Have we not here the adjuration of the fairy fortune to all her ministering delights and pleasures of the world, to render service and to do homage to the dull-brained creature of her passion? Extract the poetry, the delicious fancy, from the injunction of the Queen of Fairies, and what is it but the command of worldly luck to her many servitors, to seek all imaginable delights for the sordid lump of earth, the mere animal with an “ass’s head” her diseased and wayward affections have made an idol of? Is not the world thronged with these Bottoms? In shape, in lineament, in every moral feature, are they not the veritable descendants of the swaggering homespun Athenian? They are the very nurslings of fortune, the monstrous and uncouth objects of her blind and fickle passion; yet do they submit to her endearments with no distrust, no passing suspicion of their own worthiness. They receive her blandishments as nothing more than a just and rightful reward for excellence. They cannot conceive how it could have been otherwise. Their imagination, vassal to their self-complacency, will not allow them to change places for an instant with their less prosperous fellow. No; Fortune dotes upon them, and how can she help it? Her extravagant fondness is not excused, but justified, made inevitable by the excelling worthiness of their parts. Hence, with what serenity they issue mandates to the retainers of their fond mistress—with what lordly self-conviction of their own merits they accept their service! How they order Cobweb, Peaseblossom, and Mustardseed to do their fantastic bidding, as though their bondmaster, created with natural and inalienable right to their feudality. Nothing in the way of greatness surprises them—no flattery startles them. “Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful!” cries Titania to her ass-headed lover, and he by no syllable disclaims the truth, the justice of the eulogy. He swallows the praise as his natural food, takes the sweet sound of his doting goddess as rightful, every-day applause. He is loved by a goddess, for the goddess—we have said it—cannot help it. The insensibility of the sons of Bottom is one of their grand, their unerring characteristics. It is this profitable faculty that would make them task the daintiest spirits for their own poorest, vilest wants, and dream of nothing monstrous or extravagant in such application. “I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you.” “Scratch my head, Peaseblossom.” “Monsieur Cobweb; good mounsieur, get you your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped bumble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag.” Thus spoke the great progenitor, Bottom; and of a verity his children are not more shame-faced task-masters. Next, let us contrast the power and beauty of delights placed by Queen Titania at his will, with the mean, the sordid wretchedness of Bottom’s appetite and tastes.