cry

did knock

against my very heart Poer souls they peristid.

Printed for John Cawthorn 5 Catherine Street Strand Ang.23.1805.

THE TEMPEST,

BY

Will. Shakspere :

Printed Complete from the TEXT of

SAM. JOHNSON and GEO. STEEVENS,
And revised from the last Editions.

When Learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes,
First rear'd the Stage, immortal SHAKSPERE rose;
Each change of many-colour'd life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new:
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain:
His pow'rful strokes presiding Truth confess'd,
And unresisted Passion storm'd the breast.

ENTR

LONDON:

DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

PRINTED FOR

JOHN CAWTHORN, 5, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND,
Bookseller to Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales.

1806.

Printed by T. Collins, Harvey's Buildings, Strand.

OBSERVATIONS

ON THE Fable AND Composition or
THE TEMPEST.

THE Tempest and The Midsummer-Night's Dream, are the noblest efforts of that sublime and amazing imagination peculiar to Shakspere, which soars above the bounds of nature without forsaking sense; or, more properly, carries nature along with him beyond her established limits. Fletcher seems particularly to have admired these two plays, and hath wrote two in imitation of them, The Sea Voyage, and The Faithful Shepherdess. After him, Sir John Suckling and Milton catched the brightest fire of their imagination from these two plays; which shines fantastically indeed, in The Goblins, but much more nobly and serenely in The Mask at Ludlow-Castle. WARBURTON.

No one has been hitherto lucky enough to discover the romance on which Shakspere may be supposed to have founded this play, the beauties of which could not secure it from the criticism of Ben Jonson, whose malignity appears to have been more than equal to his wit. In the Induction to Bartholemew Fair, he says: "If there be never "a servant monster in the fair, who can help it, nor a nest "of antiques? He is loth to make nature afraid in his plays, "like those that beget Tales, Tempests, and such like "drolleries." STEEVENS,

It is observed of The Tempest, that its plan is regular; this, the author of the Revisal thinks, which I think too, an accidental effect of the story, not intended or regarded by our author. But whatever might be Shakspere's intention in forming or adopting the plot, he hath made it instrumental to the production of many characters diversified with boundJess invention, and preserved with profound skill in nature,

A ij

extensive

extensive knowledge of opinions, and accurate observation of life. In single drama are here exhibited princes, courtiers, and sailors, all speaking in their real characters. Here is the agency of airy spirits, and of an earthly goblin. The operations of magick, the tumults of a storm, the adventures of a desart island, the native effusion of untaught affection, the punishment of guilt, and the final happiness of the pair for whom our passions and reason are equally interested. JOHNSON,

Dramatis Personae ;

ALONZO, King of Naples.

SEBASTIAN, his Brother.

MEN.

PROSPERO, the rightful Duke of Milan,

ANTHONIO, his Brother, the usurping Duke of Milan.

FERDINAND, Son to the King of Naples.

GONZALO, an honest old Counsellor of Naples.

ADRIAN,

FRANCISCO, Lords.

CALIBAN, a Savage and deformed Slave.

TRINCULO, a Jester.

STEPHANO, a drunken Butler.

Master of a Ship, Boatswain, and Mariners.

Other Spirits attending on Prospero.

SCENE, the Sea, with a Ship; afterwards an uninhabited Island.