[As wicked dew, as e'er my mother brush'd
With raven's feather from unwholsome fen,
Drop on you both!]
[Some critics, Bentley among them, had spoken of Caliban's new
language.] Whence these critics derived the notion of a new
language appropriated to Caliban, I cannot find: they certainly
mistook brutality of sentiment for uncouthness of words. Caliban
had learned to speak of Prospero and his daughter, he had no
names for the sun and moon before their arrival, and could not
have invented a language of his own without more understanding
than Shakespeare has thought it proper to bestow upon him. His
diction is indeed somewhat clouded by the gloominess of his temper,
and the malignity of his purposes; but let any other being
entertain the same thoughts, and he will find them easily issue
in the same expressions.
[_As wicked dew_,]--_Wicked_; having baneful qualities. So
Spenser says, _wicked weed_; so, in opposition, we say herbs or
medicines have _virtues_. Bacon mentions _virtuous Bezoar_, and
Dryden _virtuous herbs_.
I.ii.351 (25,4) [Abhorred slave] This speech, which the old copy
gives to Miranda, is very judiciously bestowed by Mr. Theobald
on Prospero.
I.ii.364 (27,7) [the red plague] I suppose from the redness of the
body universally inflamed.
I.ii.396 (28,9) [Full fathom five thy father lies] [Charles Gildon
had criticized the song as trifling, and Warburton had defended
its dramatic propriety.] I know not whether Dr. Warburton has
very successfully defended these songs from Gildon's accusation.
Ariel's lays, however seasonable and efficacious, must be
allowed to be of no supernatural dignity or elegance, they express
nothing great, nor reveal any thing above mortal discovery.
The reason for which Ariel is introduced thus trifling is,
that he and his companions are evidently of the fairy kind, an
order of beings to which tradition has always ascribed a sort of
diminutive agency, powerful but ludicrous, a humorous and frolick
controlment of nature, well expressed by the songs of Ariel.