That is, not "kissed the wild waves," as ingenious punctuators pretend, but, parenthetically, "kissed one another,--the wild waves being silent the while." Even fairies do not kiss waves, than which no embrace could be conceived less rewarding. Has any one remarked the echo of Marlowe here, from _Hero and Leander_, "when all is whist and still, Save that the sea playing on yellow sand Sends forth a rattling murmur to the land!" But Marlowe, with all his gifts, could never have written the lyrical parts of _The Tempest_. This song is in emotional sympathy with Ferdinand, and in the truest sense dramatic, not a piece of pretty verse foisted in to add to the entertainment. Ariel's Second Song has been compared with Webster's "Call for the robin redbreast" in _The White Devil_, but solemn as Webster's dirge is, it tolls, it docs not sing to us. Shakespeare's "ditty," as Ferdinand calls it, is like a breath of the west wind over an æolian harp. Where, in any language, has ease of metre triumphed more adorably than in Ariel's Fourth Song,--"Where the bee sucks"? Dowden saw in Ariel the imaginative genius of English poetry, recently delivered from Sycorax. If we glance at Dry den's recension of _The Tempest_ we may be inclined to think that the "wicked dam" soon won back her mastery. With all respect to Dryden, what are we to think of his discretion in eking out Shakespeare's insufficiencies with such staves as this:-- "Upon the floods we'll sing and play And celebrate a halcyon day; Great Nephew Aeolus make no noise, Muzzle your roaring boys." and so forth? What had happened to the ear of England in seventy years?