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Or it hath drawn me rather:—but 'tis gone.—

No, it begins again.

Ariel's Song

Full fathom Eve thy father lies,

Of his bones are coral made:

Those are pearls that were his eyes,

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea change,

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell—

Hark! I now I hear them, ding-dong bell.

[Burden ding-dong.]

Ferdinand. The ditty does remember my drown'd father.

This is no mortal business, nor no sound

That the earth owns: I hear it now above me.

The courtship between Ferdinand and Miranda is one of the chief beauties of this play. It is the very purity of love. The pretended interference of Prospero with it heightens its interest, and is in character with the magician, whose sense of preternatural power makes him arbitrary, tetchy, and impatient of opposition.

The Tempest is a finer play than the Midsummer Night's Dream, which has sometimes been compared with it; but it is not so fine a poem. There are a greater number of beautiful passages in the latter. Two of the most striking in The Tempest are spoken by Prospero. The one is that admirable one when the vision which he has conjured up disappears, beginning, 'The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,' &c., which has so often been quoted that every schoolboy knows it by heart; the other is that which Prospero makes in abjuring his art:

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,

And ye that on the sands with printless foot

Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him

When he comes back; you demi-puppets, that

By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,

Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime

Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice

To hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid

(Weak masters tho' ye be) I have be-dimm'd

The noon-tide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,

And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault

Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder

Have I giv'n fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak

With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory

Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up

The pine and cedar: graves at my command

Have wak'd their sleepers; op'd, and let 'em forth

By my so potent art. But this rough magic

I here abjure; and when I have requir'd

Some heav'nly music, which ev'n now I do,

(To work mine end upon their senses that

This airy charm is for) I'll break my staff,

Bury it certain fadoms in the earth,

And deeper than did ever plummet sound,

I'll drown my book.

We must not forget to mention among other things in this play, that Shakespeare has anticipated nearly all the arguments on the Utopian schemes of modern philosophy:

Gonzalo. Had I the plantation of this isle, my lord—

Antonio. He'd sow't with nettle-seed.

Sebastian. Or docks or mallows.

Gonzalo. And ere the king on't, what would I do?

Sebastian. 'Scape being drunk, or want of wine.

Gonzalo. I' th' commonwealth I would by contraries

Execute all things: for no kind of traffic

Would I admit; no name of agistrate;

Letters should not be known; wealth, poverty,

And use of ervice, none; contract, succession,

Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;

No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;

No occupation, all men idle, all,

And women too; but innocent and pure:

No sov'reignty.

Sebastian. And yet he would be king on't.

Antonio. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.

Gonzalo. All things in common nature should produce

Without sweat or endeavour. Treason, felony,

Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine

Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,

Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance

To feed my innocent people!

Sebastian. No marrying 'mong his subjects?

Antonio. None, man; all idle; whores and knaves.

Gonzalo. I would with such perfection govern, sir,

T' excel the golden age.

Sebastian. Save his majesty!

THE MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Bottom the Weaver is a character that has not had justice done him. He is the most romantic of mechanics. And what a list of companions he has—Quince the Carpenter,