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The Comic Matter.

The comic portions and characters of this play are in Shakespeare's raciest vein; yet they are perfectly unique and singular withal, being quite unlike any other of his preparations in that kind, as much so as if they were the growth of a different planet.

The presence of Trinculo and Stephano in the play has sometimes been regarded as a blemish. I cannot think it so. Their part is not only good in itself as comedy, but is in admirable keeping with the rest. Their follies give a zest and relish to the high poetries amidst which they grow. Such things go to make up the mysterious whole of human life; and they often help on our pleasure while seeming to hinder it: we may think they were better left out, but, were they left out, we should somehow feel the want of them. Besides, this part of the work, if it does not directly yield a grateful fragrance, is vitally connected with the parts that do. For there is perhaps no one of the Poet's dramas of which it can be more justly affirmed that all the parts draw together in organic unity, so that every thing helps every other thing.

Concluding Remarks.

Such are the strangely-assorted characters that make up this charming play. This harmonious working together of diverse and opposite elements,—-this smooth concurrence of heterogeneous materials in one varied yet coherent impression, by what subtile process this is brought about, is perhaps too deep a problem for Criticism to solve.

I cannot leave the theme without remarking what an atmosphere of wonder and mystery overhangs and pervades

this singular structure; and how the whole seems steeped in glories invisible to the natural eye, yet made visible by the Poet's art so that the effect is to lead the thoughts insensibly upwards to other worlds and other forms of being. It were difficult to name any thing else of human workmanship so thoroughly transfigured with

the gleam,

The light that never was on sea or land,

The consecration and the poet's dream.

The celestial and the earthly are here so commingled, commingled, but not confounded, — that we see not where the one begins or the other ends: so that in the reading we seem transported to a region where we are strangers, yet old acquaintances; where all things are at once new and familiar; the unearthly visions of the spot hardly touching us with surprise, because, though wonderful indeed, there is nothing about them but what readily finds or creates some answering powers and sympathies within us. In other words, they do not surprise us, because they at once kindle us into fellowship with them. That our thoughts and feelings are thus at home with such things, and take pleasure in them,is not this because of some innate aptitudes and affinities of our nature for a supernatural and celestial life?

Point not these mysteries to an art
Lodged above the starry pole?

Professor Dowden's Comments.

The wrong-doers of The Tempest are a group of persons of various degrees of criminality, from Prospero's perfidious brother, still active in plotting evil, to Alonso, whose obligations to the Duke of Milan had been of a public or princely kind. Spiritual powers are in alliance with Prospero; and

these, by terror and the awakening of remorse, prepare Alonso for receiving the balm of Prospero's forgiveness. He looks upon his son as lost, and recognizes in his son's loss the punishment of his own guilt. "The powers delaying, not forgetting," have incensed the sea and shores against the sinful men; nothing can deliver them except "heart-sorrow, and a clear life ensuing." Goethe, in the opening of the Second Part of Faust, has represented the ministry of external nature fulfilling functions with reference to the human conscience precisely the reverse of those ascribed to it in The Tempest. Faust, escaped from the prison-scene and the madness of Margarete, is lying on a flowery grass-plot, weary, restless, striving to sleep. The Ariel of Goethe calls upon his attendant elvish spirits to prepare the soul of Faust for renewed energy by bathing him in the dew of Lethe's stream, by assuaging his pain, by driving back remorse. To dismiss from his conscience the sense of the wrong he has done to a dead woman, is the initial step in the further education and development of Faust. Shakespeare's Ariel, breathing through the elements and the powers of Nature, quickens the remorse of the King for a crime of twelve years since.

The enemies of Prospero are now completely in his power. How shall he deal with them? They had perfidiously taken advantage of his unworldly and unpractical habits of life; they had thrust him away from his dukedom; they had exposed him with his three-years'-old daughter in a rotten boat to the mercy of the waves. Shall he not now avenge himself without remorse? What is Prospero's decision?

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th' quick,

Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury

Do I take part: the rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,

The sole drift of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown further,

We have seen how Timon turned fiercely upon mankind, and hated the wicked race: "I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind." The wrongs inflicted upon Prospero were crueller and more base than those from which Timon suffered. But Prospero had not lived in a summer mood of lax and prodigal benevolence: he had lived severely, "all dedicated to closeness and the bettering of my mind." And out of the strong comes forth sweetness. In the play of Cymbeline, the wrong which Posthumus has suffered from the Italian Iachimo is only less than that which Othello endures at the hands of Iago. But Iachimo, unlike Iago, is unable to sustain the burden of his guilt, and sinks under it. In the closing scene of Cymbeline, that in which Posthumus is himself welcomed home to the heart of Imogen, Posthumus in his turn becomes the pardoner :

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Hermione, Imogen, Prospero, - these are, as it were, names for the gracious powers which extend forgiveness to men. From the first, Hermione, whose clear-sightedness is equal to her courage, had perceived that her husband laboured under a delusion which was cruel and calamitous to himself. From the first, she transcends all blind resentment, and has true pity for the man who wrongs her. But, if she has fortitude for her own uses, she is also able to accept for her husband the inevitable pain which is needful to restore him to his better mind. She will not shorten the term of his suffering, because that suffering is beneficent. And at the last her silent embrace carries with it and justly a portion of that truth she had uttered long before:

How will this grieve you,

When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that
You thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord,
You scarce can right me throughly then, to say
You did mistake.

The calm and complete comprehension of the fact is a possession painful yet precious to Hermione; and it lifts her above all vulgar confusion of heart or temper, and above all unjust resentment.

Imogen, who is the reverse of grave and massive in character, but who has an exquisite vivacity of feeling and fancy, and a heart pure, quick, and ardent, passes from the swoon of her sudden anguish to a mood of bright and keen resentment, which is free from every trace of vindictive passion, and is indeed only pain disguised. And in like manner she forgives, not with self-possession and a broad, tranquil joy in the accomplished fact, but through a pure ardour, an exquisite eagerness of love and delight. Prospero's forgiveness is solemn, judicial, and has in it something abstract and impersonal. He cannot wrong his own higher nature, he cannot wrong his nobler reason, by cherishing so unworthy a passion as the desire of vengeance. Sebastian and Antonio, from whose conscience no remorse has been elicited, are met by no comfortable pardon. They have received their lesson of failure and pain, and may possibly be convinced of the good sense and prudence of honourable dealing, even if they cannot perceive its moral obligation. Alonso, who is repentant, is solemnly pardoned. The forgiveness of Prospero is an embodiment of impartial wisdom and loving justice.

When a man has attained some high and luminous tableland of joy or of renouncement; when he has really transcended self; or when some one of the everlasting virtuous powers of the world, — duty, or sacrifice, or the strength of

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