repared? For it is observable that, before
Prospero's coming to the island, the powers which cleave to his
thoughts and obey his "so potent art" were at perpetual war, the
better being in subjection to the worse, and all being turned from
their rightful ends into a mad, brawling dissonance: but he teaches
them to know their places; and, "weak masters though they be," without
such guidance, yet under his ordering they become powerful, and work
together as if endowed with a rational soul and a social purpose;
their insane gabble turning to speech, their savage howling to music;
so that

"the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not."

Wherein is boldly figured the educating of Nature up, so to speak,
into intelligent ministries, she lending man hands because he lends
her eyes, and weaving her forces into vital union with him.

"You by whose aid--
Weak masters though ye be--I have bedimm'd
The noontide Sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azure vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt: the strong-bas'd promontory
Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar."

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