APPENDIX. AN An unexpected circumstance induces me to add some observations to the preceding tract. -Early in the last year [1808] a few copies of it having been printed without any view of publication, they were distributed among my friends and acquaintance, accompanied with an entreaty, written in each copy, that no part of it should be communicated to the publick. Such was the import of my request, though not couched precisely in these words. Notwithstanding this request, it has been reviewed, on the first of January 1809, in one of the monthly publications; and a minute account has been given of all the proofs here adduced for the purpose of shewing the origin of the title and part of the story of Shakspeare's TEMPEST, and of ascertaining the time when it was written. On the propriety of this proceeding I shall not enlarge; more especially, as I have learned that the writer in question was induced to take this step, in consequence of verbal misinformation conveyed to him, I know not by whom, by which he considered himself released from the restriction which my written request was intended to impose. The author of the paper alluded to, however, having asserted, that the foregoing discovery, as he is pleased to call it, was suggested many years ago by Mr. Capell; and a principal object of this premature publication seeming to have been, to prevent my erroneously supposing that I have any claim to it, I take an early opportunity of examining whether his notion on this subject is founded in truth, or on an entire misapprehension of the import and object of what has been stated in the preceding pages. And, to avoid all confusion and misunderstanding, I will first shew what this discovery is NOT. and then, what it is. The discovery which I pretend to have made, is NOT,-that Sir George Somers, having in 1609 been shipwrecked on one of the Bermuda islands, where he died,—and various accounts of those islands having been afterwards published, in which they are represented as having been formerly considered to be " enchanted, and inhabited by witches and devils, which grew by reason of accustomed monstrous thunder, storm, and tempest, near unto them,"-Shakspeare was hence induced, some years afterwards, in his comedy of THE TEMPEST, to characterise Bermoothes (or Bermudas) by the epithet-STILL-VEX'D; and that in the formation of this play, the DELINEATION OF SYCORAX AND HER SORCERIES, THE CHARACTER OF CALIBAN, and THE MAGICK OF PROSPERO, were derived from the same fountain, that is, from the accounts of the Bermudas. This, I say, is NOT what I pretend to have discovered; but . That the tremendous storm, which in July 1609, separated and dispersed the fleet of ships that then sailed for Virginia, under the command of Sir George Somers and others, and finally wrecked his vessel on one of the Bermuda islands,-together with the peculiar incidents and circumstances attending that dispersion and shipwreck, gave rise to, and were the immediate origin of, the play of THE TEMPEST, and the title by which it was distinguished; that to these incidents there is a covert reference in various passages of that comedy;-and that the fate of Somers not having been known in England for about fifteen months after he left it, that is, not till about September or October in the year 1610, during all which time it was feared and generally believed, that he was lost; and the poet, as appears from a passage in his play, having known that he had landed on one of the Bermuda islands in safety; it necessarily follows, that this comedy was written after the news of that event had reached England; and, as I know that it had "a being and a name" in the autumn of 1611, the date of the play is fixed and ascertained with uncommon precision, between the end of the year 1610, and the Autumn of 1611; and it may with great probability be ascribed to the Spring of the latter year. This is what I undertook to prove, and this I presume to to say, I have proved. -- But, says the writer in question, all this may be true; but this is not Mr. Malone's discovery but Mr. Capell's, and by way of proving the truth of this assertion, the following passage from that gentleman's Notes on Shakspeare has been adduced; -vol. ii. part ii. p. 58; 4to. "The idea of Arïel's CHARACTER, of his performances at least, which are describ'd in what pre"cedes this similitude, ["the fever of the mad,"] was catched from Haklyit, as will be evident to a "viewer of that extract which is first [second] of those "which are made in THE SCHOOL [of Shakspeare] "from that writer: and by another, enter'd too in "that work, is that epithet's fitness ["STILL-VEX'D"] "confirm'd, which at p. 14, 13, [i. e. p. 14. 1. 13, "of Mr. Capell's edition of Shakspeare's plays] cha"racterizes the islands, there intitl'd Bermoothes, " in the extract-Bermudas." 66 [Dr. Johnson once said, speaking of Mr. Capell's Preface to his edition, "If the man would have come to me, I would have endeavoured to endow his purpose with words;' for as it is, 'he doth gabble monstrously.' With the same charitable view it may be observed, that the first of the extracts here referred-to, which is taken from the third volume of Hakluyt's Voyages, contains merely a description of the light, that, in storms, sometimes runs upon the top of the maine-yarde and maine-maste," and is denominated, according to that writer, cuerpo santo. The second extract referred-to, is, a passage in a play of Thomas Middleton's entitled ANY THING FOR A QUIET LIFE, in which the Bermuda islands are said to have been formerly infested with "thunder, with frightful lightning, and amazing noises" "but now, (adds the speaker,) the enchantment broke, 'tis the land of peace, where hogs and tobacco yield fair increase." This comedy was |