[Fer. my prime request,
Which I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder!
If you be maid, or no?
Mira. No wonder, Sir;
But, certainly, a maid.]
[Nothing could be more prettily imagined to illustrate the
singularity of her character, than this pleasant mistake. W.] Dr.
Warburton has here found a beauty, which I think the author never
intended. Ferdinand asks her not whether she was a _created being_,
a question which, if he meant it, he has ill expressed, but whether
she was unmarried; for after the dialogue which Prospero's
interruption produces, he goes on pursuing his former question.
_O, if a virgin,
I'll make you queen of Naples_.
I.ii.439 (32,5) [controul thee] Confute thee, unanswerably contradict thee.
I.ii.471 (33,7) [come from thy ward] Desist from any hope of awing
me by that posture of defence.
II.i.3 (36,1) [our hint of woe] _Hint_ is that which recals to the
memory. The cause that fills our minds with grief is common.
Dr. Warburton reads _stint_ of woe.
II.i.11 (36,3) [_Ant._ The visitor will not give him o'er so] Why Dr.
Warburton should change _visitor_ to _'vizer_ for _adviser_, I cannot
discover. Gonzalo gives not only advice, but comfort, and is
therefore properly called _The Visitor_, like others who visit the
sick or distressed to give them consolation. In some of the
Protestant churches there is a kind of officers termed consolators
for the sick.
II.i.78 (38,6) [Widow Dido!] The name of a widow brings to their
minds their own shipwreck, which they consider as having made
many widows in Naples.