PRO. Why, that's my dainty Ariel: I shall miss thee; "Quoth he, is that fair cowflip flower The date of this poem not being afcertained, we know not whether our author was indebted to it, or was himself copied by Drayton. I believe, the latter was the imitator. Nymphidia was not written, I imagine, till after the English Don Quixote had appeared in 1612. MALONE. 6 - when owls do cry.) i. e. at night. As this paffage is now printed, Ariel says that he reposes in a cowflip's bell during the night. Perhaps, however, a full point ought to be placed after the word couch, and a comma at the end of the line. If the paffage should be thus regulated, Ariel will then take his departure by night, the proper feason for the bat to fet out upon the expedition. MALONE. 7 After Summer, merrily:) This is the reading of all the editions. Yet Mr. Theobald has substitued fun-fet, because Ariel talks of riding on the bat in this expedition. An idle fancy. That circumstance is given only to design the time of night in which fairies travel. One would think the confideration of the circumstances should have fet him right. Ariel was a spirit of great delicacy, bound by the charms of Profpero to a constant attendance on his occafions. So that he was confined to the island winter and summer. But the roughness of winter is represented by Shakspeare as difagreeable to fairies, and fuch like delicate spirits, who, on this account conftantly follow Summer. Was not this then the most agreeable circumstance of Ariel's new-recovered 'liberty, that ✓ he could now avoid winter, and follow fummer quite round the globe? But to put the matter quite out of question, let us con fider the meaning of this line: "There I couch when owls do cry." Where? in the cowflip's bell, and where the bee fucks, he tells us : his muft needs be in fummer. When? when owls cry, and this is in winter : " When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, The Song of Winter in Love's Labour's Loft. The consequence is, that Ariel flies after fummer. ford Editor has adopted this judicious emendation of Mr. Theobald. WARBURTON. Ariel does not appear to have been confined to the island summer and winter, as he was sometimes sent on so long an errand as to the Bermoothes. When he says, On the bat's back I do fly, &c. VOL. IV. L B But yet thou shalt have freedom: fo, so, fo. he speaks of his present situation only; nor triumphs in the idea of his future liberty, till the last couplet : Merrily, merrily," &c. The bat is no bird of passage, and the expression is therefore probably used to fignify, not that be pursues fummer, but that, after Summer is past, he rides upon the warm down of a bat's back, which fuits not improperly with the delicacy of his airy being. After Summer is a phrafe in K. Henry VI. P. II. A& II. fc. iv. Shakspeare, who, in his Midsummer Night's Dream, has placed the light of a glow-worm in its eyes, might, through the fame ignorance of natural history, have supposed the bat to be a bird of paffage. Owls cry not only in winter. It is well known that they are to the full as clamorous in fummer; and as a proof of it, Titania, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the time of which is supposed to be May, commands her fairies to keep back " The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots." - STEEVENS. Our author is feldom folicitous that every part of his imagery should correspond. I therefore, think, that though the bat is no bird of paffage," Shakspeare probably meant to express what Dr. Warburton supposes. A short account, however, of this winged animal may perhaps prove the best illustration of the paffage before us: "The bat (fays Dr. Goldsmith, in his entertaining and in-" ftru&ive Natural history,) makes its appearance in fummer, and begins its flight in the dusk of the evening. It appears only in the "most pleasant evenings; at other times is continues in its retreat; "the chink of a ruined building, or the hollow of a tree. Thus "the little animal even in fummer fleeps the greatest part of his " time, never venturing out by day-light, nor in rainy weather. But " its short life is still more abridged by continuing in a torpid "state during the winter. At the approach of the cold season, "the bat prepares for its ftate of lifeless inactivity, and feems " rather to choose a place where it may continue fafe from inter"ruption, than where it may be warmly or commodioufly " lodged." When Shakspeare had determined to fend Ariel in pursuit of summer, wherever it could be found, as mot congenial to fuch an airy being, is it then surprising that he should have made the bat, rather than the wind, his