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 intimates his
instinctive dread of the cold by threatening to make him "howl away
twelve Winters." And the chief joy of his promised release from
service is, that he will then be free to live all the year through
under the soft rule of Summer, with its flowers and fragrances and
melodies. He is indeed an arrant little epicure of perfume and sweet
sounds, and gives forth several songs which "seem to sound in the air,
and as if the person playing them were invisible."

A part of Ariel's unique texture is well shown in the scene where he
relents at the sufferings of the shipwrecked lords, and remonstrates
with his maste