Boats. None that I more love than myself. You are a counfellor; if you can command these elements to filence, and work the peace of the prefent,4 we will not hand a rope more; ufe your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have liv'd fo long, and make yourfelf ready in your cabin for the mifchance of the hour, if it fo hap.-Cheerly, good hearts-Out of our way, I fay. Exit.

5 Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks, he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand faft, good fate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not born to be hang'd, our cafe is miferable. [Exeunt.

Re-enter Boatfwain.

Boats. Down with the top-maft; yare; lower, lower; bring her to try with main-courfe. [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 fink?

Seb. A pox o' your throat! you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dag!

Boats. Work you, then.

Ant. Hang, cur, hang! you whorefon, infolent noisemaker, we are lefs afraid to be drown'd than thou art.

Gon. I'll warrant him from drowning; though the fhip were no ftronger than a nut-fhell, and as leaky as an unftanch'd wench."

Boats.

of the prefent,] i. e. of the prefent inftant. STEEVENS.. • Gonzalo.] It may be obferved of Gonzalo, that, being the only good man that appears with the king, he is the only man that preferves his cheerfulness in the wreck, and his hope on the inland. JOHNSON. 6 an unftanch'd wench.] Unftanch'd, I am willing to believe, means incontinent. STEEVENS.

Bouts Lay her arhodd, ahold; } set her two courses; off to fea again, lay sherloffw I rub 357000F 73:1

Enter Mariners wet.

Mar. All loftd to prayers, to prayers! all loft! [Exeunt. Boats. What, muit our mouths be cold

Gon. The king and prince at prayers! let us affift them, For our cafe is as theirs.

Seb. I am out of patience.

Ant. We are merely 9 cheated of our lives by drugkards.

This wide-chopp'd rafcal;-'Would, thou might'ft lie

drowning,

The washing of ten tides!

Gon.

He'll be hang'd yet ;

Though every drop of water fwear against it,.

And gape at wid'ft to glut him..

[A confufed naife within.] Mercy on us!-We fplit, we fplit! Farewell, my wife and children!-Farewell, brother! We fplit, we fplit, we fplit!

Ant. Let's all fink with the king.

Seb. Let's take leave of him.

Exit.

Exit.

Gon. Now would I give a thoufand furlongs of fea for an

B 4

acre

7 Lay ber a-bold, a bold ;] To lay a ship a-bold, is to bring her to lie as near the wind as the can, in order to keep clear of the land, and get her out to fea. STEEVENS.

8

fet ber two courfes; off to fea again,] The courfes are the main fail and fore fail. JOHNSON.

—merely—] In this place fignifies abfolutely. In which sense it is ufed in Hamlet, A&t I. fc. iii. STEEVENS.

2 to glut bim.] Shakespeare probably wrote, t'englut bim, to fwallow bim; for which I know not that glut is ever used by him. In this fignification englut, from engloutir, French, occurs frequently. Yet Milton writes glutted offal for fwallowed, and therefore, perhaps, the prefent text may ftand. JOHNSON.

3 Mercy on us! &c.. -Farewell, brother! &c.] All these lines have been hitherto given to Gonzalo, who has no brother in the fhip. It is probable that the lines fucceeding the confused noife within fhould be confidered as fpoken by no determinate characters. JOHNSON.

acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, any thing: The wills above be done, but I would fain idle, a dry death.

SCENE II.

The island: before the cell of Profpero.
Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA,

Mira. If by your art, my deareft father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them :
The sky, it seems, would pour down ftinking pitch,
But that the fea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out. O, I have fuffer'd

With thofe that I faw fuffer! a brave veffel,
Who had no doubt fome noble creatures in her,
Dafh'd all to pieces.. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor fouls! they perish'd,
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have funk the fea within the earth, or e'er 5
It should the good fhip fo have fwallow'd, and
The freighting fouls within her.

Pro.

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

Mira. Pro.

[Exit.

Be collected;

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 6
Than Profpero, master of a full poor cell,7
And thy no greater father.

Mira.

4- an acre of barren ground; long beath, brown furze, &c.] Sir T. Hanmer reads ling, heath, broom, furze. Perhaps rightly, though he has been charged with tautology, FARMER.

5

6

or e'er -] i. e. before. STEEVENS.

more better] This ungrammatical expreffion is very frequent among our oldeft writers. STEEVENS.

1

- full poor cell,] i. e. a cell in a great degree of poverty.

STEEVENS.

I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand,
And pluck my magick garment from me.-So;

[Lays down his mantle.
Lie there my art.-Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort
The direful fpectacle of the wreck, which touch'd
The very virtue of compaffion in thee,
I have with fuch provifion in mine art
So fafely order'd, that there is no foul-
No, not fo much perdition as an hair,
Betid to any creature in the vessel

Which thou heard'ft cry, which thou faw'ft fink. Sit down;

For thou muft now know further.

Mira.

You have often

Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd
And left me to a bootlefs inquifition;
Concluding, Stay, not yet.

Pro.

The hour's now come;

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;

Obey, and be attentive. Can't thou remember

A time before we came unto this cell?

I do not think thou can'ft; for then thou waft not?
Out three years old,

Mira.

Certainly, fir, I can.
B 5

Pro

Did never meddle with my thoughts.] ́i. e. mix with them. To meddle is often ufed, with this fenfe, by Chaucer. Hence the substan tive medley. The modern and familiar phrafe by which that of Miranda may be explained, is- -never entered my thoughts- -never came into my bead. STEEVENS.

It fhould rather mean to interfere, to trouble, to busy itself, as still used in the North, e. g. Don't meddle with me; i. e. Let me alone; Don't moleft me. RITSON.

9—— virtue of compaffion

-] Virtue; the most efficacious part, the energetic quality; in a like sense we say, The virtue of a plant is in the extract. JOHNSON.

2 Out three years old.] . e. Quite three years old, three years old full-out, complete. STEEVENS.

Pro. By what? by any other houfe, or perfon?
Of any thing the image tell me, that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.

Mira.

And rather like a dream, than an affurance

'Tis far off;

That my remembrance warrants: Had I not
Four or five women once, that tended me?

Pro. Thou had'ft, and more, Miranda: But how is it,
That this lives in thy mind? What feeft thou elfe
In the dark backward and abyfm of time ?3

If thou remember'ft aught, ere thou cam ft here,
How thou cam'ft here, thou may'st.

Mira.

But that I do not.

Pro. Twelve years fince, Miranda, twelve years fince, 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 faid-thou waft my daughter; and thy father
Was duke of Milan; and his only heir

A princess;-no worse iffued.4

Mira.

O the heavens!

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

Pro.

Both, both, my girl:

By foul play, as thou fay'ft, were we heav'd thence;
But bleffedly holp hither.

Mira.

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

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

I pray thee, mark me,-that a brother should
Be fo perfidious!-he whom, next thyself,
Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put
The manage of my ftate; as, at that time,
Through all the figniories it was the first,

abyfm of time?] i, e. abyfs. STIEVING.

4 Iffued.] i. e. defcended. STEEVENS.
5 teen is forrow, grief, trouble. STEEVENS,

And