poft-horse; "an animal thus delighting in that feason, and reduced by winter to a state of lifeless inativity? MALONE. There shalt thou find the mariners aflcep Being awake, enforce them to this place; And prefently, I prythee. ARI. I drink the air before me, and return Or e'er your pulse twice beat. (Exit ARIEL. GON. All torment, trouble, wonder, and amaze ment Inhabits here; Some heavenly power guide us Out of this fearful country! PRO. Behold, fır king, The wronged duke of Milan, Profpero: For more afsurance that a living prince Does now speak to thee, I embrace-thy body; And to thee, and thy company, I bid A hearty welcome. ALON. 8 - Shall I live now, Whe'r thou beest he, or no, Under the bloffom that hangs on the bough.) This thought is not thrown out at random. It composed a part of the magical system of these days. In Taffo's Godfrey of Bulloigne, by Fairfax, B. IV. ft. 18: "The goblins, fairies, feends, and furies mad, Ranged in flowrie dales, and mountaines hore, “ And under everie trembling lease they fit. The idea was probably first suggested by the description of the venerable elm which Virgil planted at the entrance of the infernal shades. En. vi. v. 282: "Ulmus opaca, ingens; quam fedem fomnia vulgò HOLT WHITE. 9 I drink the air) To drink the air - is an expression of swiftness of the fame kind as to devour the way in K. Henry IV. JOHNSON. 2 Whe'r thou best he, or ro,) Whe'r for whether, is an abbreviation frequently used both by Shakspeare and Jonson. So, in Julius Cæfar: 66 See, whe'r their basest metal be not mov'd." L2 1 Or fome inchanted trifle to abuse me, Thou pardon me my wrongs :- But how should You do yet taste Some fubtilties o' the ifle, that will not let you Again, in the Comedy of Errors : "Good fir, fay whe'r you'll anfwer me, or not. M. MASON. Thy dukedom I refign; ) The duchy of Milan being through the treachery of Antonio made feudatory to the crown of Naples, Alonso promifes to refign his claim of fovereignty for the future. STEEVENS, You do yet taste Some fubtilties o' the isle,) This is a phrafe adopted from ancient cookery and confeaionary. When a dish was fo contrived as to appear unlike what it really was, they called it a fubtilty. Dragons, castles, trees, &c. made out of fugar, had the like denomination. See Mr. Pegge's gloffary to the Form of Cury, &c. Article Sotiltees. Froiffard complains much of this pradice, which often led him into mistakes at dinner. Defcribing one of the feasts of his time, he fays there was grant planté de mesiz fi etranges & fi desguisez qu'on ne les pouvait deviser;" and L'Etoile speaking of a fimilar entertainment in 1597, adds "Tous les poiffons estoient fort dextrement defguifez en viande de chair, qui estoient monftres marins pour la pluspart, qu'on avait fait venir exprès de tous les coftez." STEEVENS. Believe things certain: - Welcome, my friends all: But you, my brace of lords, were I so minded, (Afide to SEB, and ANT. I here could pluck his highness' frown upon you, And justify you traitors; at this time I'll tell no tales. (Afide. SEB. The devil speaks in him. PRO. No: For you, most wicked fir, whom to call brother Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive Thy rankest fault; all of them; and require My dukedom of thee, which, perforce, I know, Thou must restore. ALON. If thou beest Profpero, Give us particulars of thy preservation : How thou hast met us here, who three hours fince' Were wreck'd upon this shore; where I have loft, How sharp the point of this remembrance is! My dear fon Ferdinand. PRO. I am woe for't, fir. 6 s-who three hours since -) The unity of time is most rigidly observed in this piece. The fable scarcely takes up a greater number of hours than are employed in the representation; and from the very particular care which our author takes to point out this circumstance in so many other passages, as well as here, it should feem as if it were not accidental, but purposely defigned to thew the admirers of Ben Jonfon's art, and the cavillers of the time, that he too could write a play within all the striaeft laws of regularity, when he chose to load himself with the critick's fetters. The boatswain marks the progress of the day again - which but three glaffes fince, &c. and at the beginning of this at the duration of the time employed on the stage is particularly ascertained; and it refers to a paffage in the first act, of the fame tendency. The storm was raifed at least two glasses after mid day, and Ariel was promised that the work should cease at the fixth hour. STEEVENS. 6 I am woe fort, fir.) i. e. I am forry for it. To be woe, is often used by old writers to signify, to be ferry. 13 |