“——in his way ... to ride In all his care, under a forest side, Whereas he saw upon a dance go Of ladies foure–and–twenty, and yet mo. Toward this ilke dance, he drow ful yerne, In hope that he som wisdom shulde lerne, But, certainly, er he came fully there, Yvanished was this dance, he wiste not wher.” These _ladies_ appear to have been _fairies_, though nothing is insinuated of their size. Milton seems to have been upon the prowl here for his “forest–side.” In _A Midsummer–Night’s Dream_, a fairy addresses Bottom the weaver— “Hail, _mortal_, hail!” which sufficiently shows she was not so herself. Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, in the same play, calls Oberon, “——King of _shadows_,” and in the old song just mentioned, “The King of _ghosts_ and _shadows_,” and this mighty monarch asserts of himself, and his subjects, “But we are _spirits_ of another sort.” The fairies, as we already see, were male and female. Their government was monarchical, and Oberon, the King of Fairyland, must have been a sovereign of very extensive territory. The name of his queen was Titania. Both are mentioned by Shakespeare, being personages of no little importance in the above play, where they, in an ill–humour, thus encounter: Obe. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. Tita. What, jealous Oberon? Fairy, skip hence; I have forsworn his bed and company. That the name [Oberon] was not the invention of our great dramatist is sufficiently proved. The allegorical Spenser gives it to King Henry the Eighth. Robert Greene was the author of a play entitled “The Scottishe history of James the Fourthe ... intermixed with a pleasant comedie presented by _Oberon, king of the fairies_.” He is, likewise, a character in the old French romances of _Huon de Bourdeaux_, and _Ogier le Danois_; and there even seems to be one upon his own exploits, _Roman d’ Auberon_. What authority, however, Shakespeare had for the name Titania, it does not appear, nor is she so called by any other writer. He himself, at the same time, as well as many others, gives to the queen of fairies the name of Mab, though no one, except Drayton, mentions her as the wife of Oberon: