Ste. Put off that gown, Trinculo; by this hand I'll have that gown.

Trin. Thy grace shall have it.

Cal. The dropsy drown this fool! what do you mean, To doat thus on such luggage? Let's along,*

And do the murder first: if he awake,

From toe to crown he'll fill our skins with pinches ;
Make us strange stuff.

Ste. Be you quiet, monster.-Mistress line, is not this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line:5 now jerkin, you are like to lose your hair, and prove a bald jerkin.

Beaumont and Fletcher use the word in this sense, in Wit without Money, Act II:

"As if I were a running frippery."

So, in Monsieur d'Olive, a comedy, by Chapman, 1606: "Passing yesterday by the frippery, I spied two of them hanging out at a stall, with a gambrell thrust from shoulder to shoulder."

The person, who kept one of these shops, was called a fripper. Strype, in the life of Stowe, says, that these frippers lived in Birchin Lane and Cornhill. Steevens.

4 Let's along,] First edit. Let's alone. Johnson. I believe the poet wrote:

Let it alone,

"And do the murder first."

Caliban had used the same expression before. Mr. Theobald reads-Let's along. Malone.

Let's alone, may mean-Let you and I only go to commit the murder, leaving Trinculo, who is so solicitous about the trash of dress, behind us. Steevens.

5

under the line:] An allusion to what often happens to people, who pass the line. The violent fevers, which they contract in that hot climate, make them lose their hair.

Edwards's MSS.

Perhaps the allusion is to a more indelicate disease, than any peculiar to the equinoxial.

So, in The Noble Soldier, 1632:

""Tis hot going under the line there."

Again, in Lady Alimony, 1659:

"Where you inhabit; that's the torrid zone:
"Yea, there goes the hair away."

Shakspeare seems to design an equivoque between the equi. noxial, and the girdle of a woman.

It may be necessary, however, to observe, as a further elucidation of this miserable jest, that the lines, on which clothes are hung, are usually made of twisted horse-hair. Steevens.

Trin. Do, do: We steal by line and level, and 't like your grace.

Ste. I thank thee for that jest; here's a garment for 't: wit shall not go unrewarded, while I am king of this country: Steal by line and level, is an excellent pass of pate; there's another garment for 't.

Trin. Monster, come, put some lime upon your gers, and away with the rest.

fin

Cal. I will have none on 't: we shall lose our time, And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes7

With foreheads villainous low.8

Ste. Monster, lay-to your fingers; help to bear this away, where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out of my kingdom: go to, carry this.

6

put some lime, &c.] That is, birdlime. Johnson. So, in Green's Disputation between a He and She Conycatcher, 1592: "-mine eyes are stauls, and my hands lime twigs."

Steevens.

7 — to barnacles, or to apes -] Skinner says barnacle is Anser Scoticus. The barnacle is a kind of shell-fish growing, on the bottoms of ships, and which was anciently supposed, when broken off, to become one of these geese. Hall, in his Virgidemiarum, Lib. IV. sat. 2, seems to favour this supposition:

"The Scottish barnacle, if I might choose,

"That of a worme doth waxe a winged goose," &c. So likewise Marston, in his Malecontent, 1604:

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like your Scotch barnacle, now a block,

"Instantly a worm, and presently a great goose." "There are" (says Gerard, in his Herbal, edit. 1597, page 1391) "in the north parts of Scotland, certaine trees, whereon do grow shell-fishes, &c. &c. which falling into the water, do become fowls, whom we call barnakles; in the north of England brant geese; and in Lancashire tree geese," &c.

This vulgar error deserves no serious confutation. Commend me, however, to Holinshed, (Vol. I. p. 38.) who declares himself to have seen the feathers of these barnacles "hang out of the shell at least two inches." And in the 27th song of Drayton's Polyolbion, the same account of their generation is given. Collins. 8 With foreheads villainous low.] Low foreheads were anciently reckoned among deformities. So, in the old bl. 1. ballad, entitled A Peerlesse Paragon:

"Her beetle brows all men admire,

"Her forehead wondrous low."

Again, (the quotation is Mr. Malone's) in Antony and Cleopatra: And her forehead

66

"As low, as she would wish it." Steevens.

Trin. And this.

Ste. Ay, and this.

A noise of hunters heard.

Enter divers Spirits, in shape

of hounds, and hunt them about; PROSPERO and ARIEL

setting them on.

Pro. Hey, Mountain, hey!

Ari. Silver! there it goes, Silver!

Pro. Fury, Fury! there, Tyrant, there! hark, hark! [CAL. STE. and TRIN. are driven out. Go, charge my goblins that they grind their joints

With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews,
With aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make them,
Than pard, or cat o' mountain.

Ari.

