ispersed them 'bout the isle."

The particular circumstances of the wreck are given quite exactly in the
familiar verses:--

"Safely in harbor
Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'st me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vexed Bermoothes, there she's hid."

Bermoothes, the Spanish pronunciation of Bermudas, or Bermudez, the
original name of the island, taken, as is said, from that of a Spanish
captain wrecked there. Another real incident is referred to in the
following verses, the time only being transposed:--

"The mariners all under hatches stowed;
Whom, with a charm joined to their suffered labor,
I have left asleep."

The return of the other seven vessels of the fleet is described with a
change, however, of the sea in which they sailed, and in their place of
destination:--

"And for the rest of the fleet,
Which I dispersed, they all have met again;
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,
Bound sadly home for Naples;
Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrecked
And his great person perish."

For nearly a year after the Sea-Venture's separation from the fleet, it
was believed, in Virginia and in England, that she and her company were
lost. Smith and Pocahontas may have suggested some materials for the
characters of Ferdinand and Miranda.

Shakespeare, after abandoning the stage, in 1607 or 1608, about the time
of the first landing at Jamestown, remained in London for some four or
five years. Smith, and the early colonists of Virginia, had many of them
probably witnessed the theatrical performances at the Globe or Black
Fryars; Beggars' Bush, now Jordan's Point, an early plantation on the
James River, derived its name from a comedy of Fletcher's. Shakespeare
was, no doubt, quite familiar with the more remarkable incidents of the
first settlement of the colony: the early voyages; the first discovery;
the landing; Smith's rencontres with the Indians; his rescue by
Pocahontas; the starving time, etc. Smith, indeed, as has been before
mentioned, complained of his exploits and adventures having been
misrepresented on the stage, in London. That Shakespeare makes few or no
allusions to these incidents, is because they occurred after nearly all
his plays had been composed. "The Tempest," however, was written several
years after the landing at Jamestown, being one of his latest
produc