APPENDIX A

THE PREFACE AND PROLOGUE TO DRYDEN AND DAVENANT'S THE TEMPEST OR THE ENCHANTED ISLAND1

PREFACE

The writing of Prefaces to Plays, was probably invented by some very ambitious Poet, who never thought he had done enough: Perhaps by some Ape of the French Eloquence, which uses to make a business of a Letter of Gallantry, an examen of a Farce; and, in short, a great pomp and ostentation of words on every trifle. This is certainly the Talent of that Nation, and ought not to be invaded by any other. They do that out of gaiety, which would be an imposition upon us.

We may satisfie our selves with surmounting them in the Scene, and safely leave them those trappings of writing, and flourishes of the Pen, with which they adorn the borders of their Plays, and which are indeed no more than good Landskips to a very indifferent Picture. I must proceed no farther in this Argument, lest I run my self beyond my excuse for writing this. Give me leave therefore to tell you, Reader, that I do it not to set a value on anything I have written in this Play, but out of gratitude to the memory of Sir William Davenant, who did me the honour to join me with him in the alteration of it.

It was originally Shakespear's: a Poet for whom he had particularly a high veneration, and whom he first taught me to admire. The Play it self had formerly been acted with success in the BlackFryers: and our Excellent Fletcher had so great a value for it, that he thought fit to make use of the same Design, not much varied, a second time. Those who have seen his Sea-Voyage, may easily discern that it was a Copy of Shakespear's Tempest: the Storm, the Desart Island, and the Woman who had never seen a Man, are all sufficient Testimonies of it. But Fletcher was not the only Poet who made use of Shakespear's Plot: Sir John Suckling, a profess'd admirer of our Author, has follow'd his footsteps in his Goblins; his Regmella being an open imitation of Shakespear's Miranda; and his Spirits, though counterfeit, yet are copied from Ariel. But Sir William Davenant, as he was a Man of quick and piercing imagination, soon found that somewhat might be added to the design of Shakespear, of which neither Fletcher nor Suckling had ever thought: and therefore to put the last hand to it, he design'd the Counter part to Shakespear's Plot, namely, that of a Man who had never seen a Woman; that by this means those two Characters of Innocence and Love might the more illustrate and commend each other. This excellent Contrivance he was pleas'd to communicate to me, and to desire my assistance in it. I confess, that from the very first moment it so pleas'd me, that I never writ anything with more delight. I must likewise do him that justice to acknowledge, that my writing received daily his amendments, and that is the reason why it is not so faulty, as the rest which I have done, without the help or correction of so judicious a Friend. The Comical part of the Saylors were also of his invention and for the most part his writing, as you will easily discover by the Style. In the time I writ with him, I had the opportunity to observe somewhat more nearly of him than I had formerly done, when I had only a bare acquaintance with him: I found him then of so quick a fancy, that nothing was propos'd to him on which he could not suddenly produce a thought extremely pleasant and surprising: and those first thoughts of his, contrary to the old Latine Proverb, were not always the least happy. And as his fancy was quick, so likewise were the products of it remote and new. He borrowed not of any other; and his imaginations were such as could not easily enter into any other Man. His Corrections were sober and judicious: and he corrected his own writings much more severely than those of another Man, bestowing twice the time and labour in polishing, which he us'd in invention. It had perhaps been easie enough for me to have arrogated more to my self than was my due, in the writing of this Play, and to have pass'd by his name with silence in the Publication of it, with the same ingratitude which others have us'd to him, whose Writings he hath not only corrected, as he hath done this, but has had a greater inspection over them, and sometimes added whole Scenes together, which may as easily be distinguish'd from the rest, as true Gold from counterfeit by the weight. But besides the unworthiness of the Action which deterred me from it (there being nothing so base as to rob the dead of his reputation) I am satisfi'd I could never have receiv'd so much honour, in being thought the Author of any Poem, how excellent soever, as I shall from the joining my imperfections with the Merit and Name of Shakespear and Sir William Davenant.

PROLOGUE

As when a Tree's cut down, the secret Root
Lives under ground, and thence new branches shoot:
So, from old Shakespear's honour'd dust, this day
Springs up and buds a new reviving Play.

Shakespear, who (taught by none) did first impart
To Fletcher Wit, to labouring Johnson Art.
He, Monarch-like, gave those his Subjects Law,
And is that Nature which they paint and draw.
Fletcher reach'd that which on his heights did grow,
Whilst Johnson crept and gather'd all below.
This did his Love, and this his Mirth digest:
One imitates him most, the other best.
If they have since out-writ all other Men,
'Tis with the drops which fell from Shakespear's pen.
The Storm which vanish'd on the neighb'ring shore,
Was taught by Shakespear's Tempest first to roar.
That Innocence and Beauty which did smile
In Fletcher, grew on this Enchanted Isle.
But Shakespear's Magick could not copy'd be,
Within that Circle none durst walk but he.
I must confess 't was bold, nor would you now
That liberty to vulgar Wits allow,
Which work by Magick supernatural things:
But Shakespear's Pow'r is Sacred as a King's.
Those Legends from old Priesthood were receiv'd,
And he then writ, as People then believ'd.
But, if for Shakespear we your grace implore,
We for our Theatre shall want it more:
Who by our dearth of Youths are forc'd t'employ
One of our Women to present a Boy.
And that's a transformation, you will say,
Exceeding all the Magick in the Play.

