distinction between good and evil, and of culpable indifference to the cause of virtue and the ends of justice. Here we see ingratitude, fraud, violence and iniquity of every kind exposed and punished in the persons of the enemies of Prospero; innocence, chastity and virtue beautifully exemplified and happily rewarded in Ferdinand and Miranda. Prospero represents a wise and good man employing irresistable power for the noblest and best purposes, and in a striking degree displaying the divine. excellence of the great christian precept--forgiveness of injuries. Even the light and lively Ariel becomes a moralizer, and concludes his just reproof of the detected culprits with an exhortation to repentance and amendment of life,, as the sole means of restoring them to Heavenly favour:

The Powers, delaying-not forgetting, have

Incensed the sea and shores, yea all the creatures
Against your peace.-

-whose wrath to guard you from

Is nothing but-heart's sorrow,

And a clear life ensuing.

Of the Tempest, at least, it cannot be said that the author became impatient towards the close, and precipitated the conclusion: it proceeds regularly to its end, qualis ab incepto, and some of the most beautiful passages will be found in Prospero's speeches in the fifth act. Of these I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of quoting some parts, and trust that it will make some amends to the reader for having tired him with so much of my own. To Ariel, relating the compunction and distress of the King's party, and his own feelings on the occasion, he says

:

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,

Passioned as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th' 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 farther

Scene 2nd.-Prosp. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,
And ye, that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune; and do fly him,
When he comes back; you demi-puppets, that
By moonshine do the green four ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid
(Weak masters tho' ye be) I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea, and the azured vault

Passion, in the text.

Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt: the strong bas'd-promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped and let them forth,
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure; and when I have required
Some Heavenly musick, (which even now I do)
To work mine end upon their senses, that
This airy charm is for; I'll break my staff:
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth:
And, deeper than did plummet sound,
I'll drown my book,"

This indeed is Poetry!!

Should these remarks prove acceptable, they may be continued by

VINDEX.

P. S. Additional note to "the Tempest" in the conclusion of Vol. 1st of Doctor Johnson's octavo edition, not perceived by me until the foregoing remarks were written.

"I remember to have been told by my friend Mr William Collins, that a great part of this play was founded on an Italian Chemical Romance, in which there was a spirit like Ariel."-T. WARTon.

Mr. Warton's opinion is certainly entitled to much deference and respect, but had he told me as editor of Shakspeare nothing more to the purpose, I should have deemed it more creditable to the relater, to suppress the information. In one respect, the ancient chemistry was romantic" enough, because it pursued a phantom in the Grand Elixir or in the philosopher's stone; but what a chemical romance can be, I am a good deal puzzled in attemtping to conceive. Admitting the fact of the said Italian Romance's existence, Mr. Warton well knew it could have been of no use to Shakspeare, without first appearing in an English dress, and that this was not the case, his own acquaintance with the legendary lore of his country must have led him to conclude. On what ground then does this mighty charge of plagiarism stand? truly on nothing less than this broad bottom that one gentleman who knew little, told another gentleman who knew less, that there was a certain chemical Romance in Italy, in which there was a spirit like Ariel !!!

Mr. Warton like Dr. Johnson retains "scamels." I have already stated the Doctor's reason, viz. that "limpets," as he had heard, were sometimes called SCAMS. Limpets, however a very small shellfish, and only used by the common people along the sea-coast, could not well be classed among the nice and rare things which Caliban undertook to provide; besides, the word "young" intimates that they were to be taken from the nest or the parent. I have some recollection of having heard fish of this kind called "slams," which possibly might have been the word alluded to by Dr. Johnson's informant. The following is Mr. Warton's note: I am inclined to retain "scamels," for in an old will, dated 1593, I find the bequest

of a bed of "scammel colour," i. e. of the colour of an animal so called, whose skin was then in use for dress or furniture. This, at least, shews the existence of the word, at that time, and in Shakspeare's sense."

