to an awkward ape. In inclination Caliban is malicious, cowardly, false, and base; and yet he is essentially different from the vulgar knaves of a civilized world, as portrayed occasionally by Shakspeare. He is rude, but not vulgar; he never falls into the prosaic and low familiarity of his drunken associates, for he is, in his way, a poetical being; he always speaks in verse. He has picked up everything dissonant and thorny in language to compose out of it a vocabulary of his own; and of the whole variety of nature, the hateful, repulsive, and pettily deformed have alone been impressed on his imagination. The magical world of spirits, which the staff of Prospero has assembled on the island, casts merely a faint reflection into his mind, as a ray of light which falls into a dark cave, incapable of communicating to it either heat or illumination, serves merely to set in motion the poisonous vapours. The delineation of this monster is throughout inconceivably consistent and profound, and, notwithstanding its hatefulness, by no means hurtful to our feelings, as the honour of human nature is left untouched. 'In the zephyr-like Ariel the image of air is not to be mistaken, his name even bears an allusion to it; as, on the other hand, Caliban signifies the heavy element of earth. Yet they are neither of them simple, allegorical personifications, but xii REMARKS ON SHAKSPEARE'S 'TEMPEST.' beings individually determined. In general we find in The Midsummer Night's Dream, in The Tempest, in the magical part of Macbeth, and wherever Shakspeare avails himself of the popular belief in the invisible presence of spirits, and the possibility of coming in contact with them, a profound view of the inward life of Nature and her mysterious springs, which, it is true, can never be altogether unknown to the genuine poet, as poetry is altogether incompatible with mechanical physics, but which few have possessed in an equal degree with Dante and himself.'-SCHLEGEL. 'It is observed of The Tempest, that its plan is regular; this the author of The Revisal thinks, what I think too, an accidental effect of the story, not intended or regarded by our author. But, whatever might be Shakspeare's intention in forming or adopting the plot, he has made it instrumental to the production of many characters, diversified with boundless invention, and preserved with profound skill in nature, extensive knowledge of opinions, and accurate observation of life. In a single drama are here exhibited princes, courtiers, and sailors, all speaking in their real characters. There is the agency of airy spirits, and of an earthly goblin; the operations of magic, the tumults of a storm, the adventures of a desert island, the native effusion of untaught affection, the punishment of guilt, and the final happiness of the pair for whom our passions and reason are equally interested.'-JOHNSON. THE TEMPEST. ACT I. SCENE I.-On a Ship at Sea. A Storm, with Thunder and Lightning. Enter a Shipmaster and a Boatswain. Mast. Boatswain! Boats. Here, master: What cheer? Mast. Good,' speak to the mariners: fall to 't yarely,2 or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir. Enter Mariners. [Exit. Boats. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare! take in the topsail! tend to the master's whistle! [Exeunt Mariners.] Blow till thou burst thy wind, if room enough ! 3 Good.] Good boatswain. The word is used similarly in Gonzalo's first speech, and elsewhere in the play. 2 Yarely.] Actively. Yare, as in the next speech, and again in the Boatswain's speech, Act V. sc. 1, means active. The Persian galleys being high cargued, heavy, and not yare of steerage.' North's Plutarch, Themistocles. Caesar's ships were light of yarage' [= action]. Ditto, Antonius. 'The galleys of the enemies, the which were heavy of yarage, both for their bigness, as also for lack of watermen to row them.' Ibid. 8 • If room enough.] If we have sea-room enough. |