APPENDIX B

MRS. F. A. KEMBLE'S ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE TEMPEST

Many critics of The Tempest have endeavoured to interpret it allegorically. Thus Lowell indentifies Prospero with the Imagination, Ariel with the Fancy, Caliban with the brute understanding, Miranda with Abstract Womanhood, and Ferdinand with Youth. Emile Montégut and Dowden (the former in all seriousness, the latter in a playful exercise of fancy) have traced in the play an allegory of the poet's dramatic career (See the Revue des Deux Mondes, 1865, and Dowden's Shakspere, His Mind and Art, pp. 425-427). Less well known is Mrs. F. A. Kemble's interpretation, contained in a MS. note in a copy of Hanmer's edition, and printed by

Furness.

"The Tempest is my favourite of Shakespeare's dramas. Chiefly I delight in this play, because of the image it presents to my mind of the glorious supremacy of the righteous human soul over all things by which it is surrounded. Prospero is to me the representative of wise and virtuous manhood in its true relation to the combined elements of existence, the physical powers of the external world, and the varieties of character with which it comes into voluntary, accidental, or enforced contact. Of the wonderful chain of being, of which Caliban is the densest and Ariel the most ethereal extreme, Prospero is the middle link. He-the wise and good man-is the ruling power, to whom the whole series is subject. First, and lowest in the scale, comes the gross and uncouth but powerful savage, who represents both the more ponderous and unwieldy natural elements (as the earth and water), which the wise magician by his knowledge compels to his service; and the brutal and animal propensities of the nature of man which he, the type of its noblest development, holds in lordly subjugation. -Next follow the drunken, ribald, foolish retainers of the king of Naples, whose ignorance, knavery, and stupidity represent the coarser attributes of those great, unenlightened masses which, in all communities, threaten authority by their conjunction with brute force and savage ferocity; and only under the wholesome restraint of a wise discipline can be gradually admonished into the salutary subserviency necessary for their civilization.-Ascending by degrees in the scale, the next group is that of the cunning, cruel, selfish, treacherous worldlings, Princes and Potentates, the peers, in outward circumstances of high birth and breeding, of the noble Prospero, whose villainous policy (not unaided by his own dereliction of his duties as a governor in the pursuit of his pleasure as a philosopher) triumphs over his fortune, and, through a devilish ability and craft, for a time gets the better of truth and virtue in his person.-From these, who represent the baser intellectual, as the former do the baser sensual, properties of humanity, we approach by a most harmonious, moral transition, through the agency of the skilfully interposed figure of the kindly gentleman, Gonzalo, those charming types of youth and love, -Ferdinand and Miranda. The fervent, chivalrous devotion of the youth, and the yielding simplicity and sweetness of the girl, are lovely representations of those natural emotions of tender sentiments and passionate desire which, watched and guided and guarded by the affectionate solicitude and paternal prudence of Prospero, are pruned of their lavish luxuriance, and supported in their violent weakness by the wise will that teaches forbearance and self-control as the only price at which these exquisite flowers of existence may unfold their blossoms in prosperous beauty and bear their rightful harvest of happiness as well as pleasure.-Next in this wonderful gamut of being, governed by the sovereign soul of Prospero, come the shining

figures of the Masque,-beautiful bright apparitions, fitly indicating the air, the fire, and all the more smiling aspects and subtler forces of nature. These minister with prompt obedience to the magical behests of science, and, when not toiling in appointed service for their great task-master, recreate and refresh his senses and his spirit with the ever-varying pageant of this beautiful Universe.-Lasthighest of all-crowning with a fitful flame of lambent brightness this poetical pyramid of existence, flickers and flashes the beautiful Demon, without whose exquisite companionship we never think of the royal magician with his grave countenance of command.-Ariel seems to me to represent the keenest perceiving intellect, separate from all moral consciousness and sense of responsibility. His power and knowledge are in some respects greater than those of his master, -he can do what Prospero cannot, -he lashes up the tempest round the island, he saves the king and his companions from shipwreck, -he defeats the conspiracy of Sebastian and Antonio, and discovers the clumsy plot of the beast Caliban, -he wields immediate influence over the elements, and comprehends alike without indignation or sympathy, which are moral results, the sin and suffering of humanity. Therefore, because he is only a spirit of knowledge, he is subject to the spirit of love, and the wild, subtle, keen, beautiful, powerful creature is compelled to serve with mutinous waywardness and unwilling subjection the human soul that pitied and rescued it from its harsher slavery to sin, and which, though controlling it with a wise severity to the fulfilment of its duties, yearns after it with the tearful eyes of tender human love when its wild wings flash away into its newly recovered realm of lawless liberty."

OUTLINE OF SHAKESPEARE'S PROSODY.

§ 1. Blank Verse. - The governing element of verse structure in English is different from that in Latin and Greek. In the classical languages quantity forms the basis of the prosody; in English its place is taken by stress. In O.E. poetry stress and alliteration had been the regulating factors; afterwards, as a genera rule, alliteration disappeared, except as an ornament, and syllabic equality was substituted, accompanied during the M.E. period by rhyme. The Earl of Surrey in his translation of part of the Eneid abandoned rhyme; and introduced blank verse, a sequence of five stressed and five unstressed syllables in rising rhythm (i.e. with the stress on the second syllable) without rhyme. This became the normal metrical form of the Elizabethan drama, e.g.

For this', | be sure', | to-night' | thou shalt' | have cramps' (i. 2. 325).