the proof of this fact is to be found in the points of resemblance between the two plays, which are far too striking and peculiar to be the result of accident. "It is true that the scene in which Ayrer's play is laid, and the names of the personages, differ from those of the TEMPEST; but the main incidents of the two plays are all but identically the same. For instance, in the German drama, Prince Ludolph and Prince Leudegast supply the places of Prospero and Alonzo. Ludolph, like Prospero, is a magician, and like him has an only daughter, Sidea-the Miranda of the TEMPEST-and an attendant spirit, Runcifal, who, though not strictly resembling either Ariel or Caliban, may well be considered as the primary type which suggested to the nimble fancy of our great dramatist those strongly yet admirably contrasted beings. Shortly after the commencement of the play, Ludolph having been vanquished by his rival, and with his daughter Sidea driven into a forest, rebukes her for complaining of their change of fortune; and then summons his spirit Runcifal to learn from him their future destiny, and prospects of revenge. Runcifal, who is, like Ariel, somewhat moody, announces to Ludolph that the son of his enemy will shortly become his prisoner. After a comic episode, most probably introduced by the German, we see Prince Leudegast, with his son Engelbrecht-the Ferdinand of the TEMPEST-and the councillors, hunting in the same forest; when Engelbrecht and his companion Famulus, having separated from their associates, are suddenly encountered by Ludolph and his daughter. He commands them to yield themselves prisoners; they refuse, and try to draw their swords, when, as Prospero tells Ferdinand I can here disarm thee with this stick, And make thy weapon drop so Ludolph, with his wand, keeps their swords in their scabbards, paralyzes Engelbrecht, and makes him confess his nerves are in their infancy again, And have no vigour in them; and when he has done so, gives him over as a slave to Sidea, to carry logs for her. 666 The resemblance between this scene and the parallel scene in the TEMPEST is rendered still more striking in a late part of the play, when Sidea, moved by pity for the labours of Engelbrecht, in carrying logs, declares to himI am your wife, if you will marry me ; an event which, in the end, is happily brought about, and leads to the reconciliation of their parents, the rival princes.'"-KNIGHT. "No novel, in prose or verse, to which Shakespeare resorted for the incidents of the TEMPEST, has yet been discovered; and although Collins, late in his brief career, mentioned to T. Warton that he had seen such a tale, it has never come to light; and we apprehend that he must have been mistaken. We have turned over the pages, we believe, of every Italian novelist, anterior to the age of Shakespeare, in hopes of finding some story containing traces of the incidents of the TEMPEST, but without success. The ballad entitled the Inchanted Island' is a more modern production than the play, from which it varies in the names, as well as in some points of the story, as if for the purpose of concealing its connection with a production which was popular on the stage. Our opinion decidedly is, that it was founded upon the TEMPEST, and not upon any ancient narrative to which Shakespeare also might have been indebted. It may be remarked, that here also no locality is given to the island: on the contrary, we are told, if it ever had any existence but in the imagination of the Poet, that it had disappeared :— From that daie forth the Isle has beene By wandering sailors never seene: Some say 'tis buryed deepe Beneath the sea, which breakes and rores Nor ere is knowne to sleepe. "Mr. Thoms has pointed out some resemblances in the incidents of an early German play, entitled Die Schöne Sidea, and the TEMPEST: his theory is, that a drama upon a similar story was at an early date performed in Germany, and that if it were not taken from Shakespeare's play, it was perhaps derived from the same unknown source. Mr. Thoms is preparing a translation of it for the Shakespeare Society, and we shall then be better able to form an opinion as to the real or supposed connection between the two."-COLLIER. Collins's conversation with Warton was some time between 1750 and 1756, and as the most diligent search of the antiquarians and commentators, for ninety years, have resulted as Mr. Collier's late persevering investigations have done, the inference is very strong that this supposed lost Italian novel was a delusion of the unfortunate poet's shattered mind, in which his recollections of the TEMPEST itself mingled with his imagination, till the whole took the form of a romance formerly read and imperfectly remembered. For such a delusion, in an enfeebled and disturbed state of mind, his previous habits of thought and fancy had predisposed him. "He had employed his mind (says his biographer) chiefly upon works of fiction and subjects of fancy. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens." I am equally incredulous on the subject of the origin of the TEMPEST in an older English play, preserved only in a German translation. The resemblance, even as stated by Tieck and Thoms, seems little more than of the magical machinery, which might well have come from the common origin of some old tale of fairies or magic. There is good reason to believe that the early accounts of the Bermudas, then very lately made known to the English public, suggested to the Poet the general idea of his enchanted island, and gave it much of its picturesque and supernatural character. But it is very strange that so many of the critics, from the dull Chalmers to the imaginative Mrs. Jameson, have taken it for granted that the Poet actually "placed the scene of his drama there." Ariel's flight from a "nook of the isle" to fetch dew from "the still-vex'd Bermoothes," while it shows that the Bermudas were in the Poet's mind, shows also that in his imagination they were far distant from the island of his To this there fancy. Mr. Hunter maintained that the island is Lampedusa, between Malta and the African coast. can be no very especial objections, although any other island, real or imaginary, in the Mediterranean or the Atlantic, would answer as well. SCENE I.-On a Ship at Sea. A tempestuous noise of Thunder and Lightning. Enter a Shipmaster, and a Boatswain. Master. Boatswain? Boats. Here, master: what cheer? Mast. Good. Speak to the mariners: fall to't yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir. [Exit. Enter Mariners. Boats. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare. Take in the top-sail; tend to the master's whistle.-Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough! Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, GONZALO, and others. Alon. Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master? Play the men. Boats. I pray now, keep below. Ant. Where is the master, boatswain? Boats. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour. Keep your cabins; you do assist the storm. Gon. Nay, good, be patient. Boats. When the sea is. Hence! What care these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not. Gon. Good; yet remember whom thou hast aboard. Boats. None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor: if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more; use your authority: if you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.-Cheerly, good hearts!-Out of our way, I say. [Exit. Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks, he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. Mar. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost! [Exeunt. Boats. What! must our mouths be cold? Gon. The king and prince at prayers! let us assist them, For our case is as theirs. Seb. I am out of patience. Ant. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards. This wide-chapp'd rascal,—would, thou might'st lie drowning, The washing of ten tides! Gon. [A confused noise within.]-Mercy on us!-We [Exit. [Exit. I have done nothing but in care of thee, More to know 'Tis time I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand, And pluck my magic garment from me.-So: [Lays down his mantle. Lie there my art.-Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort. The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. For thou must now know further. Mira. You have often Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd, And left me to a bootless inquisition, Concluding, "Stay, not yet." Pro. The hour's now come, And rather like a dream, than an assurance Pro. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it, That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else Mira. But that I do not. Pro. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since, Thy father was the duke of Milan, and A prince of power. Mira. Sir, are not you my father? Pro. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and She said-thou wast my daughter; and thy father Was duke of Milan, and his only heir And princess no worse issued. Mira. O, the heavens! O! my heart bleeds To think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to, Which is from my remembrance. Please you, further. Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio,— I pray thee, mark me, that a brother should Be so perfidious!-he whom, next thyself, Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put The manage of my state; as, at that time, Through all the signiories it was the first, (And Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed In dignity,) and, for the liberal arts, Without a parallel: those being all my study, The government I cast upon my brother, And to my state grew stranger, being transported, And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncleDost thou attend me? Mira. Sir, most heedfully. Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them, whom t' advance, and whom To trash for over-topping, new created The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd them, Or else new form'd them: having both the key not. Mira. O good sir! I do. He was indeed the duke; out o' the substitution, Mira. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness. Pro. To have no screen between this part he play'd, And him he play'd it for, he needs will be O the heavens! Mira. Pro. Mark his condition, and th' event; then tell me, If this might be a brother. Mira. I should sin This king of Naples, being an enemy To me inveterate, harkens my brother's suit; Mira. Alack, for pity! So dear the love my people bore me, nor set Bore us some leagues to sea, where they prepar'd Alack! what trouble |