But one of the most important members of the fairy world is the merry spirit Puck, Oberon's henchman, to whose mischievous pranks all the misadventures of English rustic life are attributed. I presume he has faded away before increasing population and improved agriculture, and that almost all that remains of him is to be found in Shakspeare's verses. You are that shrewd and knavish sprite, Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are you not he, That frights the maidens of the villagery;

Fairy

Puck

Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometimes make the drink to bear no barm;
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck :
Are you not he?

Thou speak'st aright;

I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness to a silly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometimes for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her, and down topples she,
And tailor cries, and falls into a cough;

And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe;
And waxen in their mirth, and sneeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.*

Milton, in L'Allegro, devotes a few lines to fairy land, in which he makes the goblin far more prominent than the rest of the tribe. The passage is as follows:

With stories told of many a feat,
How faery Mab the junkets eat;
She was pinch'd and pull'd, she sed;

And he, by friar's lantern led,

Tells how the drudging Goblin swet,

To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,

* Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act ii, Scene 1.

His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubbar fiend,
And stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;

And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.*

But

There is nothing said about Puck's size; still we may infer it was much greater than that of the rest of the fairies. Titania, the fairy queen, is the masterpiece of Shakspeare's poem; everything around her is ethereal and graceful, except the weaver Bottom, on whom the wicked spirit Puck had played the greatest of his pranks, and who is introduced very much for sake of contrast. Nothing can be more beautiful than the account of Titania's bower—

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania, some time of the night,

Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight.+

A band of small elves defend their sleeping mistress, and keep away the more odious inhabitants of the forest, singing this lullaby

You spotted snakes, with double tongue,

Thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen?
Newts, and blind-worms, do no wrong;

Come not near our fairy queen:

Weaving spiders, come not here;

Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence;

Beetles black, approach not near;

Worm, nor snail, do no offence.‡

The fairy dance, the fairy song, take up a portion of the night, but not the whole of it. They have certain duties to perform-slight, indeed, and adapted to their tiny form and

* Milton's L'Allegro.

+ Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act ii, Scene 2. Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act ii, Scene 3.

woodland dwelling. The fairy queen disperses her spirits on various errands of fairy economy.

Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song;

Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;
Some, to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;
Some, war with rear-mice for their leathern wings,
To make my small elves coats; and some keep back
The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots, and wonders
At our quaint spirits.*

When Bottom, "the shallowest thick-skin of that barren "set," is transformed and led into the bower of the fairy queen, she crowns the hairy temples of her love

With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers,

and summons all her band to minister to his wants.

Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey bags steal from the humble-bees,
And, for night tapers, crop their waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
To have my love to bed, and to arise;
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,

To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes.+

Here, and indeed in all the passages I shall quote, we have the fairies mingled with and decking themselves with the most beautiful gems of the natural world. Another spirit, perhaps one of the more i aportant ones, gives this account of his moonlight labours :

Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moones sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;

Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act ii, Scene 3.

+ Ibid, Act iii, Scene 1.

In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,

In those freckles live their savours:

I must go seek some dew-drops here,

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.*

The glittering dew-drops are not the only signs they give the human race of their existence. Like other bodies politic, the fairy world has its commotions and jealousies and petty wars; and wars, small as well as great, will leave visible traces behind them. Thus Titania complains that Oberon has prevented her and her train from extending their benignant influences to man.

Never, since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead.

By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,

Or on the beached margent of the sea,

To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,

But with all thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,

and the green corn

As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs,
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard.
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud;
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable :
The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol blest.+

The fairies have other duties to perform besides watching over the opening flowers, contesting the rule of the night with the buzzing or crawling insects, and assisting the seasons in their course. They have sympathies with the human race. They caress and defend those who are attached to them, in the most devoted manner. Titania will not part with the little changeling boy, even at the risk of a quarrel with her lord. She protests

The fairy land buys not the child of me,
His mother was a vot'ress of my order;

* Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act ii, Scene 1.

Ibid, Act ii, Scene 2.

And, for her sake, I do rear up her boy;

And, for her sake, I will not part with him.*

Again, the fairies haunt the houses of their friends, scattering blessings around them. They enter the palace of Theseus, and Oberon enjoins

Now, until the break of day,

Through this house each fairy stray,

To the best bride-bed will we,

Which by us shall blessed be.

Break of day warns the fairies to bring their task to an end. Let but the sun appear, and their kingdom will vanish into thin air. They are as unsubstantial as the spirits whom Prospero describes :

These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabrick of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind: We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.+

The dawn of the morning causes Puck to warn his master that the ghosts are trooping home to the places of their abode :

For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast.
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger.

Oberon answers

But we are spirits of another sort:

I with the Morning's Love have oft made sport;
And, like a forester, the groves may tread,
Even till the eastern gate, all fiery red,
Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,
Turns into yellow gold his salt-green streams.

* Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act ii, Scene 2. Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act iii, Scene 2.

+ Tempest, Act iv, Scene 1.