triumph of good over evil, and his
duty to do his best in aid of this triumph, has no more fear of the
dreams--the something after death. Our little life is still rounded by a
sleep, but the thought which terrifies Hamlet has no power to affright
Prospero. The hereafter is still a mystery, it is true; he has tried to
see into it, and has found it impenetrable. But revelation has come like
an angel, with peace upon its wings, in another and an unexpected way.
Duty lies here, in and around him in this world. Here he can right
wrong, succour the weak, abase the proud, do something to make the world
better than he found it; and in the performance of this he finds a
holier calm than the vain strivings after the unknowable could ever
afford. Let him work while it is day, for "the night cometh, when no man
can work."

131. It is not a piece of pure sentimentality that sees in Prospero a
type of Shakspere in his final stage of thought. It is a type altogether
as it should be; and it is pleasing to think of him, in the full
maturity of his manhood, wrapping his seer's cloak about him, and, while
waiting calmly the unfolding of the mystery which he has sought in vain
to solve, watching with noble benevolence the gradual working out of
truth, order, and justice. It is pleasing to think of him as speaking
to the world the great Christian doctrine so universally overlooked by
Christians, that the only remedy for sin demanded by eternal justice "is
nothing but heart's sorrow, and a clear life ensuing"--a speech which,
though uttered by Ariel, is spoken by Prospero, who himself beautifully
iterates part of the doctrine when he says--

"The rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further."[1]

It is pleasant to dwell upon his sympathy with Ferdinand and
Miranda--for the love of man and woman is pure and holy in this
regenerate world: no more of Troilus and Cressida--upon his patient
waiting for the evolution of his schemes; upon his faith in their
ultimate success; and, above all, upon the majestic and unaffected
reverence that appears indirectly in every line--"reverence," to adapt
the words of the great teacher whose opinion about Shakspere has been
perhaps too rashly questioned, "for what is pure and bright in youth;
for what is true and tried in age; for all that is gracious among the
living, great among