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.

SHAKESPEARE.

Whatever spirit, careless of his charge,
Forsakes his post or leaves the fair at large,
Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his fins,
Be stopp'd in vials, or transfixed 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 clog'd he beats his filken 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 fea 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 fitting upon a folitary rock, and weeping over against the place where he imagined his father was wrecked, when he fuddenly 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:

Fall

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 fea-change,
Into something rich and strange.

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, than one can scarce forbear exclaiming with Ferdinand,

There is no mortal business, nor no found
That the earth owns!-

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

But the poet rises still higher in his managment 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 fufferings, he would greatly compassionate them. To which Profpero answers,

-Dost thou think so, Spirit ?

Ariel. Mine would, Sir, were I human.
Prospero. And mine shall.

VOL. III.

H

He

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

Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their affictions; and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
Paffion'd as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art ?

The poet is a more powerful magician than his own Profpero: we are transported into fairy land; we are wrapt in a delicious dream, from which it is mifery to be disturbed; all around is enchantment!

The ifle 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 fleep 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!

Z.

(

No.

No. XCIV. Saturday, September 29. 1753.

Montro quod ipfe tibi possis dare.

-What I shew,
Thyself may freely on thyself bestow.

Juv.

DRYDEN.

SIR,

To the ADVENTURER.

You have somewhat 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 prefume to hope, if the advantages, 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 poffefsed of the immediate object of their hope, without any efforts of their own, will be disappointed of enjoyment.

No life can be happy, but that which is spent in the profecution 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 industry 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, conftitu. tion, habits and circumstances: but in the labour itfelf is the enjoyment, whether it be pursued to fupply the ncceffaries or the conveniencies 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 defire 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 contracted within an hour, is diffused through a week; and if the dread which exaggerates future