A single word in an old will seems hardly sufficient to support such a conclusion. It is not easy to conceive that there should have been, in the time of Elizabeth and James, an animal called a scamel, whose skin was in use for dress or furniture, and of this animal that no trace or record should now remain, save in one old will, and in a play of Shakspeare's, abounding, as the whole of his productions have been found usually to do, with typographical errors. The word "scammel-coloured" does not necessarily imply animal origin. Colours are denominated as often from merely inanimate things as-rose, stone, violet, ash, &c. I am therefore strongly inclined to think that either the reader or the drawer of the will, committed a blunder, and that what passed with them for "scammel colour" was more probably intended for camel-colour or rather camlet-colour; or possi bly the phrase in question might have had reference to a camlet-covered bed, camlet was a stuff as well known at that early period as it is at present, and, I believe, in more general use.

In the revisal it is proposed to substitute "utter" for "spatter," where Stephano says of the supposed double monster;-" his backward voice is to spatter foul speeches."-The old reading seems to me more appropriate to the occasion; or if any change be advisable that it should be to "sputter," a word well adapted to the consternation of Caliban.

VINDEX.

The Editor acknowledges himself indebted to "VINDEX," for the foregoing specimen of an able and enlightened commentary on the greatest of Poets. Its sterling good sense, is that by which it is chiefly recommended and distinguished; while it shews the writer to be also possessed of considerable learning and taste. He is requested to continue his contributions, to which, the pages of this journal shall be always open. The unpretending and humble tone in which his purpose is announced, and his lucubrations are commenced, while it is honourably contrasted with the vigorous spirit that marks the progress of his work, must disarm the candid portion of the public, of that suspicion and even hostility, which they are not slow either in feeling or in displaying against the assumptions of impudent empiricism, or the loquacious and more emphatic impertinencies of learned idiotcy, and elaborate dulness. Our critic puts forward no boastful claims to a more sagacious discernment of beauties, and a more quick-sighted detection of faults, than his cotemporaries and predecessors have been favoured with; and yet, his discrimination, he has already proved to be both keen and impartial. He makes no magnificent promises of hearing refutation and confusion on preceding and rival commentators, or of throwing new light on the bewildering obscurities of the text; and yet, so far as he has proceeded, his competency to do both the one and the other, is placed beyond doubt. He professedly aims at no higher functions than the unassuming and trivial labours of a gleaner, while the heart and hand with which he plies his task, evince a capacity-as yet unworn, perhaps untried-for thrusting effectually his sickle into this, or any other field of mental exertion. He has already outgone the limits which he prescribed to

himself, and is more than fulfilling his promise. In some of the remarks that he makes, and the suggestions that he throws out, he may or may not coincide with other writers, he may or may not have been anticipated by those who have walked in the same path: but one thing is certain, that what he has, is unborrowed. There is a good deal of quaintness and naïveté in his admission-confession we should call it-of having looked into no edition of Shakspeare, subsequent to Johnson's. He pleads guilty, in the eyes of half the scribbling and reading generation, of knowing nothing whatever about the things that are most precious to their sickly mind, and perverted taste; namely, the interminable heap of modern comments, conjectures, purgations, excerpts, illustrations (obscurations,) that have been laid heavily on the remains of the immortal Bard-whose very immortality perhaps can in no way be so assuredly demonstrated, as in its being able to subsist, in spite of so enormous and deadly a pressure. This ignorance so unblushingly avowed, and yet so richly atoned for, by our correspondent, the result either of his utter contempt, for the matters thus ignored, or of a better employment of his time, is precisely the inexpiable sin which the whole tribe of inferior litterateurs can never pardon. Accordingly, we should not be surprised if those busy and irritable wasps were found torturing into so many plagiarisms, the occasional coincidence of his thoughts and language, with those of other writers whom accident may have driven, or their wisdom may have guided, into a similar train of reflection. His unsophisticated good sense would be voted into dulness; his cautious and sober criticism, laudably exempt from any mixture of affectation or bitterness, would be pronounced flat and unpalatable by all those who have become recently the disciples of Mr. Hazlitt's wild and paradoxical spirit. Thousands of witlings, small critics, and versifiers, have been led astray, and ruined by this author; without sharing a particle of his talents, they have been able to copy his vicious eccentricities of style, to over-act and caricature his waywardness of fancy, to give hideous and multiplied editions in miniature, of his monstrous and grotesque conceptions, but uninformed, unblessed by the slightest infusion of the little redeeming genius, which, in his own works, may reconcile the mind to his absurdities. His imagination has always the mastery of his understanding; the latter, to be sure, is sometimes allowed to give an opinion, to utter a few hurried words of unavailing dissent, or of unheeded approval, while it is bestridden and whirled along, in the rapid and unearthly career that its rider pursues: until at last, both of them get dazzled at the brightness, and dizzy from the height, and come tumbling sheer down to earth;-where the one strives to grope its way, and count its bruises, and grow sober, and the other falls to culling flowers, and extracting their essence, and gazing alternately at fine landscapes, and fine pictures, with a glance now and then at the stars and the heavens, boldly and vigorously grasping with an audacity that is sometimes felicitous at the IDEAL which is in them all, and which they unfold to a genuine and inspired worshipper, but more frequently falling upon the UNREAL which is not in them; and amidst these various doings, still meditating a new flight before it is well cured of its recent intoxication. Mr. Hazlitt's mind is drenched and drunken with the depth of its own inspiration-it rejects all manner of rules, and disowns all the restraints of authority; but it is a lordly toper and is often gay and sportive and even graceful in its excesses: while the herd of his mimics or his partisans, has the undoubted

