EPITAPH ON WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, BY JOHN MILTON. What needs my Shakspeare for his honour'd bones, The labour of an age in piled stones; Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramia? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou, in our wonder and astonishment, Hast built thyself a live-long monument: For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art, Thy easy numbers flow; and that each heart Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving, Dost make us marble with too much conceiving; HISTORICAL NOTICE OF THE TEMPEST. No one has hitherto been fortunate enough to discover the romance, on which Shakspeare founded this play. Mr. Collins the poet is said indeed to have informed Mr. T. Warton, that it was founded on an old romance called 'Aurelio and Isabella,' printed in Italian, Spanish, French, and English in 1588: but as no such work could be discovered by the acute and learned writer to whom this information was communicated, it was reasonably inferred by him, that Collins, in consequence of the failure of memory during his last illness, had substituted the name of one novel for another. It seems probable, that the event, which immediately gave rise to the composition of this drama, was the voyage of Sir George Somers, who was shipwrecked on the Bermudas in 1609, and whose adventures were given to the public by Silvester Jourdan, one of his crew, with the following title:- 'A Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called the Isle of Divels by Sir Thomas Gates, Sir Geo. Sommers, and Captayne Newport, and divers others.' In this publication Jourdan informs us, that the islands of the Bermudas, as every man knoweth, that hath heard or read of them, were never inhabited by any Christian or heathen people; but ever esteemed and reputed a most prodigious and inchanted place, affording nothing |