Hark, they roar. Pro. Let them be hunted soundly: At this hour Lie at my mercy all mine enemies:

Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou

Shalt have the air at freedom: for a little,
Follow, and do me service.

[Exeunt.

ACT V..... SCENE I.

Before the Cell of Prospero.

Enter PROSPERO in his magick robes; and ARIEL.
Pro. Now does my project gather to a head:
My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time
Goes upright with his carriage.1 How's the day?

9 A noise of hunters heard.] Shakspeare might have had in view "Arthur's Chase," which many believe to be in France, and think that it is a kennel of black dogs, followed by unknown huntsmen with an exceeding great sound of horns, as if it was a very hunting of some wild beast." See a Treatise of Spectres, translated from the French of Peter de Loier, and published in quarto, 1605. Grey.

"HECATE, (says the same writer, ibid.) as the Greeks affirmed, did use to send dogges unto men, to feare and terrifie them." Malone.

Goes upright with his carriage.] Alluding to one, carrying a burthen. This critical period of my life proceeds as I could wish.

་

Ari. On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord,
You said our work should cease.

Pro.

When first I rais'd the tempest.
How fares the king and his?2

Ari.

I did say so,

Say, my spirit,

Confin'd together

In the same fashion, as you gave in charge:
Just as you left them, sir; all prisoners

In the lime-grove, which weather-fends your cell;
They cannot budge, till your release.3
The king,
His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted;
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brim-full of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly
Him you term'd, sir, The good old lord Gonzalo;
His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops

From eaves of reeds: your charm so strongly works them,
That if you now beheld them, your affections

Would become tender.

Pro.

Dost thou think so, spirit?

Ari. Mine would, sir, were I human.
Pro.

And mine shall.

Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling*
Of their afflictions? and shall not myself,

One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,

Passion as they," be kindlier mov'd than thou art?

Time brings forward all the expected events, without faultering under his burthen. Steevens.

2

the king and his ?] The old copy reads—“ the king and his followers?" But the word followers is evidently an interpolation, (or gloss which had crept into the text,) and spoils the metre, without help to the sense. In King Lear, we have the phraseology I have ventured to recommend:

3

"To thee and thine, hereditary ever," &c. Steevens.

till your release.] i. e. till you release them. Malone. 4 ―a touch, a feeling -] A touch is a sensation. So, in Cymbeline:

a touch more rare

"Subdues all pangs, all fears."

So, in the 141st sonnet of Shakspeare:

"Nor tender feeling to base touches prone."

Again, in the Civil Wars of Daniel, B. I:

5

"I know not how their death gives such a touch." Steevens.

that relish all as sharply,

Passion as they,] I feel every thing with the same quick sensi bility, and am moved by the same passions, as they are.

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick, Yet, with my nobler reason, 'gainst my fury

Do I take part: the rarer action is

In virtue, than in vengeance: they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown further: Go, release them, Ariel;
My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,
And they shall be themselves.

Ari.

I'll fetch them, sir. [Exit. Pro. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and

groves;6

A similar thought occurs in K. Richard II:

"Taste grief, need friends, like you." &c. Steevens.

6 Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;] This speech Dr. Warburton rightly observes, to be borrowed from Medea's in Ovid: and, "it proves, (says Mr. Holt,) beyond contradiction, that Shakspeare was perfectly acquainted with the sentiments of the ancients on the subject of inchantments." The original lines are these:

“Auræque, & venti, montesque, amnesque, lacusque,

'Diique omnes nemorum, diique omnes noctis, adeste." The translation of which, by Golding, is by no means literal, and Shakspeare hath closely followed it. Farmer.

Whoever will take the trouble of comparing this whole passage with Medea's speech, as translated by Golding, will see evidently that Shakspeare copied the translation, and not the original. The particular expressions, that seem to have made an impression on his mind, are printed in Italicks:

"Ye ayres and windes, ye elves of hills, of brookes, of woodes alone, "Of standing lakes, and of the night, approche ye everych one. Through help of whom (the crooked bankes much wondering at the thing)

66

"

"I have compelled streames to run clear backward to their spring. By charms I make the calm sea rough, and make the rough seas playne,

"And cover all the skie with clouds, and chase them thence again. By charms I raise and lay the windes, and burst the viper's jaw, "And from the bowels of the earth both stones and trees do draw. "Whole woods and forrests I remove, I make the mountains shake, "And even the earth itself to groan and fearfully to quake. "I call up dead men from their graves, and thee, O lightsome

moone,

"I darken oft, though beaten brass abate thy peril soone. "Our sorcerie dimmes the morning faire, and darks the sun at noone. "The flaming breath of fierie bulles ye quenched for my sake, "And caused their unwieldy neckes the bended yoke to take. Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortal warre did set, "And brought asleep, the dragon fell, whose eyes were never shet." Malone.