で Wassels, meetings of rustick mirth, ii. 457. Watch, a watch-light, vi. 122. Wax, to grow, ii. 426. 91. Well found, of acknowledged excellence, iii. 225. Well-liking, plump, embonpoint, ii. 436. Wen, swollen excrescence, v. 35. Wend, to go, ii. 166. 531. iv. 10. Whelked, varied with protuberances, viii, 102. Whe'r, whether, i. 87. iv. 185. Where, whereas, i. 142. ii. 384. iii. 68. iv. 459. v. 550. 363. 420. vi. 492. vii. 470. viii. 20. Whiffler, an officer who walks first in processions, v. 226. Whiles, until, ii. 75. Whip, the crack, the best, vi. 514. Whipstock, a carter's whip, ii. 29. vii. 490. Wits, senses, viii. 72. Wittol, knowing, conscious of, i. 226. Witty, judicious, cunning, vi. 91. 442. Wondered, able to perform won- | Writ, writing, composition, viii. ders, i. 74. Wood, crazy, frantic, i. 125. ii. 303. v. 524. Woodman, an attendant on the forester, i. 277. ii. 167. vii. 505. Woolward, a (unexplained) phrase appropriated to pilgrims and penitentiaries, ii. 451. Words, dispute, contention, v. 567. Work, a term of fortification, vi. 248. Workings, labours of thought, v. 77. World, to go to the, to be married, iii. 210. Worm, a serpent, vii. 225. Worship, dignity, authority, vii. 205. Worth, wealth or fortune, ii. 54.; the value, vi. 311.; full quota or proportion, 567. Worts, cabbage, i. 193. Wot, to know, i. 220. Wound, twisted about, i. 47. Wreak, resentment, vi. 584. Wreak, to revenge, vii. 430. Wrest, an instrument for tuning the harp, vi. 326. Wrested, obtained by violence, iv. 255. Wretch, various meanings of, viii. -473. The Tempest, and The Midsummer Night's Dream are the noblest efforts of that sublime and amazing imagination peculiar to Shakspeare, which soars above the bounds of nature, without forsaking sense; or, more properly, carries nature along with him beyond her established limits. Fletcher seems particularly to have admired these two plays, and hath wrote two in imitation of them, The Sea Voyage, and The Faithful Shepherdess. But when he presumes to break a lance with Shakspeare, and write in emulation of him, as he does in The False One, which is the rival of Antony and Cleopatra, he is not so successful. After him, Sir John Suckling and Milton catched the brightest fire of their imagination from these two plays; which shines fantastically indeed in The Goblins, but much more nobly and serenely in The Mask at Ludlow Castle. WARBURTON. No one has hitherto been lucky enough to discover the romance on which Shakspeare may be supposed to have founded this play, the beauties of which could not secure it from the criticism of Ben Jonson, whose malignity appears to have been more than equal to his wit. In the introduction to Bartholomew Fair, he says: "If there be never a servant monster in the fair, who can help it, he says, nor a nest of antiques? He is loth to make nature afraid in his plays, like those that beget Tales, Tempests, and such like drolleries." STEEVENS. I was informed by the late Mr. Collins of Chichester, that Shakspeare's Tempest, for which no origin is yet assigned, was formed on a romance called Aurelio and Isabella, printed in Italian, Spanish, French, and English, in 1588. But though this information has not proved true on examination, an useful conclusion may be drawn from it, that Shakspeare's story is somewhere to be found in an Italian novel, at least that the story preceded Shakspeare. Mr. Collins had searched this subject with no less fidelity than judgment and industry; but his memory failing in his last calamitous indisposition, he probably gave me the name of one novel for another. I remember he added a circumstance which may lead to a discovery, that the principal character of the romance, answering to Shakspeare's Prospero, was a chemical necromancer, who had bound a spirit like Ariel to obey his call, and perform his services. Taken at large, the magical part of the Tempest is founded on that sort of philosophy which was practised by John Dee and his associates, and has been called the Rosicrucian. The name Ariel came from the Talmudistick mysteries with which the learned Jews had infected this science. T. WARTON. It was one of our author's last works. In 1598, he played a part in the original Every Man in his Humour. Two of the characters are Prospero and Stephano. Here Ben Jonson taught him the pronunciation of the latter word, which is always right in The Tempest: "Is not this Stephăno, my drunken butler ?" And always wrong in his earlier play, The Merchant of Venice, which had been on the stage at least two or three years before its publication in 1600: My friend Stephano, signify I pray you," &c. So little did Mr. Capell know of his author, when he idly supposed his school literature might perhaps have been lost by the dissipation of youth, or the busy scene of public life! FARMER. This play must have been written before 1614, when Jonson sneers at it in his Bartholomew Fair. In the latter plays of Shakspeare, he has less of pun and quibble than in his early ones. In The Merchant of Venice, he expressly declares against them. This perhaps might be one criterion to discover the dates of his plays. BLACKSTONE. It was not printed till 1623, when it was published with the rest of our author's plays in folio. Mr. Malone is of opinion it was written about the year 1611, and considers the circumstances attending the storm by which Sir George Somers was shipwrecked on the island of Bermuda, in the year 1609, as having given rise to the play, and suggested the title as well as some of the incidents. Mr. Douce appears to be of the same opinion. See Malone's Shakspeare, edit. 1821, and Douce's "Illustrations of Shakspeare," |