been-though we conceive that, after | lection when distributing the scenes of having existed some forty and odd years the comic portion of his drama. And, if in the world, he might have invented such such was the case, it affords a strong incidents as a storm and a shipwreck, corroboration to Malone's notion of his without having them put into his head by having derived some of the other circumthe account of the hurricane in which Sir stances from Stithe's account of the George Somers' vessel was lost; and that, shipwreck of Somers, as given in the as he was born, and lived, and died in an same volume. island-had possibly seen the Isle of Mr. Hunter, on the other hand, supWight, or heard of the Isle of Man-his poses that Shakspeare was indebted for faculties might very easily have been ca- the idea and the details of his shipwreck pable of this effect of picturing to himself to Sir John Harrington's translation of an island, without having read anything the storm in the 41st canto of Ariosto. about Bermuda :-though we think that This opinion he proceeds to establish on Shakspeare might have had no difficulty the testimony of certain coincidences of in imagining the island, the storm, and expression which he conceives himself to the shipwreck of his play, without any of have discovered, which he thinks are too those suggestive aids which are pointed marked to be accounted for on the supout by the commentators, we still con- position of their being merely accidental, sider it very probable that he really had and which consequently he attributes to read Stithe's History of Virginia before imitation. We will submit all the lines The Tempest was written, and had not in which he supposes such a correspondquite forgotten its contents when employ-ence to exist to the inspection of our ed in the composition of the play. There readers, and leave them to decide wheis one circumstance related by Stithe ther the evidence they afford is sufficient which seems to have afforded our great to sustain a case of literary petty larceny dramatist a hint for the employment of against Shakspeare. his comic characters. The assumption of royal authority by Stephano, and the scenes between him and Trinculo and Caliban, may, we think, have been suggested by the following passage.* When Sir George Somers left the Island of Bermuda in the year 1609— Christopher Carter, Edward Waters, and Ed. ward Chard remained behind. Sir George's vessel being once out of sight, these three lords and sole inhabitants of all these islands began to erect their little commonwealth with equal power and brotherly regency, building a house, preparing the ground, planting their corn and such seeds and fruits as they had, and providing other necessaries and conveniences. Then, making search among the crannies and corners of those craggy rocks, what the ocean from the world's creation had thrown up among them, besides divers small pieces, they happened upon the largest block of ambergris that had ever been seen or heard of in one lump. It weighed fourscore pounds, and is said, itself alone, besides the others, to have been worth nine or ten thousand pounds. And now, being rich, they grew so rioty and ambitious, that these three forlorn men, above two thousand miles from their native country, and with little probability of ever seeing it again, fell out for the superiority and rule; and then competition and quarrel grew so high, that Chard and Waters, being of the greatest spirit, had appointed to decide the matter in the field; but Carter wisely stopped their arms, choosing rather to bear with such troublesome rivals than, by being rid of them, to live alone.'-Stithe's Virginia, p. 120. It is just possible that Shakspeare might have had this passage in his recol *This coincidence was pointed out to us by Washington Irving. 'SHAKSPEARE.-Put the wild waters in this roar allay them. Harrington.-Allay the waters when they do highest toss. SHAKSPEARE.-The cry did knock against my very heart. Harrington.-'Twas lamentable then to hear their crics. After hunting through the entire play of The Tempest,' and almost one hundred and fifty lines of Ariosto, in search of coincidences of thought and language, these are all that Mr. Hunter has been able to produce; and we hardly understand how it is possible for two men writing on a similar subject to have exhibited fewer instances of similarity in expression. The last case of parallelism describe a man, who in a shipwreck saved is the strongest. But both poets had to himself from drowning; and, as the commonest way of effecting so desirable an object is by keeping the head above water,' was it so very unlikely that they should both of them have availed themselves of the phrase? On the authority of such coincidences as these, we could show that Shakspeare must have diligently studied and servilely copied Dryden's Translation of the Storm in the first book of the Æneid; but, as Shakspeare was dead at least fifteen years before Dryden was born, we apprehend our labour would be in vain, and that, with such strong circumstantial evidence of alibi in his favour, even Mr. Hunter would hardly charge even Shakspeare with having been guilty of plagiarism in such a case. With regard to the origin of the plot of The Tempest,'-though Collins told Thomas Warton that he had read a novel with the same story, and Mr. Boswell relates that a friend of his once met with an Italian romance which agreed with Collins's description-Mr. Hunter states that it is for the present a Shakspearian mystery.' And he even feels himself bound to 'confess,'-though he has written and printed an octavo volume on the subject, that little which is important has presented itself in the course of his researches.'-p. 106. But the discovery, which has baffled the researches of Mr. Hunter, fell accidentally in the way of Mr. Collier. Some few years since that gentleman obtained possession of an old MS. volume, which appears to have been the album of some ballad fancier of the time of the Commonwealth. Several of the ballads in the book the public are familiarly acquainted with; but there are others which are not known to exist out of this collection. Among the latter is one which contains all the main particulars of the plot of 'The Tempest.' As the ballad is in itself a very pleasing poem; as it is curious from its coincidence with one of Shakspeare's most beautiful productions, and as only sixty copies of it have been printed by Mr. Collier, we consider ourselves as doing a service to the public by reprinting it entire. The brother, who usurp'd the throne, He turn'd his niece and brother forth Long time he journey'd up and downe, The head all bare that wore a crowne, And Ida in his hand, Till that they reach'd the broad sea-side, Imbarking, then, in one of these, Geraldo and his daughter faire, And, sooth to say, in dangerous houre, He brought with him a magicke booke, The spirites of the earth and aire, When landed on th' inchanted Isle. His black lockes turn'd all silver gray, As wise as innocent. Most lovelie was she to beholde ; Her haire was like to sunn litt golde, And blue as heaven her eye. When she was in her fifteenth yeere The demons who the land had held, And all this while in Arragon We consider this as having formed the groundwork of 'The Tempest,' because, in the first place, there are many circumstances in the play, which, we think, the author of the ballad would never have failed to take advantage of, had he been the later writer; and because, in the second place, though the unpopularity of Spain and the Spaniards in the early part of James the First's reign, when The Tempest' was produced, affords something like a reason for Shakspeare's representing his dramatis per. sonæ as Italians, rather than Spaniards, as they are in the ballad, there could be no reason at all for the author of the ballad introducing such a change, supposing him to have been versifying the story from the play. The only argument against the priority of the ballad to the drama, is its being of a somewhat more modern style of composition. This objection has very little, if any, weight at all with us. Every ballad, in the course of recital and transcription, imperceptibly assumes somewhat of the tone and language of the time, and will always appear to be of an age corres-generation which succeeded him, it was ponding with the date of its earliest ex- much more probable that, unless publishisting copy. It is possible, however, ed immediately after his death, any work that both Shakspeare and the balladist of our immortal dramatist's should be were indebted to a common Spanish destroyed than preserved. But, howoriginal. ever that may be, we cannot for a single From the source of the plot of this moment admit the supposition that The play we now proceed to consider the Tempest' is the play indicated by Meres date of it. Malone regards "The Tem- under the title of Love's Labours Won.' pest" as one of the very last of Shak- What peril, or pain, or difficulty is there speare's works, and assigns the compo- in piling up a few, or even some thousition of it to the year 1611. Mr. Chal- sands of logs of wood, in the constant mers dates it still later, and considers it presence of one's mistress, under the to have been written in the year 1613. cheering beams of her smiles, and the Mr. Hunter, who rejoices in singular- encouragement of her sympathy, to renity on all points, has a fancy that it was, der such a task worthy of the name of a on the contrary, rather a youthful pro- labour of love?-Why, declined into the duction of the author, and written as vale of years as we are ; and we are no less early as the year 1596. But why? than 131 numbers, and almost 5000 arti. Francis Meres, in a tract called Paladis cles of age-we would most gladly enter Tamia,' which was published in 1598, upon such a service this moment, and give a catalogue of the plays which Shak-continue it till doomsday, under such speare had then written. Among them circumstances:-ay, we would do all he mentions one called 'Love's Labours that and more, to obtain a single favourWon; and, as no play with that title able regard of those mild eyes which we now exists among the works of our so love to look upon, and from which great dramatist, Mr. Hunter assumes that we can never win a smile. And so this must have been a second, but drop- thought Ferdinand. His employment ped, title of 'The Tempest;' that the was no labour to him. What is his own task imposed upon Ferdinand-the pil- account of the matter? His younging up logs of wood, which, as we have hearted sentiments on this occasion were seen, were intended for sale at the Malta very different, we find, from the opinions market-constituted the 'Labours of entertained by the Reverend Fellow of the Love' and that those 'Labours' were Antiquarian Society. He says, 'won' in obtaining the hand of Miranda. Of the existing plays,' says Mr. Hunter, 'there is only "The Tempest" to which it (the title in question) can be supposed to belong; and, so long as it suits so well with what is a main incident of this piece, we shall not be driven to the gratuitous and improbable supposition that a play once so called is lost." Whether any play has or has not been lost cannot be determined. We certainly do not perceive the improbability of such a circumstance. Plays of Shakspeare have been lost. Among the manuscripts which Mr. Warburton was so idle as to entrust to the care of his cook, and she used in lighting his fire with, were two plays ascribed to him; one entitled Duke Humphrey,' and another, of which no name is given. Who knows but that comic labours-are both lost and won: may have been 'Love's Labours Won?' lost, because they led to a year of peBut why should Mr. Hunter think it im- nance; and won, because at the end of probable that a play of Shakspeare's that year, they were to receive their should be lost? Surely, in the troubled reward. We have not much to urge in times of the fanatical and anti-theatrical favour of this guess of our's except that it is entirely original; but, nevertheless, we are quite prepared to defend it against *. Disquisition, p. 77. This, my mean task, Would be as heavy to me, as odious; but Oh! no.- The Tempest can never be identified with Love's Labours Won.' There is love enough-delightful, young, pure, innocent, self-devoted love-but there are no labours of consequence sufficient to justify the title. But is it quite cer tain there ever was such a play? May not 'Love's Labours Won' be the second part of the title of 'Love's Labours Lost ?' The passage in Meres, where the names immediately follow each other, would seem to countenance such a conjecture; and the story of the comedy would most fully bear it out. In it 'Love's Labours' all gainsayers, with six arguments to far as the above passage is concerned; every one of our opponents; and engag-but the alteration has a subsequent effect; ing that every one of the six shall be as it tends to mar the picturesque represen stout as the strongest of Mr. Hunter's. tation of the last part of the fourth act. The ground derived from this fancied When Prospero desires Ariel to hang the application of a second title to the play glittering apparel which was to delude being cut from beneath his feet, the Stephano and Trinculo from their purpose learned author of the 'Disquisition' has on this line,' in modern times a cord is no argument on which to rest his suppo- always stretched across the stage to hang sition of its early date. Every argu- the garments on; whereas it is evident ment, on the contrary, is against him, that the line spoken of by Prospero is one and in favour, not only of the later date of the trees of the line-grove' which grew of Malone, but the latest date of Chal- around his cell. mers. For instance, there is a speech of At parting we have one short word of Gonzalo's taken, almost verbatim, from admonition to offer to that class of genFlorio's translation of Montaigne's Es- tlemen who discharge themselves of their says, a work which was not published till indefatigable idleness by writing little 1603. This circumstance would go far books on their various little quirks or to prove that the play could not have quiddities about Shakspeare. Mr. Hunbeen written, as Mr. Hunter supposes, in ter thinks (p. 120) that the names of all 1596. And if Shakspeare derived, as we those persons should be gathered togeconceive, any hint from the passage we ther, and some account given of them.' have cited from 'Stithe's History of Vir- For whose instruction, or for what object, ginia,' it could not have been written till he does not condescend to inform us. after 1612, when the story was brought And they all conceive, each individual for to England by Captain Matthew Somers. himself and fellows, that, having had their But the fact is, we know almost to a peculiar fancies about some unimportant moral certainty that 'The Tempest' was, point in or about our great poet's works, if not the last, one of the very last, of such as that Lampedusa is Prospero's IslShakspeare's productions. We are in- and, or that The Tempest is 'Love's Laformed by Mr. Vertue's MSS. that this bours Won,' they are fairly entitled, by comedy was acted by Heming and the courtesy of literature, to assume to themrest of the king's company before Prince selves the epithet of ingenious ever after. Charles, the Lady Elizabeth, and the Now, the fact which we would earnestly Prince Palatine Elector, in the beginning impress upon their attention is, that there of the year 1613.' The Prince Palatine is no such decided proof of the want of and the Lady Elizabeth were married in ingenuity, and of the presence of actual February, 1613; and is it not highly proba- dulness, as that afforded by an elaborate ble that this poem, which relates to the work on so unimportant a subject. loves of a young prince and princess, and a publication, instead of being an eviintroduces a pageant of spirits to crown dence of man's ingenuity, is, on the conthem withtrary, a damning witness to the extreme sluggishness and unfrequent action of his inventive faculties. He who is really deserving the hackneyed and much-abused epithet of ingenious, finds, when reading about Shakspeare, so many new, plausi ble, but inconsistent fancies of this kind suggest themselves, that he learns to disexperience of the contradictory nature of trust them all, from his own immediate the several equally probable conjectures Honour, riches, marriage blessing, was expressly composed as a part of the We have now performed our duty towards Mr. Hunter. There is only one good suggestion which we are aware of in his work, and that we will not deprive him of the credit of. It relates to the restoration of a reading which the modern editors have corrupted. In the folio of 1623, which is the first edition of "The Tempest,' the reading is In the line grove that weather fends our cell.' The word line, which is the old word for linden, in all the modern editions has been changed to lime. This signifies little, as Such which follow and refute each other in ra pid succession in his mind. And the only persons who ever think such shadows of sufficient consequence to give themselves any trouble about them are those amiable Roddists who consider themselves rich if they have but one idea occur to them in a twelve-month, who live upon that idea, who harp upon it in their common |