In this bold imagery we seem to have a kind of prophecy of what human science and skill have since achieved in taming the great forces of Nature to man’s hand, and harnessing them up into his service.  Is not all this as if the infernal powers should be appeased and soothed by the melody and sweetness of the Orphean harp and voice?  And do we not see how the very elements themselves grow happy and merry in serving man, when he by his wisdom and eloquence has once charmed them into order and concert?  Man has but to learn Nature’s language and obey her voice, and she clothes him with plenipotence.  The mad warring of her forces turns to rational speech and music when he holds the torch of reason before them and makes it shine full in their faces.  Let him but set himself steadfastly to understand and observe her laws, and her mighty energies hasten to wait upon him, as docile to his hand as the lion to the eye and voice of Lady Una.  So that we may not unfairly apply to Prospero what Bacon so finely interprets of Orpheus, as “a wonderful and divine person skilled in all kinds of harmony, subduing and drawing all things after him by sweet and gentle methods and modulations.”

All this, to be sure, is making the work rather an allegory than a drama, and therein of course misrepresents its quality.  For the connecting links in this strange intercourse of man and Nature are “beings individually determined,” and affect us as persons, not as propositions.

* * * * *

Ariel and Caliban are equally preternatural, though in opposite directions.  Ariel’s very being is spun out of melody and fragrance; at least, if a feeling soul and an intelligent will are the warp, these are the woof of his exquisite texture.  He has just enough of human-heartedness to know how he would feel were he human, and a proportionable sense of gratitude, which has been aptly called “the memory of the heart”:  hence he needs to be often reminded of his obligations, but is religiously true to them so long as he remembers them.  His delicacy of nature is nowhere more apparent than in his sympathy with right and good:  the instant he comes within their touch he follows them without reserve; and he will suffer any torments rather than “act the earthy and abhorr’d commands” that go against his moral grain.  And what a merry little personage he is withal! as if his being were cast together in an impulse of play, and he would spend his whole life in one perpetual frolic.

But the main ingredients of Ariel’s zephyr-like constitution are shown in his leading inclinations; as he naturally has most affinity for that of which he is framed.  Moral ties are irksome to him; they are not his proper element:  when he enters their sphere, he feels them to be holy indeed; but, were he free, he would keep out of their reach, and follow the circling seasons in their course, and always dwell merrily in the fringes of Summer.  Prospero quietly