brand of "the servile" imprinted on their forehead, and embodied in their actions. Their drivelling and sottish minds also have a drunkenness and wantonness of their own-They have "high life below stairs”— They invest themselves with the cast off thoughts of other men, their masters; and indulge their propensity to a debauch, by guzzling the lees of their betters, diluted by the help of their own small beer; and on the strength of this double beverage, they contrive to have an uproar in their own sphere, and to enjoy the saturnalian frenzy of talking loud lies and venting braggart threats against their lords. Their day (night) is soon over, and after a little foam and somewhat more ribaldry, they speedily relapse into silent and crouching submission.-This is the history of all slaves-but more especially of the literary species. Their time is the present. With the future they have no concern, and their trivial ambition is cheaply gratified, by partaking in the small talk of clubs and “philosophical societies," (by courtesy so called, and by our forbearance tolerated,) and joining in the chorus, when they cannot vary the tone, of the prevailing cant of the speech-makers and authorlings of the day. Untricked good sense is, of course, an abomination unto them; and unpedantic well-directed learning becomes their natural prey. What they cannot hope to devour and destroy, they will strive tomangle and lacerate; and they will be sure to snarl, and, in their own shrill fashion, to bark at what they presume not to approach. These are the sort of personages that would be most disposed to grow somewhat snappish at the quiet labours and unassuming knowledge of such a man as “VINDEX," and to quarrel with him on the score of his disclaiming any acquaintance with the accumulated nonsense, frivolity and lumber that have been inflicted on Shakspeare, by indiscreet enthusiasts, by heavy commentators and by dark expounders. Many a weary and luckless hour that can no longer be redeemed, have we consumed in fruitless efforts to disengage our mind from the perplexing labyrinth of their contradictory quotations and their reciprocally confuting authorities, and from the dense and impervious fog of their conjectural dreams about the meaning, and their clumsy hallucinations about the text of the Poet.. All this while the serene and beauteous heaven of HIS imagination was wrapt up and blotted out from the view. The harmony that his spirit breathed into our's, was rudely and harshly broken by the vulgar and croaking dissonance of some erudite dolt who quarrelled with his fellows, and drowned the sweet music in a stupid and unavailing scuffle, concerning the position of a key or the inartificial wildness of a single tone. This endless commenting and re-commenting. This series of brawls generating brawls, of one old folly replaced by an hundred young ones, of an antiquated and buried impertinence leaving behind it for fear it should be forgotten when it was dead-a brood of infant absurdities, each as shameless and as prolific as the parent, a new and increasing progeny to continue the name and revive the pretensions of the parent-stock. This truly is one of the most unendurable evils under the sun, and is the plague which is always, alas! entailed on the literary world, whenever its wonder is awakened, its eyes are dazzled, and its ordinary powers of calculation-its predictions and its experience together,—are set at defiance and astounded by the effulgence and irregularity of a cOMET. Such is the calamity occasioned, not intended-by the appearance of men like Homer, Shakspeare, Dante, Milton, and Byron. It is the severe penalty we pay, and are content to pay, for our pleasure. It is the visitation to which we stoop and the hard

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