The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further: Go, release them, Ariel;

,
My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,
And they shall be themselves.
ARI.

I'll fetch them, sir. (Exit.
Pro. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes,

and groves ;'

? Yc elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;] This speech Dr. Warburton rightly observes to be borrowed from Medea's in Ovidi and, “it proves, says Mr. Holt, beyond contradi&ion, that Shakspeare was perfeâly acquainted with the sentiments of the ancients on the subject of enchantments." The original lines are there :

" Auræque, & venti, montesque, amnesque, lacusque,

“ Diique omnes nemorum, diique omnes no&is, adefte.” The translation of which, by Golding, is by no means literal, and Shakspeare hath clolely followed it. FARMER.

Whoever will iake the trouble of comparing this whole passage with Medca's speech, as tranílated by Golding, will see evidently that Shakspeare copied the translation, and not the original. The particular expressions that seem to have made an impresion on his mind, are printed in Italicks : “ Ye ayres and windes, ye elves of hills, of brookes, of woodes

alone, « Of standing lakes, and of the night, approache ye everych one. " Through help of whom (the crooked bankes much wondering at ! I have compelled streames to run clear backward to their spring, " By charms I make the calm sea rough, and make the rough

seas playne, And cover all the skie with clouds, and chase them theuce

again. " By charms I raise and lay the windes, and burst the viper's jaw, - And from the bowels of the earth both stones and trees do draw. " Whole woods and forrests I remove, Į make the mountains Make, " And even the earth itself to groan aud fearfully to quake. I call up dead men from their graves, and thee, O lightlomc

moone, « I darken oft, though beaten brass abate thy peril soone. - Our forcerie dimmes the morning faire, and darks the sun at " Thc Haming breath of fierie bulles ye quenched for my sake, is And caused their unwieldy neckes the bended yoke to take.

the thing)

And ye, that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune,' and do fly him,
When he comes back; you demy-puppets, that
By moon-shine do the green-four ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pas-

time
Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid
(Weak masters though ye be,): I have be-dimm'd
The noon-tide fun, call'd forth the niutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder

3

" Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortal warre did fet,
" And brought alleep the dragon fell, whose eyes were never shet."

MALONE.
Ye elves of hills, &c.] Fairies and élves are frequently, in the
poets mentioned together, without any distinction of character
that I can recolleet. Keysler says, that alp and alf, which is elf
with the Suedes and English, equally signified a mountain, or a
dæmon of the mountains. This seems to have been its original
meaning; but Somner's Dia. mentions elves or fairies of the
mountains, of the woods, of the sea and fountains, without any
diftin&ion between elves and fairies. TOLLET.

- with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, ] So Milton, in his Masque :

" Whilst from off the waters fleet,

66 Tlius I set my priniless feel." STEEVENS.
4 (Weak masters though ye ben) The meaning of this passage
may be, Though you are but inferior masters of these supernatural
powers--though you polifs them but in a low degree. Spenser uses the
fanie kind of expression in the The Fairy Queen, B. III. cant. 8. ft. 4.

" Where she (the witch) was wont her sprights to entertain.
" The masters of her art: there was the fain
16 To call them all in order to her aid." STEEVENS.

by whose aid,
( Weak' masters though ye ben ) That is ; you are powerful aux-
iliaries, but weak if left to yourselves ;--your employment is then
to make green ringlets, and midnight muthrooms, and to play the
idle pranks mentioned by Ariel in his next song ;—yet by your aid
I have been enabled to invert the course of nature

We say pro-
verbially, “Fire is a good servant but a bad mafier."

BLACKSTONE,

Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt: the strong-bas'd promontory
Have I made shake; and by the fpurs pluck'd up.
The pine, and cedar; graves, at my command,
Have wak'd their fleepers; oped, and let them forth
By my so potent art: But this rough magick
I here abjure: and, when I have requir'd
Some heavenly musick, (which even now I do)
To work mine end upon their senses, that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,
I'll drown my book.

