unfeeling favageness of this son of Sycorax, by making him enumerate, with a kind of horrible delight, the various ways in which it was poffible for the drunken failors to surprise and kill his master:

-There thou may'st brain him,

Having first feiz'd his books; or with a log
Batter his skull; or paunch him with a ftake;
Or cut his wezand with thy knife.-

He adds, in allufion to his own abominable attempt, "above all, be sure to fecure the daughter; whofe beauty, he tells them, is incomparable. The charms of Miranda could not be more exalted, than by extorting this teftimony from fo infenfible a monster.

Shakespeare seems to be the only poet who poffeffes the power of uniting poetry with propriety of character; of which I know not an instance more striking, than the image Calyban makes use of to express filence; which is at once highly poetical, and exactly fuited to the wildnefs of the fpeaker:

Pray you tread foftly, that the blind mole may not Hear a foot-fall.

I always lament, that our author has not preserved this fierce and implacable fpirit in Calyban to the end of the play; inftead of which, he has, I think, inju diciously put into his mouth words that imply repentance and understanding:

I'll be wife hereafter,

And feek for grace. What a thrice double
Was I, to take this drunkard for a God,
And worship this dull fool?

It must not be forgotten, that Shakespeare has artfully taken occafion, from this extraordinary character, which is finely contrasted to the mildnefs and obedience of Ariel, obliquely to fatirize the prevailing pal. fion for new and wonderful fights, which has rendered the English fo ridiculous. "Were I in England now," fays Trinculo, on firft difcovering Calyban, "and had but this fish painted, not an holiday fool: "there but would give a piece of filver. When they "will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they "will lay out ten to fee a dead Indian."

Such is the inexhaustible plenty of our poet's invertion, that he has exhibited another character in this play, entirely his own; that of the lovely and innecent Miranda.

When Profpero firft gives her a fight of prince Fer dinand, the eagerly exclaims,

What is't? a fpirit?

Lord, how it looks about!

Believe me, Sir,
It carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit.

Her imagining, that, as he was fo beautiful, he mu
neceffarily be one of her father's aërial agents, is a
stroke of nature worthy admiration: as are likewife
her intreaties to her father not to use him harshly, by
the power of his art:

Why speaks my father fo ungently? This

Is the third man that e'er I faw; the first
That e'er I figh'd for!

Here we perceive the beginning of that paffion, which
Profpero was defirous fhe fhould feel for the prince;
and which the afterwards more fully expreffes upon an

occafion

occafion which displays at once the tenderness, the innocence, and the fimplicity of her character. She dif covers her lover employed in the laborious task of carrying wood, which Profpero had enjoined him to perform. "Would," fays fhe," the lightning had "burnt up thofe logs, that you are enjoined to pile!"

-If you'll fit down,

I'll bear your logs the while. Pray, give me that: I'll carry't to the pile.

You look wearily.

It is by felecting fuch little, and almost imperceptible, circumftances, that Shakespeare has more truly painted the paffions than any other writer: affection is more powerfully expreffed by this fimple with and offer of affiftance, than by the unnatural eloquence and witticifms of Dryden, or the amorous declamations of Rowe.

The refentment of Profpero, for the matchlefs cruelty and wicked ufurpation of his brother, his parental affection and folicitude for the welfare of his daughter, the heiress of his dukedom,—and the awful folemnity of his character, as a skilful magician,—are all along preferved with equal confiftency, dignity, and decorum.-One part of his behaviour deferves to be particularly pointed out. During the exhibition of a mafk with which he had ordered Ariel to entertain Ferdinand and Miranda, he starts fuddenly from the recollection of the confpiracy of Calyban, and his confederates, against his life, and difmiffes his attendant fpirits, who inftantly vanish to a hollow and confused noife. He appears to be greatly moved; and faitably to this agitation of mind, which his danger has excited, VOL. III. I

he

he takes occafion, from the fudden disappearance of the vifionary scene, to moralize on the diffolution of all things:

-These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits; and
Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the bafelefs fabric of this vifion,
The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The folemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall diffolve;
And, like this unfubftantial pageant faded,
Leave not a wreck behind.-

To these noble images he adds a short but comprehenfive obfervation on human life, not excelled by any paffage of the moral and fententious Euripides:

-We are fuch stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a fleep!.

Thus admirably is an uniformity of character, that leading beauty in dramatic poefy, proferved throughout the tempeft. And it may be farther remarked, that the unities of action, of place, and of time, are in this play, though almost constantly violated by Shakefpeare, exactly obferved. The action is one, great,

:

and entire, the restoration of Profpero to his dukedom this bufinefs is tranfacted in the compass of a small island, and in or near the cave of Profpero ; though, indeed, it had been more artful and regular, to have confined it to this fingle spot: and the time which the action takes up, is only equal to that of the reprefentation; an excellence, which ought always to

be

be aimed at in every well-conducted fable; and for the want of which, a variety of the most entertaining incidents can scarcely atone.

Z.

No. XCVIII. Saturday, October 13. 1753.

Aude aliquid brevibus Gyaris, et carcere dignum,
Si vis effe aliquis.

Juv.

Would'st thou to honours and preferments climb ? Be bold in mischief; dare fome mighty crime, Which dungeons, death, or banishment, deserves. DRYDEN.

To the ADVENTURER.

DEAR BROTHER,

THE thirft of glory is, I think, allowed, even by the dull dogs who can fit ftill long enough to write books, to be a noble appetite.

My ambition is to be thought a man of life and fpirit; who could conquer the world, if he was to fet about it; but who has too much vivacity to give the neceffary attention to any scheme of length.