How different this from the conduct and disposition of their brother elves of Scotland, of whom Kirk tells us, that "they are ever readiest to go on hurtfull Errands, but seldom will be the Messengers of great Good to Men."[339:C]

But not only were the Fairies of our bard the friends and protectors of virtue, they were also the punishers of guilt and sensuality; and, contrary to the then commonly entertained ideas of their infernal origin, and anti-christian habits, were the avowed patrons of piety and prayer: "Go you," exclaims the personifier of one of these tiny moralists, addressing his companions, "black, grey, green and white,"

on the proof of his iniquity, they proceed to punishment, pinching him, and singing in scorn,

This love of virtue, and abhorrence of sin, were, as attributes of the Fairies, in a great measure, if not altogether, the gifts of Shakspeare, at least if we regard their mythology at that time prevalent in Britain, whether we refer to the Scottish system, or to that which existed among our own poets from Chaucer to Warner, though our familiarity with the picture is now such, owing to the popularity of the original artist and the consequent number of his copyists on the same subject, that we assign it a date much anterior to its real source.

If the moral and benevolent character of these children of fancy be, in a great degree, the creation of Shakspeare, the imagery which he has employed in describing their persons, manners, and occupations, will be deemed not less his peculiar offspring, nor inferior in beauty, novelty, and wildness of painting, to that which the magic of his pencil has diffused over every other part of his visionary world. Thus, in imparting to us an idea of the diminutive size of his Fairies, with what picturesque minutiæ has he marked his sketch! Speaking of the altercation between Oberon and Titania, he mentions, as one of its results, that

and he delineates Ariel as sleeping in a cowslip's bell, as living merrily "under the blossom that hangs on the bough," and flying after summer mounted on the back of the bat.[341:B]

In accordance with this smallness of stature, are all their accompaniments and employments contrived, with the most admirable proportion and the most vivid imagination. Their dress tinted "green and white[341:C]," is constructed of the "wings of rear-mice[341:D]," and their wrappers of the "snake's enamelled skin[341:E];" the pensioners of their queen are "the cowslips tall[341:F];" her lacquies, Peas-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed[341:G]; her lamps the green lustre of the glow-worm[341:H]; and her equipage, one of the most exquisite pictures of frolic imagination, is thus minutely drawn:

Of the various occupations and amusements assigned to the Fairies, the most constant which tradition has preserved, has been that of dancing at midnight, hand in hand in a circle, a diversion common to every system of this mythology, but which Shakspeare perhaps first described with graphic precision. The scenery selected for this sport, in which—

was, we are told by Titania,

and the light of the moon was a necessary adjunct to their festivity,—

These ringlets, the consequence of the fairy footing, our author has particularly noticed in the following lines, adding some striking imagery on the use to which flowers were applied by this sprightly race:—

To preserve the freshness and verdure of these ringlets by supplying them with moisture, was one of the occupations of Titania's train: thus a fairy in her service is represented as telling Puck—

The general amusements of the tribe, independent of their moon-light dance, are very impressively and characteristically enumerated in the subsequent lines:—

But the most astonishing display of the sportive and illimitable fancy of our poet on this subject, will be found in the ministration and offices ascribed to those Fairies who are employed about the person, or executing the mandates, of their Queen. It appears to have been the business of one of her retinue to attend to the decoration of her majesty's pensioners, the cowslips tall;

Another duty, not less important, was to lull their mistress asleep on the bosom of a violet or a musk-rose:—

And again, with still greater wildness of imagination, but with the utmost propriety and adaptation of imagery, are they drawn in the performance of similar functions:—

The song is equally in character, as it forbids, in admirable adherence to poetical truth and consistency, the approach of every insect or reptile, that might be deemed likely to annoy the repose of such a delicate and diminutive being, while Philomel is invoked to add her delicious chaunt to the soothing melody of fairy voices:—

This scene, beautiful and appropriate as it is, is yet surpassed, in originality and playfulness of fancy, by the passage in which Titania gives directions to her attendants for their conduct to Bottom, to whom she had previously offered their assistance, promising that they should fetch him "jewels from the deep:"—

The working of Oberon's enchantment on Titania, who "straight-way lov'd an ass," and led him to "her close and consecrated bower," and the interview between Bottom, her fairy majesty, and her train, though connected with so many supernatural imaginings, have been transferred to the canvas by Fuseli with a felicity which has embodied the very thoughts of Shakspeare, and which may on this subject be said to have placed the genius of the painter almost on a level with that of the poet, so wonderfully has he fixed the illusive creations of his great original.