(Solemn mufick. Re-enter Ariel: after him, ALONSO, with a frantick

gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN and
ANTONIO in like manner, attended by Adrian and
FRANCISCO: They all enter the circle which PROS-
RERO had made, and there stand charmed; which

PROSPERO observing, Speaks.
A folemn air, and the best comforter
To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains,

- But this rough magick, &c.] This speech of Prospero sets out with a long and diftin& invocation to the various ministers of his art: yet to wliat purpose they were invoked does not very diftinály appear.

Had our author writien--- All this,” &c. instead of_-" But this," &c. the conclusion of the address would have been inore pertinent to its beginning. STEEVENS. 6 A folemn air, and the best comforter

To an unsettled fancy, cure ihy braius, &c.] Prospero does not desire them to cure their brains.

His expression is optative, not imperative ; and means-May music cure thy brains! i. c. setile them. Mr. Malone reads

" To an unsettled fancy's cure! Thy brains, " Now useless, boil within thy scull:"-- STEEVENS. The old copy reads-- fancy. For this emendation I am answere able. So, in King John:

“ My widow's comfort, and my forrow's cute."

7

Now useless, boil'd within thy skull! ? There stand,
For you are spell-stopp'd.---
Holy Gonzalo honourable man,
Mine eyes, even fociable to the shew of thine,
Fall fellowly drops. 8 -The charm dissolves apace;
And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chace the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason.-O my good Gonzalo,
My true preserver, and a loyal fir
Tó him thou follow'st; I will pay thy graces
Home, both in word and deed.Most cruelly
Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter:
Thy brother was a furtherer in the act;
Thou’rt pinch'd for't now, Sebastian.--Flesh and

blood,

2

Mr. Pope

7

Again, in Romeo and Juliet:

-Confuson's cure " Lives not in these confusions." Prospero begins by pbserving, that the air which had been played was admirably adapted to compose unsettled minds. He then addresses Gonzalo and the rest, who had just before gone into the circle : Thy brains, now useless, boil within thy skull," &c. [the foothing strain not having yet begun to operate. Afterwards, perceiving that the musick begins to have the effe & intended, he adds, in the charm disolves apace." and the subsequent editors read boil'd. MALONE.

boil'd within thy skull! ] So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream : " Lovers and madmen have such seething brains," &c.

STEEVENS. Again, in The Winter's Tale : " Would any but these boil'd brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty, hunt this weather ?"

MALONE. 8. -fellowly drops.] I would read, fellow drops. The additi. onal fyllable only injures the metre, without enforcing the fease. Fellowly, however, is an adjeđive use by Tusser, STEEVENS. -the ignorunt fumes--] i. e. the fumes of ignorance.

HEATH 2 Thow'rt pinch'd fort now, Sebastian.-Flesh and blood,] Thus

9

You brother mine, that entertain'd ambition, Expell'd remorse, and nature;o who, with Sebastian, (Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong,) Would here have kill'd your king; I do forgive

thee, Unnatural though thou art!—Their understanding Begins to swell; and the approaching tide Will shortly fill the reasonable shores, That now lie foul and muddy. Not one of them, That yet looks on me, or would know me:-Ariel, Fetch me the hat and rapier in

Exit ARIEL.] I will dif-case me, and myself present, As I was sometime Milan: quickly, fpirit; Thou shalt ere long be free. Ariel re-enters, singing, and helps to attire

PROSPERO.

my cell;

ARI. Where the bee sucks there suck I;

In a cowslip's bell I lie:S
There I couch when owls do cry..
On the bat's back I do fly,

After summer, merrily:?
Merrily, merrily, Mall I live now,
Under the bloom that hangs on the bough.

the old copy: Theobald points the passage in a different manner, and perhaps rightly :: 55 Thou'rt pinch’d for’t now, Sebastian, flesh and blood."

STEEVENS. 3 – that entertain'd ambition, ] Old copy-entertain. Correded by the editor of the second folio. MALONE.

remorse and nature;] Remorse is by our author and the contemporary writers generally used for pily, or tenderness of heart. Nature is natural affe&ion. MALONE.

In a cowflip's bell I lie :) So, in Drayton's Nymphidia:

os At midnight, the appointed hour;
“ And for the queen a fitting bower,