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Stephano, who had just assured the monster he was the man in the moon.

HOLT.

Mr. Theobald found, or might have found, this speech transferred to Prospero in the alteration of this play by Dryden and D'Avenant.

488.

-when thou didst not, savage, Know thy own meaning,—

MALONE.

-] By this ex

pression, the poet seems to have meant- -When thou didst utter sounds, to which thou hadst no determinate meaning but the following expression of Mr. Addison, in his 389th Spectator, concerning the Hottentots, may prove the best comment on this passage, "having no language among them but a confused gabble, which is neither well understood by themselves, or others." STEEVENS.

491. -But thy vild race,] Race, in this place, seems to signify original disposition, inborn qualities. In this sense we still say-The race of wine; thus in Massinger's New Way to pay old Debts:

"There came, not six days since, from Hull, a pipe

"Of rich Canary.—

"Is it of the right race?"

And Sir W. Temple has somewhere applied it to works of literature.

STEEVENS.

Race and raciness in wine signifies a kind of tartness.

497.

BLACKSTONE.

-the red plague-] The erysipelas was an

ciently called the red-plague.

STEEVENS.

513. Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,] As was anciently done at the beginning of some dances. The wild waves whist;

i. e. the wild waves being silent (or whist) as in Spenser's Faery Queen, B. VII. c. 7. $. 59.

So was the Titaness put down, and whist.

And Milton seems to have had our author in his eye. See stanza 5. of his Hymn on the Nativity.

The winds with wonder whist,

Smoothly the waters kiss'd.

So again, both lord Surrey and Phaer, in their trans, lations of the second book of Virgil

-Conticuere omnes.

"They whisted all."

And Lylly, in his Maid's Metamorphosis, 1600:
"But every thing is quiet, whist, and still.”

STEEVENS. 528. This musick crept by me upon the waters;] So in

Milton's Masque.

—a soft and solemn breathing sound "Rose like a steam of rich distill'd perfumes,

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

Burden, ding-dong.]

So

So in The Golden Garden of Princely Delight, &c. 13th edition, 1690:

"Corydon's doleful knell to the tune of Ding,
dong."

"I must go seek a new love,
"Yet will I ring her knell,

Ding, dong."

The same burthen to a song occurs in The Merchant of Venice, act iii. STEEVENS,

543. That the earth owes :- -] To owe, in this place, as well as many others, signifies to possess. 544. The fringed curtains, &c.] The same expression occurs in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609:

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"Begin to part their fringes of bright gold." STEEVENS.

561. Most sure, &c.] It seems, that Shakspere, in The Tempest, hath been suspected of translating some expressions of Virgil: witness the 0 Dea certe. I presume we are here directed to the passage, where Ferdinand says of Miranda, after hearing the songs of Ariel:

Most sure, the goddess

On whom these airs attend!

And so very small Latin is sufficient for this formidable translation, that, if it be thought any honour to our poet, I am loth to deprive him of it; but his honour is not built on such a sandy foundation. Let us turn to a real translator, and examine whether the idea might not be fully comprehended by an English

reader,

reader, supposing it necessarily borrowed from Virgil. Hexameters in our own language are almost forgotten; we will quote therefore this time from Stanyhurst.' Edit. 1583:

"O to thee, fayre virgin, what terme may rightly

be fitted?

"Thy tongue, thy visage no mortal frayltie re

sembleth.

"No doubt, a goddesse!"

FARMER.. 569. certainly a maid.] Nothing could be more prettily imagined to illustrate the singularity of her character, than this pleasant mistake. She had been bred up in the rough and plain-dealing documents of moral philosophy, which teaches us the knowledge of ourselves; and was an utter stranger to the flattery invented by vitious and designing men to corrupt the other sex. So that it could not enter into her imagination, that complaisance, and a desire of appearing amiable, qualities of humanity which she had been instructed, in her moral lessons, to cultivate, could ever degenerate into such excess, as that any one should be willing to have his fellow-creature believe that he thought her a goddess, or an immortal. WARBURTON.

Dr. Warburton has here found a beauty, which I think the author never intended. Ferdinand asks her not whether she was a created being, a question which, if he meant it, he has ill expressed, but whether she was unmarried; for after the dialogue which Prospero's

Prospero's interruption produces, he goes on pursuing

his former question.

O, if a virgin,

I'll make you queen of Naples.

JOHNSON.

A passage in Lilly's Galathea seems to countenance the present text, "The question among men is common, are you a maide ?"-yet I cannot but think, that Dr. Warburton reads very rightly, "If you be made, or no." When we meet with an harsh expression in Shakspere, we are usually to look for a play upon words. Fletcher closely imitates the Tempest in his Sea Voyage: and he introduces Albert in the same manner to the ladies of his Desert island,

"Be not offended, goddesses, that I fall
"Thus prostrate," &c.

Shakspere himself had certainly read, and had probably now in his mind, a passage in the third book of the Faery Queen, between Timias and Belphabe,

"Angel or goddess! do I call thee right?"
"There-at she blushing, said, ah! gentle squire
"Nor goddess I, nor angel, but the maid
"And daughter of a woody nymph," &c.

FARMER.

—if you be maid, or no.] It was not Dr. Warburton, but the fourth folio, that first read made; which I am persuaded was our author's word. The omission of the article adds some strength to this supposition. Nothing is more common in his plays than a word being used in reply, in a sense different from that in which it was employed by the first speaker. Ferdinand

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