* * * * *

There has been considerable discussion as to the scene of The Tempest.  A wide range of critics from Mr. Chalmers to Mrs. Jameson have taken for granted that the Poet fixed his scene in the Bermudas.  For this they have alleged no authority but his mention of “the still-vex’d Bermoothes.”  Ariel’s trip from “the deep nook to fetch dew from the still-vex’d Bermoothes” does indeed show that the Bermudas were in the Poet’s mind; but then it also shows that his scene was not there; for it had been no feat at all worth mentioning for Ariel to fetch dew from one part of the Bermudas to another.  An aerial voyage of some two or three thousand miles was the least that so nimble a messenger could be expected to make any account of.  Besides, in less than an hour after the wrecking of the King’s ship, the rest of the fleet are said to be upon the Mediterranean, “bound sadly home for Naples.”  On the other hand, the Rev. Mr. Hunter is very positive that, if we read the play with a map before us, we shall bring up at the island of Lampedusa, which “lies midway between Malta and the African coast.”  He makes out a pretty fair case, nevertheless I must be excused; not so much that I positively reject his theory as that I simply do not care whether it be true or not.  But if we must have any supposal about it, the most reasonable as well as the most poetical one seems to be, that the Poet, writing without a map, placed his scene upon an island of the mind; and that it suited his purpose to transfer to his ideal whereabout some of the wonders of trans-Atlantic discovery.  I should almost as soon think of going to history for the characters of Ariel and Caliban, as to geography for the size, locality, or whatsoever else, of their dwelling-place.  And it is to be noted that the old ballad just referred to seems to take for granted that the island was but an island of the mind; representing it to have disappeared upon Prospero’s leaving it: 

    “From that day forth the isle has been
    By wandering sailors never seen: 
      Some say ’tis buried deep
    Beneath the sea, which breaks and roars
    Above its savage rocky shores,
      Nor e’er is known to sleep.”

Coleridge says “The Tempest is a specimen of the purely romantic drama.”  The term romantic is here used in a technical sense; that is, to distinguish the Shakespearian from the Classic Drama.  In this sense, I cannot quite agree with the great critic that the drama is purely romantic.  Highly romantic it certainly is, in its wide, free, bold variety of character and incident, and in all the qualities that enter into the picturesque; yet not romantic in such sort, I think, but that it is at the same time equally classic; classic, not only in that the unities of time and place are strictly observed, but as having the other qualities which naturally go with those laws of the classic form;