For his advice; nor thought I had one: she
Is daughter to this famous duke of Milan,
Of whom so often I have heard renown,
But never saw before; of whom I have
Received a second life, and second father
This lady makes him to me.

ALON.

I am hers: But O, how oddly will it sound, that I Must ask my child forgiveness!

PRO.

Let us not burden our remembrances
With a heaviness that's gone.

GON. Or should have spoke ere this. gods,

There, sir, stop;

8

I have inly wept,
Look down, you

And on this couple drop a blessed crown;
For it is you, that have chalk'd forth the way
Which brought us hither!

ALON.
I say, Amen, Gonzalo !
GON. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his
issue

Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy; and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars: In one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis;
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife,
Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom,

8

Our REMEMBRANCES] By the mistake of the transcriber the word with being placed at the end of this line, Mr. Pope and the subsequent editors, for the sake of the metre, read- -remembrance. The regulation now made renders change unneWe have the same phraseology in Coriolanus: "One thus descended,

cessary.

"To be set high in place, we did commend,

"To your remembrances." MALONE.

It should be recollected that a redundant syllable at the commencement of a line was common in the poetry of our author's time. Boswell.

In a poor isle; and all of us, ourselves,
When no man was his own 9.

ALON.

Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart,
That doth not wish you joy!

GON.

Give me your hands: [To FER. and MIR.

Be't so! Amen!

Re-enter ARIEL, with the Master and Boatswain amazedly following.

O look, sir, look, sir; here are more of us!
I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,
This fellow could not drown :-Now, blasphemy,
That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on

shore ?

Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news? BOATS. The best news is, that we have safely found

Our king, and company: the next our ship,-
Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split,-
Is tight, and yare, and bravely rigg'd, as when
We first put out to sea.

ARI.

Have I done since I went.

PRO.

Sir, all this service

I

My tricksy spirit'!

66

9 WHEN no man was his own.] For when, perhaps should be read-where. JOHNSON.

Aside.

When is certainly right; i. e. at a time when no one was in his senses. Shakspeare could not have written where, [i. e. in the island,] because the mind of Prospero, who lived in it, had not been disordered. It is still said, in colloquial language that a madman is not his own man, i. e. is not master of himself.

STEEVENS.

My TRICKSY Spirit !] Is, I believe, my clever, adroit spirit. Shakspeare uses the same word in The Merchant of Venice : that for a tricksy word

66

Defy the matter."

So, in the interlude of The Disobedient Child, bl. 1. no date :

ALON. These are not natural events; they strengthen,

From strange to stranger:-Say, how came you hither?

BOATS. If I did think, sir, I were well awake, I'd strive to tell you. We were dead on sleep 2, And (how, we know not,) all clapp'd under hatches,

invent and seek out

"To make them go tricksie, gallaunt and cleane."

STEEVENS.

Tricksie also signifies neat, elegantly adorned. See Florio's Dictionary, 1593: "Nimfarsi, to trim, to smug, to trixie, to deck, or spruce himself up as a nymph." The same writer interprets Pargoletta, "quaint, pretty, nimble, trixie, tender, small." See also Minsheu's Dict. To trick, to trim. MALONE.

Trick, of which tricksy was perhaps the diminutive, was an old adjective, which signified good-looking. So, in The most wonderful and pleasant History of Titus and Gisippus, &c. drawn into English metre by Edward Lewicke, 1562 :

For good cates then he did not sticke,
"But toke thinges his health to restore,
So that shortely he waxed tricke

66

"In figure as he was before." BOSWELL. dead or sleep.] Thus the old copy. -asleep.

2

Modern editors

Mr. Malone would substitute-on; but on (in the present instance) is only a vulgar corruption of-of. We still say, that a person dies of such or such a disorder; and why not that he is dead of sleep? STEEVENS.

"On sleep" was the ancient English phraseology. So, in Gascoigne's Supposes: "knock again, I think they be on sleep."

66

Again, in a song said to have been written by Anna Boleyn : "O death, rock me on slepe."

Again, in Campion's History of Ireland, 1633: "One officer in the house of great men is a tale-teller, who bringeth his lord on sleep with tales vaine and frivolous." MALOne.

In these instances adduced by Mr. Malone, on sleep, most certainly means asleep; but they do not militate against my explanation of the phrase-" dead of sleep." STEEVENS.

They shew that on sleep was an old English phrase, while Mr. Steevens has produced no instance to justify his explanation.

MALONE.

Where, but even now, with strange and several noises

Of roaring, shrieking, howling, gingling chains,
And more diversity of sounds, all horrible,
We were awak'd; straitway, at liberty:
Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld
Our royal, good, and gallant ship; our master
Capering to eye her: on a trice, so please you,
Even in a dream, were we divided from them,
And were brought moping hither.

ARI.

Was't well done?

PRO. Bravely, my diligence. Thou shalt Aside.

be free.

ALON. This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod: And there is in this business more than nature Was ever conduct of3: some oracle

Must rectify our knowledge.

PRO.

Sir, my liege, Do not infest your mind with beating on The strangeness of this business; at pick'd leisure,

3

CONDUCT of:] Conduct, for conductor. So, in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour :

66

Come, gentlemen, I will be your conduct." STEEVENS. So, in Romeo and Juliet :

“Come, bitter conduct; come, unsavoury guide."

MALONE. Again, in The Householder's Philosophie, 4to. 1588, p. 1: “I goe before, not to arrogat anie superioritie, but as your guide, because, perhaps you are not well acquainted with the waie. Fortune (quoth I) doth favour mee with too noble a conduct.”

REED.

Conduct is yet used in the same sense: the person at Cambridge who reads prayers in King's and in Trinity College Chapels, is still so styled. HENLEY.

4 with BEATING On

The strangeness, &c.] A similar expression occurs in The Second Part of King Henry VI. :

""

thine eyes and thoughts "Beat on a crown."

Which shall be shortly, single I'll resolve you (Which to you shall seem probable,) of every These happen'd accidents: till when, be cheerful, And think of each thing well.-Come hither, spirit; [Aside.

Set Caliban and his companions free :
Untie the spell. [Exit ARIEL.] How fares my gra-

cious sir?

There are yet missing of your company
Some few odd lads, that you remember not.

Re-enter ARIEL, driving in CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, in their stolen apparel.

STE. Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man take care for himself; for all is but fortune:Coragio, bully-monster, Coragio !

Beating may mean hammering, working in the mind, dwelling long upon. So, in the preface to Stanyhurst's translation of Virgil, 1582: "For my part, I purpose not to beat on everye childish tittle that concerneth prosodie." Again, Miranda, in the second scene of this play, tells her father that the storm is still beating in her mind. STEEVENS.

A kindred expression occurs in Hamlet:

66

Cudgel thy brains no more about it."

MALONE.

5 (Which to you SHALL SEEM PROBABLE,)] These words seem, at the first view, to have no use; some lines are perhaps lost with which they were connected. Or we may explain them thus: I will resolve you, by yourself, which method, when you hear the story [of Antonio's and Sebastian's plot], shall seem probable; that is, shall deserve your approbation.' JOHNSON.

Surely Prospero's meaning is: "I will relate to you the means by which I have been enabled to accomplish these ends; which means, though they now appear strange and improbable, will then appear otherwise." ANONYMOUS.

I will inform you how all these wonderful accidents have happened; which, though they now appear to you strange, will then seem probable.

An anonymous writer pointed out the true construction of this passage; but I have not adopted his explanation, which is, I think, incorrect. MALONE.

6

Coragio!] This exclamation of encouragement I find in J. Florio's Translation of Montaigne, 1603: VOL. XV.

N