To this detail of fairy occupation, must be added another feature, on which Shakspeare has particularly dwelt, namely, the attention of the tribe to cleanliness: thus Puck, on entering the palace of Theseus, exclaims,—

and similar care and neatness are enjoined the elves who haunt the towers of Windsor:—

No one could aspire to the favour and protection of the Fairies who was slovenly or personally impure; punishment, indeed, awaited all who thus offended; even the majesty of Mab herself condescended

and Cricket, the fairy, being sent on a mission to the chimnies of Windsor, receives the following injunction:—

In order to complete the picture of fairy superstition, as given us by Shakspeare, it remains to consider his description of Puck or Robin Good-fellow, the confidential servant of Oberon, an elf or incubus of a mixed and very peculiar character. This quaint, frolicksome, and often mischievous sprite, seems to have been compounded of the qualities ascribed by Gervase of Tilbury to his Goblin Grant, and to his Portuni, two species of dæmons whom he describes, both in name and character, as denizens of England; of the benevolent propensities attributed by Agricola to the Guteli, Cobali, or Brownies of Germany, and of additional features and powers, the gift and creation of our bard.

A large portion of these descriptions of the German writers, and of his countryman Gervase, Shakspeare would find in Reginald Scot, and from their union with the product of his own fancy, has arisen the Puck of the Midsummer-Night's Dream, a curious amalgamation of the fairy, the brownie, and the hob-goblin, whom Burton calls "a bigger kind of fairy."[348:A] Scot's vocabulary of the fairy tribe is singularly copious, including not less than nine or ten appellations which have been bestowed, with more or less propriety, on this Proteus of the Gothic elves.—"In our childhood," he observes, "our mother's maids have so terrified us with—bull-beggers, spirits, urchens, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes, sylens, kit with the cansticke, dwarfes, imps, nymphes, changlings, incubus, Robin Good-fellowe, the spoone, the mare, the man in the oke, the hell waine, the fier drake, the puckle Tom thombe, hob goblin, Tom tumbler, boneless, and such other bugs, that we are afraid of our owne shadowes."[348:B]

It is remarkable, however, that the Puck of Shakspeare is introduced by a term not found in this catalogue:—"Farewell, thou Lob of Spirits," says the fairy to him in their first interview,—a title which, as we shall perceive hereafter, could not be meant to imply, as Dr. Johnson supposed, either inactivity of body or dulness of mind, for Puck was occasionally swifter than the wind, and notorious, as the immediately subsequent passage informs us, for his shrewdness and ingenuity:—

says the fairy, after bestowing the above title,

and then proceeds to characterise him by the peculiarity of his functions:—

an interrogatory to which he replies in the following terms:—

The greater part of these frolics, indeed all but the last, may be traced in Gervase of Tilbury, Agricola, and Scot: the "misleading night-wanderers," for instance, "laughing at their harm," and "neighing in likeness of a filly foal," feats which Puck afterwards thus again enumerates,—

are expressly attributed by Gervase to the goblins whom he has termed Grant and Portuni:—"Est in Anglia quoddam dæmonum genus, quod suo idiomate Grant nominant adinstar pulli equini anniculi, tibiis erectum oculis scintillantibus," &c.—"Cum—inter ambiguas noctis tenebras Angli solitarii quandoque equitant, Portunus nonnunquam invisus equitanti sese copulat, et cum diutius comitatur euntem, tandem loris arreptis equum in latum ad manum ducit, in quo dum infixos volutatur, portunus exiens cachinnum facit, et sic hujuscemodi ludibrio humanam simplicitatem deridet."[350:B]

The domestic offices and drudgery which Puck delighted to perform for his favourites, are mentioned by Lavaterus as belonging to his Fairies of the Earth; by Agricola to his Cobali and Guteli, and by Scot to his Incubi and Virunculi. Thus the first of these writers observes, in the words of the English translation of 1572, that "men imagine there be certayne elves or fairies of the earth, and tell many straunge and marvellous tales of them, which they have heard of their grandmothers and mothers, howe they have appeared unto those of the house, have done service, have rocked the cradell, and (which is a signe of good luck) do continually tary in the house[350:C];" and he subsequently gives us from Agricola the following passage:—"There be some (demons) very mild and gentle, whome some of the Germans call Cobali, as the Grecians do, because they be as it were apes and counterfeiters of men: for they leaping, and skipping for joy do laughe, and sæme as though they did many things, when in very dæde they doo nothing.—Some other call them Elves;—they are not much unlike unto those whom the Germans call Guteli, bycause they sæme to beare good affection towards men, for they keepe horses, and do other necessary businesse."[351:A]

