Thy nerves are in their infancy again,'
And have no vigour in them.

8

FER. So they are: My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up. My father's loss, the weakness which I feel, The wreck of all my friends, or this man's threats, To whom I am subdued, are but light to me," Might I but through my prison once a day Behold this maid: all corners else o' the earth Let liberty make use of; space enough Have I in such a prison.

PRO.

It works:-Come on.

Thou hast done well, fine Ariel!-Follow me.

[To FERD. and MIR. Hark, what thou else shalt do me. [To ARIEL.

Thy nerves are in their infancy again,] Perhaps Milton had this passage in his mind, when he wrote the following line in his Masque at Ludlow Castle:

8

Thy nerves are all bound up in alabaster."

STEEVENS.

My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.] Alluding to a common sensation in dreams; when we struggle, but with a total impuissance in our endeavours, to run, strike, &c.

9

WARBURTON.

are but light to me,] This passage, as it stands at present, with all allowance for poetical licence, cannot be reconciled to grammar. I suspect that our author wrote-" were but light to me," in the sense of would be.-In the preceding line the old copy reads nor this man's threats. The emendation was made by Mr. Steevens. MALONE,

1

Might I but through my prison once a day

Behold this maid: This thought seems borrowed from The Knight's Tale of Chaucer; v. 1230:

"For elles had I dwelt with Theseus

"Yfetered in his prison evermo.

"Than had I ben in blisse, and not in wo.

"Only the sight of hire, whom that I serve,

"Though that I never hire grace may deserve,

"Wold have sufficed right ynough for me," STEEVENS,

MIRA.

My father's of a better nature, sir,

Be of comfort;

Than he appears by speech; this is unwonted,
Which now came from him.

PRO.

Thou shalt be as free

As mountain winds: but then exactly do

All points of my command.

ARI.

To the syllable.

PRO. Come, follow: speak not for him. [Exeunt.

ACT II. SCENE I.

Another part of the Island.

Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and others.

GON. 'Beseech you, sir, be merry: you have cause (So have we all) of joy; for our escape Is much beyond our loss: Our hint of woe2 Is common; every day, some sailor's wife,

The masters of some merchant,3 and the merchant,

Our hint of woe— - Hint is that which recalls to the memory. The cause that fills our minds with grief is common. Dr. Warburton reads-stint of woe. JOHNSON.

Hint seems to mean circumstance. "A danger from which they had escaped (says Mr. M. Mason) might properly be called a hint of woe." STEEVENS.

If

• The masters of some merchant, &c.] Thus the old copy. the passage be not corrupt (as I suspect it is) we must suppose that by masters our author means the owners of a merchant's ship, or the officers to whom the navigation of it had been trusted.

Have just our theme of woe: but for the miracle, I mean our preservation, few in millions

Can speak like us: then wisely, good sir, weigh Our sorrow with our comfort.

ALON.

Pr'ythee, peace.

SEB. He receives comfort like cold porridge. ANT. The visitors will not give him o'er so. SEB. Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.

GON. Sir,

SEB. One:Tell.

GON. When every grief is entertain'd, that's offer'd,

Comes to the entertainer

SEB. A dollar.

GON. Dolour comes to him, indeed; you have spoken truer than you purposed.

I suppose, however, that our author wrote"The mistress of some merchant," &c.

Mistress was anciently spelt-maistresse or maistres. Hence, perhaps, arose the present typographical error. See Merchant of Venice, Act IV. sc. i. STEEVENS.

• Have just our theme of woe: but for the miracle.] The words of woe, appear to me as an idle interpolation. Three lines before we have "our hint of woe-" STEEVENS.

The visitor-] Why Dr. Warburton should change visitor to 'viser, for adviser, I cannot discover. Gonzalo gives not only advice but comfort, and is therefore properly called The Visitor, like others who visit the sick or distressed to give them consolation. In some of the Protestant churches there is a kind of officers termed consolators for the sick. JOHNSON.

6 Gon. Dolour comes to him, indeed;] The same quibble occurs in The Tragedy of Hoffman, 1637:

"And his reward be thirteen hundred dollars,

"For he hath driven dolour from our heart." STEEVENS.

SEB. You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.

GON. Therefore, my lord,

ANT. Fye, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue! ALON. I pr'ythee, spare,

GON. Well, I have done: But yet

SEB. He will be talking.

ANT. Which of them, he, or Adrian, for a good wager, first begins to crow?

SEB. The old cock.

ANT. The cockrel.

SEB. Done: The wager?

ANT. A laughter.

SEB. A match.

ADR. Though this island seem to be desert,-
SEB. Ha, ha, ha!

ANT. So, you've pay'd.'

ADR. Uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible,-
SEB. Yet,

"you've pay'd.] Old copy-you'r paid. Corrected by Mr. Steevens. To pay sometimes signified to beat, but I have never met with it in a metaphorical sense; otherwise I should have thought the reading of the folio right: you are beaten; you have lost. MALONE.

This passage scarcely deserves explanation; but the meaning is this:

Antonio lays a wager with Sebastian, that Adrian would crow before Gonzalo, and the wager was a laughter. Adrian speaks first, so Antonio is the winner. Sebastian laughs at what Adrian had said, and Antonio immediately acknowledges that by his laughing he has paid the bet.

The old copy reads you'r paid, which will answer as well, if those words be given to Sebastian instead of Antonio.

M. MASON.

ADR. Yet

ANT. He could not miss it.

ADR. It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate temperance.

ANT. Temperance was a delicate wench."

SEB. Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly delivered.

ADR. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. SEB. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.

ANT. Or, as 'twere perfumed by a fen.

GON. Here is every thing advantageous to life. ANT. True; save means to live.

SEB. Of that there's none, or little.

GON. How lush' and lusty the grass looks? how green?

and delicate temperance.] Temperance here means temperature. STEEVENS.

9 Temperance was a delicate wench.] In the puritanical times it was usual to christian children from the titles of religious and moral virtues.

So Taylor, the water-poet, in his description of a strumpet: "Though bad they be, they will not bate an ace, "To be call'd Prudence, Temperance, Faith, or Grace." STEEVENS.

How lush &c.] Lush, i. e. of a dark full colour, the opposite to pale and faint. SIR T. HANmer.

The words, how green? which immediately follow, might have intimated to Sir T. Hanmer, that lush here signifies rank, and -not a dark full colour. In Arthur Golding's translation of Julius Solinus, printed 1587, a passage occurs, in which the word is explained." Shrubbes lushe and almost like a grystle." So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

"Quite over-canopied with lushious woodbine."

HENLEY. The word lush has not yet been rightly interpreted. It appears from the following passage in Golding's translation of Ovid, 1587, to have signified juicy, succulent: