the names of Adam, Abel, Tobie, and Enoch; which Enoch they repute the most divine fellow in such matters. They have also among them bookes that they saie Abraham, Aaron, and Salomon made. They have bookes of Zacharie, Paule, Honorius, Cyprian, Jerome, Jeremie, Albert, and Thomas: also of the also of the angels, Riziel, Razael, and Raphael." *

Books are, consequently, represented as one of the chief sources of Prospero's influence over the spiritual world. He himself declares,

"I'll to my book;

For yet, ere supper time, must I perform

Much business appertaining;" +

and, on relinquishing his art, he says, that

"deeper than did ever plummet sound,

I'll drown my book ;" ‡

whilst Caliban, conspiring against the life of his benefactor, tells Stephano, that, before he attempts to destroy him, he must

"Remember,

First to possess his books; for without them

He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not

One spirit to command." §

Though we perceive the effect of Prospero's spells, the mode by which they are wrought does not appear; we are only told that silence is necessary to their success :

He afterwards assures us, that his "charms crack not," and that his "spirits obey;" and, in one instance, he commissions Ariel to "untie the spell" in which he had bound Caliban and his companions.*

It is probable that any attempt to represent the forms of adjuration and enchantment would have been either too ludicrous or too profane for the purposes of the poet. In the one instance, the mysterious solemnity of the scene would have been destroyed; and in the other, the serious feelings of the spectator might have been shocked; at least, such are the results on the mind of the reader, in perusing the numerous specimens of adjuration in the fifteenth book of Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft. One of these, as including an example of the then fashionable mode of conjuration, that of fixing the spirit in a beryl, glass, or stone, according to the practice of Dee and Kelly, shall be given; omitting, however, all those invocations and addresses which, by a frequent use of names and phrases the most hallowed and sacred, must, on such occasions, prove alike indecorous and disgusting. The adjuration in question is termed by Scot, an experiment of the dead," or, " conjuring for a dead spirit:" it commences in the following manner, and terminates in obtaining the services of a good and beautiful spirit of the fairy tribe; and such we may suppose to have been the process through which Prospero procured the obedience and ministration of Ariel, for we are expressly told, that graves" at his "command"

66

"Have waked their sleepers; oped and let them forth."

66

"First fast and praie three daies, and absteine thee from all filthinesse; go to one that is new buried, such a one as killed himselfe, or destroied himself wilfullie: or else get thee promise of one that shal be hanged, and let him sweare an oth to thee, after his bodie is dead, that his spirit shall come to thee, and doe thee true service, at thy

Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 148. 167.

commandements, in all daies, houres, and minutes. And let no persons see thy doings, but thy fellow. And about eleven o clocke in the night, go to the place where he was buried, and saie with a bold faith and hartie desire, to have the spirit come that thou dost call for, thy fellow having a candle in his left hand, and in his right hand a christall stone, and saie these words following, the maister having a hazell wand in his right hand, and these names-written thereupon, Tetragrammaton + Adonay+ Craton. Then strike three strokes on the ground, and saie, Arise, Arise, Arise!

"The maister standing at the head of the grave, his fellow having in his hands the candle and the stone, must begin the conjuration as followeth, and the spirit will appeare to you in the christall stone, in a faire forme of a child of twelve yeares of age. And when he is in, feele the stone, and it will be hot; and feare nothing, for he or shee will shew manie delusions, to drive you from your worke. Feare God, but feare him not."

Then follows a long conjuration to constrain the appearance of the spirit, which being effected, another is pronounced to compell him to fetch the "fairie Sibylia."

"This done, go to a place fast by, and in a faire parlor or chamber, make a circle with chalke: and make another circle for the fairie Sibylia to appeare in, foure foote from the circle thou art in, and make no names therein, nor cast anie holie thing therein, but make a circle round with chalke; and let the maister and his fellowe sit downe in the first circle, the maister having the booke in his hand, his fellow having the christall stone in his right hand, looking in the stone when the fairie dooth appeare."

The fairie Sibylia is then seventimes cited to appear: -"I conjure thee Sibylia, O gentle virgine of fairies, by all the angels of 4 and their characters and vertues, and by all the spirits of 4 and and their characters and vertues, and by all the characters that be in the firmament, and by the king and queene of fairies, and their vertues, and by the faith and obedience which thou bearest unto them, — I conjure thee O blessed and beautifull virgine, by all the riall words

aforesaid; I conjure thee Sibylia by all their vertues to appeare in that circle before me visible, in the forme and shape of a beautifull woman in a bright and white vesture, adorned and garnished most faire, and to appeare to me quicklie without deceipt or tarrieng, and that thou faile not to fulfill my will and desire effectuallie."

The spirit in the christall stone having produced Sibylia within the circle, she is bound to appear "at all times visiblie, as the conjuration of words leadeth, written in the booke," and the ceremony is wound up in the subsequent terms:-"I conjure thee Sibylia, O blessed virgine of fairies, by the king and queene of fairies, and by their vertues,—to give me good counsell at all times, and to come by treasures hidden in the earth, and all other things that is to doo me pleasure, and to fulfill my will, without any deceipt or tarrieng; nor yet that thou shalt have anie power of my bodie or soule, earthlie or ghostlie, nor yet to perish so much of my bodie as one haire of my head. I conjure thee Sibylia by all the riall words aforesaid, and by their vertues and powers, I charge and bind thee by the vertue thereof, to be obedient unto me, and to all the words aforesaid, and this bond to stand betweene thee and me, upon paine of everlasting condemnation, Fiat, fiat, fiat. Amen.*

The Sibylia of this incantation was, therefore, in origin, form, manners, and potency, very much assimilated to the Ariel of our author's Tempest, being gentle, beautiful, yet possessing great influence, and exerting high authority over numerous inferior essences and powers. Thus the spirits employed by Prospero were subservient to Ariel, and under his immediate direction, partly by his own rank in the hierarchy of elemental existences, and partly by the aid of Prospero. †

*Discoverie of Witchcraft, pp. 401, 402. 404-407.

+ "Go," says Prospero, addressing Ariel,"

"Go, bring the rabble, O'er whom I give thee power, here, to this place."

Act iv. sc. 1.

The orders of spirits constituting the miraculous machinery of The Tempest are in Hamlet ranged under four heads,

66

"In sea or fire, in earth or air,"

a distribution which, though seeming naturally to spring from the. usual nomenclature of the elements, was not the division generally adopted; for Scot, detailing the opinion of Psellus " De Operationé Demonum," classes the elementary spirits under six heads, by the addition of subterranean spirits, and spirits of darkness, "subterranei et lucifugi;" and the Talmudists and Platonists add to these, solar, lunar, and stellar spirits; but our poet was probably influenced in his enumeration, by the perusal of Batman uppon Bartholome, who tells us, in a manner calculated to make an impression on the mind, that spirites are divided one from another, that some are called firie, some earthly, some airie, some watrie. Heereupon those foure rivers in Hell, are sayd to be of divers natures, to wit, PHLEGETHON firie, COCYTUS airie, STYX watrye, ACHERON earthly." * We are the more inclined to believe this to have been the case, notwithstanding the obvious facility of such a classification, because it appears to us, that in a prior part of this book, the germ of Caliban's generation may be detected. "Incubus," observes this commentator on Bartholome, "doth infest and trouble women, and Succubus doth infest men, by the which wordes (taken from Augustine "De Civitate Dei") it is manifest, that the godly, chast, and honest minded, are not free from this gross subjection, although more commonly the dishonest are molested therewith. Some hold opinion, that Marline in the time of Vortiger king of great Britaine 470 yeres before Christ, was borne after this manner. Hieronimus Cardanus in his tretise De rebus contra naturam, seemes to be of opinion that spirits or divells may beget and conceive

* "Batman uppon Bartholome, His Booke, De Proprietatibus Rerum," &c. folio, 1582, p. 168. col. 4. - He tells us, however, in another place, that "in the region of the sunne, the spirits of the sunne are of more force than the rest. In the region of the moone, those spirites of the moone, and so of the residue." P. 170. col. 4.