The resemblance which these descriptions bear both to the Brownie of the Scotch and the Puck of Shakspeare are very evident: but the combination and similitude are rendered still more apparent in the words of Scot; the "Virunculi terrei," says he, "are such as was Robin good fellowe, that would supplie the office of servants, speciallie of maids; as to make a fier in the morning, sweepe the house, grind mustard and malt, drawe water, &c.[351:B];" and speaking of the Incubus, he adds:—"In deede your grandams maides were wont to set a boll of milke before him and his cousine Robin good-fellow, for grinding of malt or mustard, and sweeping the house at midnight: and you have also heard that he would chafe exceedingly, if the maid or good-wife of the house, having compassion on his nakednesse, laid anie clothes for him, beesides his messe of white bread and milke, which was his standing fee. For in that case he saith; What have we here? Hemten, hamten, here will I never more tread nor stampen."[351:C]

The lines in italics point out one of the most characteristic features of the Brownie, while the preceding parts, and the last word of the quotation, are in unison, both with the passages just transcribed from our poet, and with that expression of Puck, where, describing to Oberon the terror and dispersion of the rustic comedians, he says—

It may be also remarked, that the idea of fixing "an ass's nowl" on Bottom's head, is most probably taken from Scot, who gives us a very curious receipt for this singular metamorphosis.[351:E]

So far, then, the Puck of Shakspeare is in conformity with the tales of tradition, and of preceding writers; he is the "Goblin fear'd in field and town[352:A]," who loves all things best "that befal preposterously[352:B]," and who, even when the poet wrote, had not ceased to excite apprehension; for Scot hath told us, nine years before the era of the Midsummer-Night's Dream, that Robin Good-fellowe ceaseth now to be much feared.[352:C]

But to these traits of customary character, Shakspeare has added some which greatly modify the picture, and which have united to the "drudging goblin," and to the demon of mischievous frolic, duties and functions of a very different cast. He is the messenger[352:D], and trusty servant[352:E] of the fairy king, by whom, in these capacities, he is called gentle[352:F] and good[352:G], and he combines with all his hereditary attributes, the speed, the legerity, and the intellectual skill of the highest order of the fairy world. Accordingly when Oberon says—

he replies,

and again, on receiving commission from the same quarter:—

Upon the whole we may be allowed, from the preceding dissertation, to consider the following series of circumstances as entitled to the appellation of facts: namely, that the patria of our popular system of fairy mythology, was the Scandinavian Peninsula; that, on its admission into this country, it gradually underwent various modifications through the influence of Christianity, the introduction of classical associations, and the prevalence of feudal manners; but that, ultimately, two systems became established; one in Scotland, founded on the wild and more terrific parts of the Gothic mythology, and the other in England, built, indeed, on the same system, but from a selection of its milder features, and converted by the genius of Shakspeare into one of the most lovely creations of a sportive imagination. Such, in fact, has been the success of our bard in expanding and colouring the germs of Gothic fairyism; in assigning to its tiny agents, new attributes and powers; and in clothing their ministration with the most light and exquisite imagery, that his portraits, in all their essential parts, have descended to us as indissolubly connected with, and indeed nearly, if not altogether, forming, our ideas of the fairy tribe.

The canvas, it is true, which he stretched, has been since expanded, and new groupes have been introduced; but the outline and the mode of colouring which he employed, have been invariably followed. It is, in short, to his picture of the fairy world, that we are indebted for the Nymphidia of Drayton[354:A]; the Robin Goodfellow of Jonson[354:B]; the miniatures of Fletcher and Browne[354:C]; the full-length portraits of Herrick[354:D]; the sly allusions of Corbet[354:E], and the spirited and picturesque sketches of Milton.[354:F]

To Shakspeare, therefore, as the remodeller, and almost the inventor of our fairy system, may, with the utmost propriety, be addressed the elegant compliment which Browne has paid to Occleve, certainly inappropriate as applied to that rugged imitator of Chaucer, but admirably adapted to the peculiar powers of our bard, and delightfully expressive of what we may conceive would be the gratitude, were such testimony possible, of these children of his playful fancy:—

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