TEMPEST. ACT I. Scene 1. Page 9. ANT. We are merely cheated of our lives— MR. R. STEEVENS has remarked that merely in this place signifies absolutely. His interpretation is confirmed by the word merus in Littelton's dictionary, where it is rendered downright. MIRA. Sc. 2. p. 10. -a brave vessel, Who had, no doubt, some noble creatures in her. There is a peculiar propriety in this expression that has escaped the notice it deserved. Miranda had as yet seen no other man than her father. She had perceived, but indistinctly, some living creatures perish in the shipwreck; and she supposes they might be of her father's species. Thus she afterwards, when speaking of Ferdinand, calls him noble. This word should always be written ere, and not ever, nor contractedly e'er, with which it has no connexion. It is pure Saxon, ær. The corruption in Ecclesiastes cited in the note is as old as the time of Henry the Eighth; but in Wicliffe we have properly "er be to broke the silveren corde," and so it is given by Chaucer. Sc. 2. p. 20. PRO. 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 present note is more particularly offered to the admirers of ancient romances, and to which class Shakspeare himself, no doubt, belonged. It is well known that the earliest English specimen of these singular and fascinating compositions is the Geste of king Horn, which has been faithfully published by the late Mr. Ritson, who has given some account of a French copy in the British Museum. He did not live to know that an other manuscript of this interesting romance, in the same language, is still remaining in private hands, very different in substance and construction from the other. One might almost conclude that some English translation of it existed in Shakspeare's time, and that he had in the above passage imitated the following description of the boat in which Horn and his companions were put by king Rodmund at the suggestion of Browans, "Sire, fet il purnez un de vos vielz chalanz Kil naient avirum dunt ascient aidanz Sigle ne guvernad dunt il seint vaianz." 1. 58. That is, "Sir, said he, take one of your old boats, put into it these varlets whom I see here; let them have no oars to help them, sail nor rudder to put them in motion." And burn in many places; on the top-mast, The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, This is a very elegant description of a meteor well known to sailors. It has been called by the several names of the fire of Saint Helen, Saint Elm, Saint Herm, Saint Clare, Saint Peter, and Saint Nicholas. Whenever it appeared as a single flame it was supposed by the ancients to be Helena, the sister of Castor and Pollux, and in this state to bring ill luck, from the calamities which this lady is known to have caused in the Trojan war. When it came double it was called Castor and Pollux, and accounted a good omen. It has been described as a little blaze of fire, sometimes appearing by night on the tops of soldiers' lances, or at sea on masts and sail-yards whirling and leaping in a moment from one place to another. Some have said, but erroneously, that it never appears but after a tempest. It is also supposed to lead people to suicide by drowning. Seneca Further information on the subject may be collected from Plin. Hist. nat. 1. ii. c. 37. Quæst. nat. c. 1. Erasm. Colloq. in naufragio. Schotti Physica curiosa, p. 1209. Menage Dict. etym. v. Saint Telme. Cotgrave Dict.v. feu, furole. Trevoux Dict. v. furole. Lettres de Bergerac, p. 45. Eden's Hist. of travayle, fo. 432 b. 433 b. Camerarii Hore subsecivæ iii. 59. Cambray Voy. dans la Finisterre ii. 296. Swan's Speculum mundi P. 89. Shakspeare seems to have consulted Stephen Batman's Golden books of the leaden goddes, who, speaking of Castor and Pollux, says " they were figured like two lampes or cresset lightes, one on the toppe of a maste, the other on the stemme or foreshippe." He adds that if the light first appears in the stem or foreship and ascends upwards, it is good luck; if either lights begin at the top-mast, bowsprit or foreship, and descend towards the sea, it is a sign of tempest. In taking therefore the latter position, Ariel had fulfilled the commands of Prospero to raise a storm. Sc. 2. p. 28. ARI. From the still-vext Bermoothes The voyage of Sir George Sommers to the Bermudas in the year 1609 has been already noticed with a view of ascertaining the time in which The tempest was written; but the important particulars of his shipwreck, from which it is exceedingly probable that the outline of a considerable part of this play was borrowed, has been unaccountably cverlooked. Several contemporary narratives of the above event were published, which Shakspeare might have consulted; and the conversation of the time might have furnished, or at least suggested, some particulars that are not to be found in any of the printed accounts. In 1610 Silvester Jourdan, an eyewitness, published |