I like to believe that this was the poet's last work, that he wrote it in
his home at Stratford, walking day by day in the fields which had taught
his boyhood to love rural England. It is ripe fruit of the supreme
imagination, perfect craft of the master hand. For a man whose life's
business it has been to study the English tongue, what joy can equal that
of marking the happy ease wherewith Shakespeare surpasses, in mere
command of words, every achievement of those even who, apart from him,
are great? I could fancy that, in _The Tempest_, he wrought with a
peculiar consciousness of this power, smiling as the word of inimitable
felicity, the phrase of incomparable cadence, was whispered to him by the
Ariel that was his genius. He seems to sport with language, to amuse
himself with new discovery of its resources. From king to beggar, men of
every rank and every order of mind have spoken with his lips; he has
uttered the lore of fairyland; now it pleases him to create a being
neither man nor fairy, a something between brute and human nature, and to
endow its purposes with words. These words, how they smack of the moist
and spawning earth, of the life of creatures that cannot rise above the
soil! We do not think of it enough; we stint our wonder because we fall
short in appreciation. A miracle is worked before us, and we scarce give
heed; it has become familiar to our minds as any other of nature's
marvels, which we rarely pause to reflect upon.

_The Tempest_ contains the noblest meditative passage in all the plays;
that which embodies Shakespeare's final view of life, and is the
inevitable quotation of all who would sum the teachings of philosophy. It
contains his most exquisite lyrics, his tenderest love passages, and one
glimpse of fairyland which--I cannot but think--outshines the utmost
beauty of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_: Prospero's farewell to the "elves
of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves." Again a miracle; these
are things which cannot be staled by repetition. Come to them often as