the daughter of a monarch so sensitive about
his title to the crown as James I. {255a}

In the theatre and at court the early representations of 'The Tempest'
evoked unmeasured applause. The success owed something to the beautiful
lyrics which were dispersed through the play and had been set to music by
Robert Johnson, a lutenist in high repute. {255b} Like its predecessor
'A Winter's Tale,' 'The Tempest' long maintained its first popularity in
the theatre, and the vogue of the two pieces drew a passing sneer from
Ben Jonson. In the Induction to his 'Bartholomew Fair,' first acted in
1614, he wrote: 'If there be never a servant-monster in the Fair, who can
help it he [_i.e._ the author] says? nor a nest of Antics. He is loth to
make nature afraid in his plays like those that beget Tales, Tempests,
and such like Drolleries.' The 'servant-monster' was an obvious allusion
to Caliban, and 'the nest of Antics' was a glance at the satyrs who
figure in the sheepshearing feast in 'A Winter's Tale.'

Fanciful interpretations of 'The Tempest.'

Nowhere did Shakespeare give rein to his imagination with more imposing
effect than in 'The Tempest.' As in 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' magical
or supernatural agencies are the mainsprings of the plot. But the tone
is marked at all points by a solemnity and profundity of thought and
sentiment which are lacking in the early comedy. The serious atmosphere
has led critics, without much reason, to detect in the scheme of 'The
Tempest' something more than the irresponsible play of poetic fancy.
Many of the characters have been represented as the outcome of
speculation respecting the least soluble problems of human existence.
Little reliance should be placed on such interpretations. The creation
of Miranda is the apotheosis in literature of tender, ingenuous girlhood
unsophisticated by social intercourse, but Shakespeare had already
sketched the outlines of the portrait in Marina and Perdita, the youthful
heroines respectively of 'Pericles' and 'A Winter's Tale,' and these two
characters were directly developed from romantic stories of
girl-princesses, cast by misfortune on the mercies of nature, to which
Shakespeare had recourse for the plots of the two plays. It is by
accident, and not by design, that in Ariel appear to be discernible the
capabilities of human intellect when detached from physical attributes.
Ariel belongs to the same world as Puck, although he is delineated i