_Cobweb_, good Monsieur, get your weapon in your hand, and kill me a red-hipt humble bee on the top of a thistle, and good Monsieur, bring me the honey-bag.’ What an exact knowledge is shewn here of natural history! _Puck_ or _Robin Goodfellow_ is the leader of the fairy band. He is the _Ariel_ of the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_; and yet as unlike as can be to the _Ariel_ in the _Tempest_. No other poet could have made two such different characters out of the same fanciful materials and situations. _Ariel_ is a minister of retribution, who is touched with a sense of pity at the woes he inflicts. _Puck_ is a mad-cap sprite, full of wantonness and mischief, who laughs at those whom he misleads: ‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’ _Ariel_ cleaves the air, and executes his mission with the zeal of a winged messenger: _Puck_ is borne along on his fairy errand, like the light and glittering gossamer before the breeze. He is, indeed, a most Epicurean little gentleman, dealing in quaint devices, and faring in dainty delights. _Prospero_ and his world of spirits are a set of moralists: but with _Oberon_ and his fairies we are launched at once into the empire of the butterflies. How beautifully is this race of beings contrasted with the men and women actors in the scene, by a single epithet which _Titania_ gives to the latter, ‘the human mortals’! It is astonishing that Shakspeare should be considered, not only by foreigners, but by many of our own critics, as a gloomy and heavy writer, who painted nothing but ‘Gorgons and Hydras and Chimeras dire.’ His subtlety exceeds that of all other dramatic writers, insomuch that a celebrated person of the present day said, that he regarded him rather as a metaphysician than a poet. His delicacy and sportive gaiety are infinite. In the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ alone, we should imagine, there is more sweetness and beauty of description than in the whole range of French poetry put together. What we mean is this, that we will produce out of that single play ten passages, to which we do not think any ten passages in the works of the French poets can be opposed, displaying equal fancy and imagery. Shall we mention the remonstrance of _Helena_ to _Hermia_, or _Titania’s_ description of her fairy train, or her disputes with _Oberon_ about the Indian boy, or _Puck’s_ account of himself and his employments, or the Fairy Queen’s exhortation to the elves to pay due attendance upon her favourite _Bottom_,[45] or _Hippolyta’s_ description of a chace, or _Theseus’s_ answer? The two last are as heroical and spirited, as the others are full of luscious tenderness. The reading of this play is like wandering in a grove by moonlight: the descriptions breathe a sweetness like odours thrown from beds of flowers. Shakspeare is almost the only poet of whom it may be said, that ‘Age cannot wither, nor custom stale His infinite variety.’