And ye, that on the fands with printless foot Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortal warre did fet, "And brought asleep the dragon fell, whofe eyes were never thet." MALONE. Ye elves of bills, &c.] Fairies and elves are frequently, in the poets mentioned together, without any diftinction of character that I can recollect. Keyfler fays, that alp and alf, which is elf with the Suedes and English, equally fignified a mountain, or a dæmon of the mountains. This feems to have been its original meaning; but Somner's Dict. mentions elves or fairies of the mountains, of the woods, of the fea and fountains, without any diftinction between elves and fairies. TOLLET. 3 — with printless foot Do chafe the ebbing Neptune,] So Milton, in his Mafque: "Thus I fet my printless feet." STEEVENS. 4 (Weak mafters though ye be,)] The meaning of this paffage may be, Though you are but inferior masters of these fupernatural powers-though you poffefs them but in a low degree. Spenfer ufes the fame kind of expreffion in The Fairy Queen, B. III. cant. 8. ft. 4. "Where the (the witch) was wont her fprights to entertain. "The mafters of her art: there was the fain "To call them all in order to her aid." STEEVENS. (Weak mafters though ye be,)] That is; ye are powerful auxiliaries, but weak if left to yourselves;-your employment is then to make green ringlets, and midnight mushrooms, and to play the idle pranks mentioned by Ariel in his next fong;-yet by your aid I have been enabled to invert the courfe of nature. We fay proverbially, "Fire is a good fervant but a bad mafter." BLACKSTONE. Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's ftout oak Re-enter ARIEL: after him, ALONSO, with a frantick A folemn air, and the best comforter 5-But this rough magick, &c.] This fpeech of Profpero fets out with a long and diftinct invocation to the various ministers of his art yet to what purpose they were invoked does not very distinctly appear. Had our author written" All this," &c. inftead of" But this," &c. the conclufion of the address would have been more pertinent to its beginning. STEEVENS, 6 A folemn air, and the best comforter To an unfettled fancy, cure thy brains, &c.] Profpero does not defire them to cure their brains. His expreffion is optative, not imperative; and means-May mufic cure thy brains! i. e. fettle them. Mr. Malone reads "To an unfettled fancy's cure! Thy brains, "Now ufelefs, boil within thy fcull:"- STEEVENS. The old copy reads fancy. For this emendation I am answererable. So, in King John: "My widow's comfort, and my forrow's cure." 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 fhew of thine, To him thou follow'ft; I will pay thy graces Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebaftian.-Flesh and blood,' "Lives not in these confufions." " Profpero begins by obferving, that the air which had been played was admirably adapted to compofe unfettled minds. He then addreffes Gonzalo and the reft, who had just before gone into the circle: Thy brains, now useless, boil within thy fkull," &c. [the foothing ftrain not having yet begun to operate.] Afterwards, perceiving that the mufick begins to have the effect intended, he adds, "The charm diffolves apace." Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors read-boil'd. MALONE. 7 boil'd within thy fkull!] So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Lovers and madmen have such feething 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 additional fyllable only injures the metre, without enforcing the fenfe. Fellowly, however, is an adjective used by Tuffer. STEEVENS. 9 the ignorant fumes] i. e. the fumes of ignorance. HEATH. 2 Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebaftian.-Flesh and blood,] Thus You brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,' Expell'd remorse, and nature; 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 That now lie foul and muddy. Not one of them, [Exit ARIEL. I will dif-cafe me, and myself present, As I was fometime Milan :-quickly, fpirit; Thou shalt ere long be free. ARIEL re-enters, finging, and helps to attire ARI. Where the bee fucks, there fuck I; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly, After fummer, merrily Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, Under the bloffom that hangs on the bough. the old copy: Theobald points the paffage in a different manner, and perhaps rightly: 3 "Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebastian, flesh and blood.” STEEVENS. that entertain'd ambition,] Old copy-entertain. Corrected by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. 4 - remorse and nature;] Remorfe is by our author and the contemporary writers generally used for pity, or tenderness of heart. Nature is natural affection. MALONE. In a cowflip's bell I lie:] So, in Drayton's Nymphidia: "And for the queen a fitting bower, PRO. Why, that's my dainty Ariel: I fhall mifs thee; "Quoth he, is that fair cowflip flower "On Hipcut hill that bloweth." The date of this poem not being ascertained, 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 fays that he repofes 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 fhould be thus regulated, Ariel will then take his departure by night, the proper feason for the bat to fet out upon the expedition. MALONE. After fummer, merrily:] This is the reading of all the editions. Yet Mr. Theobald has fubftituted fun-fet, because Ariel talks of riding on the bat in this expedition. An idle fancy. That circumftance is given only to defign the time of night in which fairies travel. One would think the confideration of the circumstances should have fet him right. Ariel was a fpirit of great delicacy, bound by the charms of Profpero to a conftant attendance on his occafions. So that he was confined to the island winter and fummer. But the roughness of winter is represented by Shakspeare as difagreeable to fairies, and fuch like delicate fpirits, who, on this account, conftantly follow summer. Was not this then the moft agreeable circumftance 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 confider 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: this must 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 confequence is, that Ariel flies after fummer. Yet the Oxford Editor has adopted this judicious emendation of Mr. Theobald. WARBURTON. Ariel does not appear to have been confined to the island fummer and winter, as he was fometimes fent on fo long an errand as to the Bermoothes. When he fays, On the bat's back I do fly, &c. VOL. III. L |