For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up: urchins
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd

As thick as honey-coinbs, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made 'em,

If thou neglect'st or dost unwillingly

What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps;
Fill all thy bones with aches: make thee roar,
That beasts shall tremble at thy din.

SHAKSPEARE.

Whatever spirit, careless of his charge,
Forsakes his post or leaves the fair at large,
Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins,
Be stopp'd in vials, or transfixt with pins ;
Or plung'd in lakes of bitter washes lie,
Or wedg'd whole ages in a bodkin's eye :
Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain,
While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain ;
Or allum styptics with contracting pow'r,
Shrink his thin essence like a shrivell'd flow'r :
Or as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel
The giddy motion of the whirling wheel;
In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow,
And tremble at the sea that froths below!

POPE.

The method which is taken to induce Ferdinand to believe that his father was drowned in the late tempest, is exceedingly solemn and striking. He is sitting upon a solitary rock, and weeping over-against the place where he imagined his father was wrecked, when he suddenly hears with astonishment aërial music creep by him upon the waters, and the Spirit gives him the following information in words not proper for any but a Spirit to utter :

Full fathom five thy father lies:

Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change,
Into something rich and strange.

VOL. XXV.

C

And then follows a most lively circumstance;

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell.

Hark! now I hear them-Ding-dong-bell!

This is so truly poetical, that one can scarce for. bear exclaiming with Ferdinand,

This is no mortal business, nor no sound

That the earth owns!

The happy versatility of Shakspeare's genius enables him to excel in lyric as well as in dramatic poesy.

But the poet rises still higher in his management of this character of Ariel, by making a moral use of it, that is, I think, incomparable, and the greatest effort of his art. Ariel informs Prospero, that he has fulfilled his orders, and punished his brother and companions so severely, that if he himself was now to behold their sufferings, he would greatly compassionate them. To which Prospero answers,

-Dost thou think so, Spirit?

ARIEL. Mine would, Sir, were I human, PROSPERO. And mine shall.

He then takes occasion, with wonderful dexterity and humanity, to draw an argument from the incorporeality of Ariel, for the justice and necessity of pity and forgiveness:

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

The poet is a more powerful magician than his own Prospero: we are transported into fairy land; we are.

wrapt in a delicious dream, from which it is misery to be disturbed; all around is enchantment!

-The isle is full of noises,

Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twanging instruments

Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices;

That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,

Will make me sleep again: and then in dreaming,
The clouds, methought, would open and shew riches
Ready to drop upon me: -when I wak'd,

I cry'd to dream again!

Ꮓ

N° 94. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1753.

You have somewhere discouraged the hope of idleness by shewing, that whoever compares the number of those who have possessed fortuitous advantages, and of those who have been disappointed in their expectations, will have little reason to register himself in the lucky catalogue.

But as we have seen thousands subscribe to a raffle, of which one only could obtain the prize; so idleness will still presume to hope, if the advan

tages, however improbable, are admitted to lie within the bounds of possibility. Let the drone, therefore, be told, that if by the error of fortune he obtains the stores of the bee, he cannot enjoy the felicity; that the honey which is not gathered by industry, will be eaten without relish, if it is not wasted in riot; and that all who become possessed of the immediate object of their hope, without any efforts of their own, will be disappointed of enjoy

ment.

No life can be happy, but that which is spent in the prosecution of some purpose to which our powers are equal, and which we, therefore, prosecute with success: for this reason it is absurd to dread business, upon pretence that it will leave few intervals to pleasure. Business is that by which in dustry pursues its purpose, and the purpose of industry is seldom disappointed: he who endeavours to arrive at a certain point, which he perceives himself perpetually to approach, enjoys all the happiness which nature has allotted to those hours, that are not spent in the immediate gratification of appetites by which our own wants are indicated, or of affections by which we are prompted to supply the wants of others. The end proposed by the busy, is various as their temper, constitution, habits, and circumstances: but in the labour itself is the enjoyment, whether it be pursued to supply the necessaries or the conveniences of life, whether to cultivate a farm or decorate a palace; for when the palace is decorated, and the barn filled, the pleasure is at an end, till the object of desire is again placed at a distance, and our powers are again employed to obtain it with apparent success. Nor is the value of life less, than if our enjoyment did not thus consist in anticipation; for by anticipation, the pleasure which would otherwise be con

tracted within an hour, is diffused through a week; and if the dread which exaggerates future evil is confessed to be an increase of misery, the hope which magnifies future good cannot be denied to be an accession of happiness.

The most numerous class of those who presume to hope for miraculous advantages, is that of gamesters. But by gamesters, I do not mean the gentlemen who stake an estate, against the cunning of those who have none; for I leave the cure of lunatics to the professors of physic: I mean the dissolute and indigent: who in the common phrase put themselves in Fortune's way, and expect from her bounty that which they eagerly desire, and yet believe to be too dearly purchased by diligence and industry; tradesmen who neglect their business, to squander in fashionable follies more than it can produce; and swaggerers who rank themselves with gentlemen, merely because they have no business to pursue.

The gamester of this class will appear to be equally wretched, whether his hope be fulfilled or disappointed; the object of it depends upon a contingency, over which he has no influence; he pursues no purpose with gradual and perceptible success, and, therefore, cannot enjoy the pleasure which arises from the anticipation of its accomplishment; his mind is perpetually on the rack; he is anxious in proportion to the eagerness of his desire, and his inability to effect it; to the pangs of suspense, succeed those of disappointment; and a momentary gain only embitters the loss that follows. Such is the life of him, who shuns business because he would secure leisure for enjoyment; except it happens, against the odds of a million to one, that a run of success puts him into the possession of a sum sufficient to subsist him in idlemess the remainder of his life; and in this case, the idleness which made him wretched while he waited