to try with main-course! [A cry within.] A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather or our office.

Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO.

Yet again! what do you here? shall we give o'er and drown? have you a mind to sink?

SEB. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!

BOATS. Work you, then.

ANT. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson, insolent noise-maker, we are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.

GON. I'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched wench. BOATS. Lay her a-hold, a-hold! set her two courses! off to sea again; lay her off!

Re-enter Mariners, wet.

MAR. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!

BOATS. What, must our mouths be cold?

GON. The king and prince at prayers! let's assist them, For our case is as theirs.

SEB.

I'm out of patience.

ANT. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards:— This wide-chapp'd rascal,-would thou mightst lie drowning, The washing of ten tides!

He'll be hang'd yet,

GON.
Though every drop of water swear against it,

And gape at wid'st to glut him.

[A confused noise within.]-Mercy on us!—

We split, we split!-Farewell, my wife and children!

[Exeunt.

Farewell, brother! We split, we split, we split!—(1) [Exit Boatswain.

ANT. Let's all sink with the king.

SEB. Let's take leave of him.

[Exit. Exit.

GON. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground,-long heath, brown furze, anything. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death.

SCENE II.-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.b

The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,

[Exit.

Bring her to try with main-course!] It has been proposed to read, "Bring her to; try with the main-course;" but see a passage from Hakluyt's Voyages, 1598, quoted by Malone:-" and when the barke had way, we cut the hawser and so gate the sea to our friend, and tryed out al that day with our maine corse."

b

If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.]

But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,a
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffer'd

With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creatures* in her,
Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perish'd!
Had I been any god of power, I would

Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er

It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and
The fraughting souls within her.

Be collected;

PRO.
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart
There's no harm done.

MIRA.
PRO.

O, woe the day!

No harm.

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

MIRA.

More to know

"T is time

Did never meddle with my thoughts.

PRO.

I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand,

And pluck my magic garment from me. So; [Lays down his robe. Lie there, my art.-Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.

(*) Old text, creature.

These lines are not metrical, and sound but gratingly on the ear. It would be an improvement perhaps if we read them thus,—

"If by your art, my dearest father, you

Have put the wild waters in this roar, allay them."

mounting to the welkin's cheek,-] Although we have, in "Richard II." Act III. Sc. 2,-"the cloudy checks of heaven," and elsewhere, "welkin's face," and "heaven's face," it may well be questioned whether "cheek," in this place, is not a misprint. Mr. Collier's annotator substitutes heat, a change characterised by Mr. Dyce as "equally tasteless and absurd." A more appropriate and expressive word, one, too, sanctioned in some measure by its occurrence in Ariel's description of the same elemental conflict, is probably, crack, or cracks,—

(6 the fire, and cracks

Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege," &c.

In Miranda's picture of the tempest, the sea is seen to storm and overwhelm the tremendous artillery of heaven; in that of Ariel, the sky's ordnance," the fire and cracks," assault the "mighty Neptune." Crack, in the emphatic sense it formerly bore of crash, discharge, or explosion, is very common in our old writers; thus, in Marlowe's "Tamburlaine the Great," Part I. Act IV. Sc. 2,

"As when a fiery exhalation,

Wrapt in the bowels of a freezing cloud
Fighting for passage, makes the welkin cracke."

Again, in some verses prefixed to Coryat's "Crudities,"-
"A skewed engine mathematicall

To draw up words that make the welkin cracke."

And in Taylor's Superbiæ Flagellum, 1630,—

"Yet every Reall heav'nly Thundercracke,

This Caitife in such feare and terror strake," &c.

The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd
The very virtue of compassion in thee,
I have with such provision in mine art
So safely order'd, that there is no soul—a
No, not so much perdition as an hair,
Betid to any creature in the vessel

Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. Sit down:
For thou must now know further.

MIRA.

You have often b

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. Canst thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell?

I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not
Out three years old.

MIRA.

Certainly, sir, I can.

PRO. By what? by any other house or person? Of anything 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 hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it
That this lives in thy mind? What see'st thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?

