ed to romance, Shakspere planned
a new wonderment. For it he revived some of his old creations from
Illyria and Arden, and Fairyland, all transformed by

a sea change
Into something rich and strange.

And he added some excitements and novelties to keep pace with the
thrilling tragi-comedies of Beaumont and Fletcher. And just as years
before, in the 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' he had drawn hints from the
court entertainments by children, so now he conceived a spectacle
that--so far as was possible--might rival the great shows of the
Jacobean court. He did not need to go beyond the drama to find abundant
suggestions for his new venture.

But this was to be a play as well as a show, and must have some kind of
plot. Perhaps he found an Italian novella with the story. No one has
been able to find it since then. But stories somewhat similar to that of
the 'Tempest' occur in a Spanish tale and in a German play. There was
indeed a real Alfonso, king of Naples, and a duke of Milan who was
dispossesst, and another named Prospero. But whatever story Shakspere
found, it is my notion that he forgot most of it. The palace intrigues,
the rivalries of the banisht and usurping dukes, set at naught by the
love at first sight of their children, the perilous adventures, and the
_denouement_ brought about by magic, were commonplaces of fiction.
Shakspere wanted to weld them into a more surprising fable.

Perhaps it was at the very moment when he was most intent on this
problem that the sailor from the fleet of Sir Thomas Gates hove into
view. Even the mariner's ballast of facts did not quite suffice. As
Shakspere wrote he recalled some lines from his old favorite Ovid to
fill out one of Prospero's descriptions; and he used the newly-read
Montaigne for Gonzalo's account of a Utopian commonwealth. And some fine
lines from Sir William Alexander's tragedy of 'Darius' seem to have
lingered in his recollection when he wrote of the great globe which is
like a pageant and life that is like a dream. As he wrote of Prospero he
thought too of his own career, of his own so potent art, of his promised
retirement, and the fading pageants of both life and art.

Perhaps, too, he may have thought of some of his battles of wit with Ben
Jonson in the Mermaid Tavern. Ben was a great stickler for the rules,
though he lamented that the Unity of Time was very difficult to secure
on the English stage. He thought masques should be kept di