ALON. Irreparable is the loss; and patience

Says, it is past her cure.

PRO.

I rather think,
You have not fought her help
of whose soft grace,
For the like lofs, I have her fovereign aid,

And reft myself content.

PRO. As great to me, as late;
and, portable
To make the dear lofs, have I means much weaker

Than you may call to comfort you; for I
Have loft my daughter.

O heavens! that they were living both in Naples,
The king and queen there! that they were, I wish
Myfelf were mudded in that oozy bed

Where my fon lies. When did you lofe your

daughter?

PRO. In this last tempeft. I perceive, these lords
At this encounter do fo much admire,
That they devour their reason; and scarce think
Their eyes do offices of truth, their words

Are natural breath: but, howfoe'er you have

So, in the play of The Four Ps, 1569:

But be ye fure I would be woe

"That you should chance to begyle me so." STEEVENS.

"With other graces weigh'd."

The old copy unmetrically reads - " fupportable.

STEEVENS

Are natural breath :) An anonymous correfpondent thinks that

their is a corruption, and that we should read - these words.
conje&ure appears not improbable. The lords had no doubt con-
cerning themselves. Their doubts related only to Prospero, whom
they at first apprehend to be some " inchanted trifle to abufe

His

1

Been juftled from your fenfes, know for certain,
That I am Profpero, and that very duke
Which was thrust forth of Milan;

strangely

who most

Upon this shore, where you were wreck'd, was

landed,

To be the lord on't. No more yet of this;
For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,
Not a relation for a breakfast, nor

Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, fir;
This cell's my court: here have I few attendants,
And fubjects none abroad: pray you, look in.
My dukedom since you have given me again,
I will requite you with as good a thing;
At least, bring forth a wonder, to content ye,
As much as me my dukedom.

The entrance of the cell opens, and discovers FERDI-
NAND and MIRANDA playing at chefs."

\

MIRA. Sweet lord, you play me falfe.

FER.

I would not for the world.

No, my deareft love,

MIRA. Yes, for a score of kingdoms, you

should wrangle,

And I would call it fair play.

them." They doubt, fays he, whether what they fee and hear is a mere allufion; whether the perfon they behold is a living mortal, whether the words they hear are spoken by a human creature.

MALONE.

9-playing at chefs.) Shakspeare might not have ventured to engage his hero and hergine at this game, had he not found Huon de Bordeaux and his Princess employed in the fame mauner. See the Romance of Huon, &c. chapter 53. edit. 1601: "How King Ivoryn caused his daughter to play at the cheffe with Huon." &c.

2

STEEVENS.

Yes, for a score of kingdoms, &c.] I take the sense to be only this: Ferdinand would not, he fays, play her falfe for the world: yes,

L4

FER. Though the feas threaten, they are mer

ciful:

I have curs'd them without caufe.

ALON.

[FERD. kneels to ALON.

Now all the bleffings

Of a glad father compass thee about!

Arife, and fay how thou cam'ft here.

MIRA.

How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

That has fuch people in't!

PRO.

'Tis new to thee.

ALON. What is this maid, with whom thou waft

at play?

Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours;

Is the the goddess that hath fever'd us,

And brought us thus together?

FER.

Sir, she's mortal;

But, by immortal providence, she's mine;
I chose her when I could not ask my father
For his advice; nor thought I had one: she

answers she, I would allow you to do it for something less than the world, for twenty kingdoms, and I wish you well enough to allow you, after a little wrangle, that your play was fair. likewife Dr. Grey. JOHNSON.

So

I would recommend another punctuation, and then the sense would be as follows:

Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle, " And I would call it fair play;

because such a contest would be worthy of you.

"'Tis honour, with most lands to be at odds," says Alcibiades, in Timon of Athens. STEEVENS.

Is daughter to this famous duke of Milan,
Of whom fo often I have heard renown,
But never faw before; of whom I have
Receiv'd a fecond life, and fecond father

This lady makes him to me.

ALON.

I am hers:

But O, how oddly will it found, that I

Must ask my child forgiveness!

PRO.

Let us not burden our remembrances3

With a heaviness that's gone.

GON.

There, fir, stop;

I have inly wept,

Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you

gods,

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 fet 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; Profpero his dukedom, In a poor ifle; and all of us, ourselves, When no man was his own.4

3 -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 unneceffary. MALONE.

4 When no man was his own.] For when perhaps should be readwhere. JOHNSON.

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 ALON.

Give me your hands:

[To FER. and MIR.

Let grief and forrow still embrace his heart,

That doth not with you joy!

GON.

Be't fo! Amen!

Rc-enter ARIEL, with the Master and Boatswain

amazedly following.

O look, fir, look, fir, here are more of us.!
I prophefy'd if a gallows were on land,
This fellow could not drown:-Now blafphemy,
That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on

fhore?

Haft 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 fea.

ARI.

Sir, all this fervice

Have I done fince I went.
PRO.

My tricksy spirit!'

[Afide.

ALON. These are not natural events; they strengthen,

ifland, because the mind of Profpero, who lived in it, had not been difordered. It is ftill faid, 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 ufes the fame word in The Merchant of Venice:

that for a tricksy word

Defy the matter."

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

invent and feek out

To make them go trickfie, gallaunt and cleane."

STEEVENS.

K