If thou remember'st aught ere thou cam'st here,

How thou cam'st here thou mayst.

MIRA.

But that I do not.

PRO. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year 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.

Theobald, "that there is no foyle ;" and Johnson, "that there is no soil." We believe notwithstanding Steevens' remark that "such interruptions are not uncommon to Shakspeare," that "soul" is a typographical error, and that the author wrote, as Capell reads,

66 - that there is no loss,

No, not so much perdition as an hair
Betid to any creature," &c.

b You have often, &c.] Query, "You have oft," &c.

Out three years old.] That is, past, or more than, three years old.

A princess,-] In the old text, " And Princesse." The correction is due to Pope.

What foul play had we, that we came from thence?
Or blessed was 't we did?

By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heav'd thence;
But blessedly holp hither.

MIRA.

O, my heart bleeds
To think o' the teena that I have turn'd you to,

Which is from my remembrance! Please you, further.
PRO. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio,-

I pray thee, mark me,-that a brother should
Be so perfidious!-he whom, next thyself,
Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put
The manage of my state; as, at that time,
Through all the signiories it was the first,-
And Prospero the prime duke;-being so reputed
In dignity, and for the liberal arts

Without a parallel: those being all my study,
The government I cast upon my brother,

And to my state grew stranger, being transported
And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle-
Dost thou attend me?

MIRA.

Sir, most heedfully.

PRO. Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them, who to advance, and who

To trash for over-topping,-new created

The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd 'em,
Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key

Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state
To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was

The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,

And suck'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
To closeness, and the bettering of my mind
With that, which, but by being so retir'd,
O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother
Awak'd an evil nature; and my trust,
Like a good parent, did beget of him
A falsehood, in its contrary as great

As my trust was; which had indeed no limit,
A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,

But what my power might else exact,-like one

Teen-] Sorrow, vexation.

b To trash for over-topping,-] To clog or impede, lest they should run too fast. The expression to trash is a hunting technical. In the present day sportsmen check the speed of very fleet hounds by tying a rope, called a dog-trash, round their necks, and letting them trail it after them: formerly they effected the object by attaching to them a weight, sometimes called in jest a clogdogdo.

Who having unto truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,

To credit his own lie, he did believe

He was indeed the duke; out o' the substitution,
And executing the outward face of royalty,

With all prerogative:-hence his ambition growing,-
Dost thou hear?

MIRA.

Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.
PRO. To have no screen between this part he play'd
And him he play'd it for, he needs will be
Absolute Milan. Me, poor man! my library
Was dukedom large enough; of temporal royalties
He thinks me now incapable; confederates

(So dry he was for sway) with the king of Naples,
To give him annual tribute, do him homage;
Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend

The dukedom, yet unbow'd,-alas, poor Milan !-
To most ignoble stooping.

MIRA.

O the heavens!

PRO. Mark his condition, and the event; then tell me, If this might be a brother.

MIRA.

I should sin

To think but nobly of my grandmother:
Good wombs have borne bad sons.

PRO.

Now the condition.

This king of Naples, being an enemy
To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;
Which was, that he, in lieub o' the premises
Of homage, and I know not how much tribute,
Should presently extirpate me and mine
Out of the dukedom, and confer fair Milan,
With all the honours, on my brother: whereon,
A treacherous army levied, one midnight
Fated to the purpose, did Antonio open
The gates of Milan; and, i' the dead of darkness,
The ministers for the purpose hurried thence
Me, and thy crying self.

The folios have," into truth," which Warburton amended; but this we suspect is not the only correction needed, the passage as it stands, though intelligible, being very hazily expressed. Mr. Collier's annotator would read,—

661 like one

Who having to untruth, by telling of it," &c.

and this emendation is entitled to more respect than it has received.

b In lieu-] In lieu means here, in guerdon, or consideration; not as it usually signifies, instead, or in place.

Fated to the purpose,-] Mr. Collier's annotator reads, " Fated to the practice;" and as " 'purpose' is repeated two lines below, the substitution is an improvement.