The "Tempest" is a drama tolerably regular as regards the unities, since the storm which swamps the vessel in the first scene occurs within view of the island, and the entire action does not embrace an interval of more than three hours. Some commentators have thought that Shakspeare might have intended to reply, by this specimen of what he was able to do, to Ben Jonson's continual criticisms upon the irregularity of his works. Dr. Johnson is of an opposite opinion, and regards this circumstance as an effect of chance and the natural result of the subject; but there is one thing that might give us reason to believe that Shakspeare, at least, intended to avail himself of this advantage, and that is, the care with which the different personages, even including the boatswain, who has slept during the whole of the action, mark the time which has elapsed since the beginning of the play. More than this; when Ariel informs Prospero that they are drawing near the sixth hour, the hour in which his master had promised him that their labors should cease, Prospero replies:
"I did say so, when first I raised the tempest."
This remark would even seem to indicate an intention which the poet desired should be perceived.
It is not known from what sources Shakspeare derived the subject of the "Tempest;" but it appears sufficiently certain that he borrowed it from some Italian novel, which it has hitherto been impossible to discover.
Malone's chronology places the composition of the "Tempest" in the year 1612, which conjecture, however, agrees ill with another supposition equally probable. While reading the Masque performed before Ferdinand and Miranda, it is impossible not to be struck with the idea that the "Tempest" was first composed to be performed on the occasion of some marriage festival; and the lightness of the subject, as well as the brilliant carelessness which is remarkable in the composition, seem entirely to confirm this conjecture. Mr. Holt, one of the commentators upon Shakspeare, has supposed that the marriage upon which Shakspeare has poured so many blessings, through the mouths of Juno and Ceres, might very probably be that of the Earl of Essex, who married Lady Frances Howard in 1611, or rather terminated in that year his marriage, which had been contracted ever since 1606, but the consummation of which had been delayed by the travels of the earl, and probably by the youth of the contracting parties. This last circumstance appears even to be indicated with considerable clearness in the scene in which great stress is laid upon the continence which the young lovers have promised to observe until the complete accomplishment of all the necessary ceremonies. Would it not also be possible to suppose that this piece, though composed in 1611 for the nuptials of the Earl of Essex, was not performed in London until the following year?