g in grief for her son's death, to be restored again in
the famous but theatrical statue scene; Autolycus is created and is
given, with Camillo, an important share in the restoration of Perdita;
and the complications of {205} Dorastus's (Florizel's) destiny as the
prospective husband of a princess of Denmark, and Pandosto's
(Leontes's) falling in love with his own daughter and his suicide on
learning of her true birth, are wisely omitted. The characters of
Paulina, the Clown, and some minor persons are Shakespeare's own
invention.

According to Professor Neilson, Autolycus and his song in IV iii, 1
ff., may have been partly based on the character of Tom Beggar in
Robert Wilson's _Three Ladies of London_ (1584).

+The Tempest+, probably the last complete drama from Shakespeare's pen,
differs from the other "romances" in possessing a singular unity. It
comes, indeed closer than any play, save the _Comedy of Errors_, to
fulfilling the demands of unity of action, time, and place. This may
be due to the fact that the poet is here making up his own plot, not,
as in other cases, dramatizing a novel of extended adventure.

The central theme of _The Tempest_ is, like that of the other romances,
restoration of those exiled and reconciliation of those at enmity; but
the treatment of the story could not be more different. Where the
chance of fortune has hitherto brought about the happy ending, here
magic and the supernatural in control of man are the means employed.
Those who had plotted or connived at the expulsion of Prospero, Duke of
Milan, and his being set adrift in an open boat, with his infant
daughter and his books for company, are wrecked through his art upon
the island of which he has become the master. Ariel, the spirit who
serves Prospero, a mysterious, ever changing form, now fire, now a
Nymph, now an invisible musician, now a Harpy, striking guilt into the
conscience (and yet apparently not interested in either vice or virtue,
but {206} longing only for free idleness), guides all to Prospero's
cave, and receives freedom for his toil. His spirit pervades every
scene, whether we view the king's son Ferdinand loving innocent
Miranda, or the silent king mourning his son's loss, or the guilty
conspirators plotting the king's death, or the drunken steward and
jester plotting with the servant monster Caliban the overthrow of
Prospero. All of them are led, by the wisdom of Prospero acting
through Ariel, away from