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42. The Tempest, 1612.
Though ſome account of the Bermuda Iſlands, which are mentioned in this play, had been publiſhed in 1600, (as Dr. Farmer has obſerved) yet as they were not generally known till Sir George Somers arrived there in 1609, The Tempeſt may be fairly attributed to a period ſubſequent to that year; eſpecially as it exhibits ſuch ſtrong internal marks of having been a late production.
The entry at Stationers’ hall does not contribute to aſcertain the time of its compoſition; for it appears not on the Stationers’ books, nor was it printed, till 1623, when it was publiſhed with the reſt of our author’s plays in folio: in which edition, having, I ſuppoſe by mere accident, obtained the firſt place, it has ever ſince preſerved a ſtation to which it indubitably is not entitled.
As the circumſtance from which this piece receives its name, is at an end in the very firſt ſcene, and as many other titles, all equally proper, might have occurred to Shakfpeare,
(ſuch as The Enchanted Iſland—The Baniſhed Duke—Ferdinand and Miranda, &c.) it is poſſible, that ſome particular and recent event determined him to call it The Tempeſt. It appears from Stowe’s Chronicle, p. 913, that in the October, November, and December of the year 1612, a dreadful tempeſt happened in England, “which did exceeding great damage, with extreme ſhipwrack throughout the ocean.” “There periſhed” (ſays the hiſtorian) above an hundred ſhips in the ſpace of two houres.”—Several pamphlets were publiſhed on this occaſion, decorated with prints of ſinking veſſels, caſtles topling on their warders’ heads, the devil overturning ſteeples, &c. In one of them, the author deſcribing the appearance of the waves at Dover, ſays, “the whole ſeas appeared like a fiery world, all ſparkling red.” Another of theſe narratives recounts the eſcape of Edmond Pet, a ſailor; whoſe preſervation appears to have been no leſſ marvellous than that of Trinculo or Stephano: and ſo great a terror did this tempeſt create in the minds of the people, that a form of prayer was ordered on the occaſion, which is annexed to one of the publications above mentioned.
There is reaſon to believe that ſome of our author’s dramas obtained their names from the ſeaſons at which they were produced. It is not very eaſy to account for the title of Twelfth Night, but by ſuppoſing it to have been firſt exhibited in the Chriſtmas holydays[1]. Neither the title of
