Make the prize light."

I must note one more trait in Ariel. It is his fondness of mischievous
sport, wherein he reminds us somewhat of Fairy Puck in _A
Midsummer-Night's Dream_. It is shown in the evident gust with which
he relates the trick he has played on Caliban and his confederates,
when they were proceeding to execute their conspiracy against the
hero's life:

"As I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking;
So full of valour, that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces; beat the ground
For kissing of their feet; yet always bending
Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor;
At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their ears,
Advanc'd their eyelids, lifted up their noses
As they smelt music: so I charm'd their ears,
That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through
Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns,
Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left them
I' the filthy-mantled pool beyond your cell,
There dancing up to th' chins."

Of Ariel's powers and functions as Prospero's prime minister, no
logical forms, nothing but the Poet's art, can give any sort of an
idea. No painter, I am sure, can do any thing with him; still less can
any sculptor. Gifted with the ubiquity and multiformity of the
substance from which he is named, before we can catch and define him
in any one shape, he has passed into another. All we can say of him
on this score is, that through his agency Prospero's thoughts
forthwith become things, his volitions events. And yet, strangely and
diversely as Ariel's nature is elemented and composed, with touches
akin to several orders of being, there is such a self-consistency
about him, he is so cut out in individual distinctness, and so
rounded-in with personal attributes, that contemplation freely and
easily rests upon him as an object. In other words, he is by no means
an abstract idea personified, or any sort of intellectual diagram, but
a veritable _person_; and we have a personal feeling towards the dear
creature, and would fain knit him into the living circle of our human
affections, making him a familiar playfellow of the heart, to be
cherished with "praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles."

* * * * *

If Caliban strikes us as a more wonderful creation than Ariel, it is
probably because he has more in common with us, without being in any
proper sense hum