fortunately so done as to prove delightful to any of you, my young
readers, I hope will have no worse effect upon you, than to make
you wish yourselves a little older, that you may be allowed to read
the Plays at full length (such a wish will be neither peevish nor
irrational). When time and leave of judicious friends shall put
them into your hands, you will discover in such of them as are here
abridged (not to mention almost as many more which are left untouched)
many surprising events and turns of fortune, which for their infinite
variety could not be contained in this little book, besides a world of
sprightly and cheerful characters, both men and women, the humour of
which I was fearful of losing if I attempted to reduce the length of
them.

What these Tales have been to you in childhood, that and much more it
is my wish that the true Plays of Shakespear may prove to you in older
years--enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing
from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and
honourable thoughts and actions, to teach you courtesy, benignity,
generosity, humanity: for of examples, teaching these virtues, his
pages are full.




THE TEMPEST

(_By Mary Lamb_)


There was a certain island in the sea, the only inhabitants of which