That my remembrance warrants: Had I not
Four or five women once, that tended me?

PROSPERO.

Thou hadst, and more, Miranda: But how is it
That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?

If thou remember'st aught ere thou cam'st here;
How thou cam'st here thou may'st.

But that I do not.

MIRANDA.

PROSPERO.

Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years since,
Thy father was the duke of Milan, and

A prince of power.

MIRANDA.

Sir, are not you my father?"

Again, when Prospero describes the horrors of their situation afloat upon the sea, how natural and feminine is her reply, and his, how full of tender and yet noble feeling!

"PROSPERO.

"In few, they hurried us on board a bark,

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 very rats

Instinctively had quit it. There they hoist us
To cry to the sea that roar'd to us; to sigh
To the winds, whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong.

Thou wast, that did preserve me! Thou didst smile,
Infused with a fortitude from heaven,

When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt."

Ariel's description of the tempest raised by the

command of Prospero, is such as none but the liveliest imagination could have inspired.

" ARIEL.

"All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,

To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride

On the curl'd clouds; to thy strong bidding task
Ariel, and all his quality.

Hast thou, spirit,

PROSPERO,

Performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?

To every article.

ARIEL.

I boarded the king's ship: now on the beak,
Now on the waste, the deck, in every cabin,
I flam'd amazement. Sometimes I'd divide
And burn in many places: on the top-mast,
The yards, and bolt-sprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet, and join: Jove's lightnings, the precursors
O' the dreadful thunder clap, more momentary
And sight outrunning were not. The fire and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune
Seem'd to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake."

After all this, the imperative magician requires yet farther service, when Ariel, in language true to a nature more human than his own, meekly reminds his master of the promised freedom for which his spirit is ever pining.

"I pray thee:

"ARIEL.

Remember, I have done thee worthy service,
Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, serv'd

Without or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise
To bate me a full year.

PROSPERO.

Thou dost; and think'st it much to tread the ooze

Of the salt deep;

To run upon the sharp wind of the north;

To do me business in the veins of the earth,
When it is bak'd with frost."

There is certainly too much of harshness and contempt to suit our feelings, in the language which Prospero addresses to his "tricksy spirit." But yet sometimes, when Ariel asks of the diligent execution of his master's mission, "Was't not well done?" and receives a gracious answer full of approbation; when the magician turns away from coarser natures to welcome with smiles his invisible messenger in the air; and especially when at last he dismisses him, with

"My Ariel,

This is thy charge; then to the elements
Be free, and fare thou well!"

Thus breaking his bondage with the gentleness of affection; we have only to extend our thoughts a little farther beyond the sphere of common life, and we feel that a spirit, gentle, and pure, and elastic, like that of Ariel, would be more than soothed by a single word or look of kindness-more than rewarded with all it could desire, centred in the glorious blessing of liberty.

Even the monster Caliban has also an imagination amongst all his brutalities, or how could he thus describe the influence of the magic spell, by which his being was surrounded?

"Be not afear'd, 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 show riches,
Ready to drop upon me; that when I wak'd,
I cried to dream again."

The following passage, well known to every reader, can never become too familiar, or lose its poetic and highly imaginative charm by repetition:

." these our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."-

How beautiful, and still imaginative is the scene, in which the heart of the magician begins to melt for the sufferings of those he has been afflicting with retributive justice!

Confin'd together

ARIEL.

In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,

In the lime grove which weatherfends your cell;
They cannot budge, till your release.

The king,

His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted;
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brim-full of sorrow and dismay; but, chiefly,
Him that you term'd the good old lord, Gonzalo,
His tears run down his beard, like winter drops

From eaves of reeds: your charm so strongly works 'em,
That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.

PROSPERO.

Dost thou think so, spirit?

ARIEL.

Mine would, sir, were I human.

And mine shall.

PROSPERO.

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?
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
Yet with my nobler reason, 'gainst my fury

Do I take part: the rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,

The sole drift of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown further. Go, release them, Ariel!
My charms I'll break, their senses. I'll restore,
And they shall be themselves.

I'll fetch them, sir.

ARIEL.

PROSPERO.

Ye elves, of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;
And ye, that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him,
When he comes back; you demy-puppets, that
By moon-shine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew: by whose aid
(Weak masters though ye be,) I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifled Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory
Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command,
Have wak'd their sleepers; op'd, and let them forth,
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure: and when I have requir'd

Some heavenly music, (which even now I do,)
To work mine end upon their senses, that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,
I'll drown my book."

It is easy to bring proofs of the existence of imagination-more easy from the pen of Shakespeare than from that of any other writer; but what language shall describe its power! what hand shall reach to the utmost boundary of space and time-from the source