526 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SER, 
HAKESPEARE affords an inexhaus- 
uble field of criticism, and although 
too large a proportion of the remarks 
made by the succession of commentators 
upon the works of this great poet, may be 
thought minute, verbal, and perhaps false 
er frivolous, it must be acknowledged 
that great light has been thrown upon the 
obscure and obsolete phraseology, the 
dark allusions, and perverted passages 
of this wonderful writer, by the taste, 
skill, and sagacity, of the very same de- 
scription of annotators in their happier 
moments. Ifin your opinion the obser- 
vations now transmitted to-you, will an- 
ewer the purpose of amusing the public 
as well as the author, they may serve, 
when you have room for their insertion, 
tovecupy a niche in your useful and ens 
tertaming miscellany, M. M. 
London, Octoder 18, 1810. 
Temepest.—ct. IJ, Scéne 1. 
AntToN.-Claribel! she that is queen of 
Tonis! 
She that dwells ten leagues beyond man’s 
life ! 
SHAKESPEARE’S extreme neglect, 
for it could scarcely be ignorance so 
gross of geographical propriety, is ob- 
servable in the stranye ideas he makes 
Antonio and Sebastian to entertain of 
the prodigious distance between the 
kingdoms of Naples and Tunis, which 
are in fact but a few day’s sail asunder, 
This is upon a par with his making Bo- 
bhemia a maritime country, in his Win- 
ter’s Tale. Mr. Stevens remarks, that 
Apollonius Rhodius is chargeable with 
an equal impropriety, in represepting the 
Rhone and the Po as forming a junc- 
tion, and emptying thernselves into the 
gulph of Venice, But the voyage of 
Jason, as described in the Argonautics, 
from Colchis to Greece, is evidently 
mere poetic fiction. ‘The idea of the 
marriage itself may be accounted among 
Shakespeare’s ‘ roving flights;” for an 
alliance between a princess of Naples 
and a king of Tunis, is an event for 
which it would assuredly be in vain to 
search the genealogical records of Europe 
or of Afnea. Beige 
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and 
groves, 
By whose aid, - 
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedim- 
med € 
Critical Remarks on Shakespeare. 
[Nov , 
The noontide sun, eall'd forth the mutinoug 
winds. Ibid, Act. V. Scene 2. 
The revisal reads, “ weak ministers ;” 
and, as Dr. Johnson thinks, with proba- 
bility, but without necessity, as the mean. 
ing may be,“ Though you are but inferior 
masters of. these supernatural powers.” 
* By whose aid weak masters though ye 
be,” &c. that is, says Sir William Blacks 
stone, ‘‘ ye are powerful auxiliaries, but 
weak if left to yourselves. Your em- 
ployment is then to make green ringlets 
and midnight mushrooms,” Both these 
interpretations may safely be pronounced 
erroneous. The term ‘! Ge: refers to 
the slightness and delicacy of their frame, 
Thus Prospero styles Ariel, ‘¢ fine appa- 
rition, my quaint Ariel, my delicate 
Ariel.” And “ masters” is used here, as 
in many other places, in a very general 
and indefinite sense, and no more stands 
opposed to ageiits or agency, than when 
Falstaff says, ‘‘ Hear ye, my masters, was. 
it for me to rob the true prince?” Pros- 
pero was far from intending to jntimate 
that the preternatural powers these airy 
beings possessed would be diminished 
by the restoration of liberty. The pas- 
sage from Spencer, quoted by Mr. Stee 
vens, 10 corroboration of Dr. Johnson’s 
interpretation, is not in point. The 
masters of her art,” evidently means 
those who had attained to superior skill 
and proficiency in it. tae a: . 
This noble speech, undoubtedly imi- 
tated from that-of Medea in Ovid, has 
been alleged as a proof of the learning of 
Shakespeare ; but the successful industry 
of Dr. Farmer has reversed the argue 
ment, The old translation by Golding 
is as follows: | 
«6 Ye ayres and windes, ye elves of hills, of 
brookes, ef woods alone, 
Of standing lakes, and of the nigkt, approche 
_-ye everych one.” 
This was evidently the original whick 
Shakespeare followed. The words of 
Ovid are merely AMES: 
‘¢ Aureque et ventl, montesque, amnesque, 
lacusque, - ati 
Diique omnes nemorum, diique omnes noctis, 
adeste.” aia SARC ND ee cee 
— ee 
Fr 
Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 
Act. IT, Scene 4e 
’Tis but her picture I have yet beheld, 
And that hath dazzied so my reason’s light ; 
But when I Jook on her perfections, &c. m 
; Baran: 
