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SCENE I.-On a Ship at Sea. A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard.

MASTER. Good, speak to the mariners fall Enter a Ship-master and a Boatswain severally. to't yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir,

bestir.

[Exit.

MASTER. Boatswain !

BOATS. Here, master: what cheer?

a Yarely,-] Briskly, nimbly, actively.

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what care

GON. Nay, good, be patient. BOATS. When the sea is. 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 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. [Exeunt.

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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 's assist them, For our case is as theirs. SEB. I'm out of patience. ANT. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards ::

This wide-chapp'd rascal,―would thou mightst lie. drowning,

The washing of ten tides !

GON. He'll be hang'd yet, Though every drop of water swear against it, And gape at wid'st to glut him.

[A confused noise within.]—Mercy on us !— We split, we split !—Farewell, my wife and children!

Farewell, brother! We split, we split, we split !—(1) [Exit Boatswain.

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mounting to the welkin's cheek,-] Although we have, in "Richard II." Act III. Sc. 2,-" the cloudy cheeks of heaven," and elsewhere, "welkin's face," and "heaven's face," it may well be questioned whether "cheek," in this place, is not a misprint. Mr. Collier's annotator substitutes heat, a change characterised by Mr. Dyce as "equally tasteless and absurd." A more appropriate and expressive word, one, too, sanctioned in some measure by its occurrence in Ariel's description of the same elemental conflict, is probably, crack, or cracks,

"the fire, and cracks

Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege," &c.

In Miranda's picture of the tempest, the sea is seen to storm and overwhelm the tremendous artillery of heaven; in that of Ariel,

It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and The fraughting souls within her.

PRO. Be collected; No more amazement: tell your piteous heart There's no harm done.

MIRA. PRO.

O, woe the day!

No harm.

I have done nothing but in care of thee,

the sky's ordnance, "the fire and cracks," assault the "mighty Neptune." Crack, in the emphatic sense it formerly bore of crash, discharge, or explosion, is very common in our old writers; thus, in Marlowe's "Tamburlaine the Great," Part I. Act IV. Sc. 2,

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that there is no soul-] Rowe prints,

"that there is no soul lost;"

Theobald, "that there is no foyle;" and Johnson, "that there is no goil." We believe, notwithstanding Steevens' remark that "such interruptions are not uncommon to Shakspeare," that "soul" is a typographical error, and that the author wrote, as Capell reads, "that there is no loss,

No, not so much perdition as an hair

Betid to any creature," &c.

You have often, &c.] Query, "You have oft," &c.

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I

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 uncle-
Dost thou attend me?

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PRO. Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them, who to advance, and who To trash for over-topping,-new created The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd 'em, Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was The ivy which had hid my princely trunk, And suck'd my verdure out on't.-Thou attend'st not.

MIRA. O good sir, I do.

PRO.

I pray thee, mark me. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated To closeness, and the bettering of my mind With that, which, but by being so retir'd, O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother Awak'd an evil nature; and my trust,

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Like a good parent, did beget of him
A falsehood, in its contrary as great
As my trust was; which had indeed no limit,
A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
But what my power might else exact,-like one
Who having unto truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie,--he did believe

He was indeed the duke; out o' the substitution,
And executing the outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative:—hence his ambition grow-
ing,-

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PRO.

Now the condition. This king of Naples, being an enemy To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit; Which was, that he, in lieu o' the premises Of homage, and I know not how much tribute, Should presently extirpate me and mine Out of the dukedom, and confer fair Milan, With all the honours, on my brother: whereon, A treacherous army levied, one midnight Fated to the purpose, did Antonio open The gates of Milan; and, i' the dead of darkness, The ministers for the purpose hurried thence Me, and thy crying self. MIRA.

C

I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then,
Will cry it o'er again: it is a hint
That wrings my eyes to't.

PRO.

[SCENE II.

Hear a little further,

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So dear the love my people bore me,―nor set
A mark so bloody on the business; but
With colours fairer painted their foul ends.
In few, they hurried us aboard a bark,

Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepar'd
A rotten carcass of a boat,* not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
Instinctively have quit it: there they hoist us,
To cry to the sea that roar'd to us; to sigh
To the winds, whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong.

MIRA.

Was I then to you?

PRO.

Alack, what trouble

O, a cherubin

Thou wast that did preserve me!

smile,

Thou didst

Infused with a fortitude from heaven,
When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt;
Under my burthen groan'd; which rais'd in me
An undergoing stomach, to bear up

Against what should ensue.

MIRA.

How came we ashore?

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and this emendation is entitled to more respect than it has received.

b In lieu-] In lieu means here, in guerdon, or consideration; not as it usually signifies, instead, or in place.

e Fated to the purpose,-] Mr. Collier's annctator reads,— "Fated to the practice;" and as "purpose" is repeated two lines below, the substitution is an improvement.

d In few, To be brief; in a few words.

e Deck'd-] Decked, if not a corruption for degged, an old provincialism, probably meant the same, that is, sprinkled.

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