ed:[46]
and all the wizards of poetry and fiction, even Faust and St. Leon, sink
into common-places before the princely, the philosophic, the benevolent
Prospero.

The Bermuda Isles, in which Shakspeare has placed the scene of the
Tempest, were discovered in his time: Sir George Somers and his
companions having been wrecked there in a terrible storm,[47] brought
back a most fearful account of those unknown islands, which they
described as "a land of devils--a most prodigious and enchanted place,
subject to continual tempests and supernatural visitings." Such was the
idea entertained of the "still-vext Bermoothes" in Shakspeare's age; but
later travellers describe them as perfect regions of enchantment in a
far different sense; as so many fairy Edens, clustered like a knot of
gems upon the bosom of the Atlantic, decked out in all the lavish
luxuriance of nature, with shades of myrtle and cedar, fringed round
with groves of coral; in short, each island a tiny paradise, rich with
perpetual blossoms, in which Ariel might have slumbered, and
ever-verdant bowers, in which Ferdinand and Miranda might have strayed:
so that Shakspeare, in blending the wild relations of the shipwrecked
mariners with his own inspired fancies, has produced nothing, however
lovely in nature and sublime in magical power, which does not harmonize
with the beautiful and wondrous reality.

There is another circumstance connected with the Tempest, which is
rather interesting. It was produced and acted for the first time upon
the occasion of the nuptials of the Princess Elizabeth, the eldest
daughter of James I. with Frederic, the elector palatine. It is hardly
necessary to remind the reader of the fate of this amiable but most
unhappy woman, whose life, almost from the period of her marriage, was
one long tempestuous scene of trouble and adversity.

* * * * *

The characters which I have here classed together, as principally
distinguished by the predominance of passion and fancy, appear to me to
rise, in the scale of ideality and simplicity, from Juliet to Miranda;
the last being in comparison so refined, so elevated above all stain of
earth, that we can only acknowledge her in connection with it through
the emotions of sympathy she feels and inspires.

I remember, when I was in Italy, standing "at evening on the top of
Fiesole," and at my feet I beheld the city of Florence and the Val
d'Arno, with its villas, its lux