All that is wanting to this so very plausible theory is something like proof, and some slight agreement with the ordinary rules of etymology. Had Feërie, or Fairy, originally signified the individual in the French and English, the only languages in which the word occurs, we might feel disposed to acquiesce in it. But they do not: and even if they did, how should we deduce from them the Italian Fata, and the Spanish Fada or Hada, (words which unquestionably stand for the same imaginary being,) unless on the principle by which Menage must have deduced Lutin from Lemur--the first letter being the same in both? As to the fair Merjan Peri (D'Herbelot calls her Merjan Banou[8]), we fancy a little too much importance has been attached to her. Her name, as far as we can learn, only occurs in the Cahermân Nâmeh, a Turkish romance, though perhaps translated from the Persian. The foregoing etymologies, it is to be observed, are all the conjectures of English scholars; for the English is the only language in which the name of the individual, Fairy, has the canine letter to afford any foundation for them. Leaving, then, these sports of fancy, we will discuss the true origin of the words used in the Romanic languages to express the being which we name Fairy of Romance. These are _Faée_, _Fée_, French; _Fada_, Provençal (whence _Hada_, Spanish); and _Fata_, Italian. The root is evidently, we think, the Latin _fatum_. In the fourth century of our æra we find this word made plural, and even feminine, and used as the equivalent of Parcæ. On the reverse of a gold medal of the Emperor Diocletian are three female figures, with the legend _Fatis victricibus_; a _cippus_, found at Valencia in Spain, has on one of its sides _Fatis Q. Fabius ex voto_, and on the other, three female figures, with the attributes of the Mœræ or Parcæ.[9] In this last place the gender is uncertain, but the figures would lead us to suppose it feminine. On the other hand, Ausonius[10] has _tres Charites_, _tria Fata_; and Procopius[11] names a building at the Roman Forum τα τρια φατα, adding ουτω γαρ ῥωμαιοι τας μοιρας νενομικασι καλειν. The Fatæ or Fata, then, being persons, and their name coinciding so exactly with the modern terms, and it being observed that the Mœræ were, at the birth of Meleager, just as the Fées were at that of Ogier le Danois, and other heroes of romance and tale, their identity has been at once asserted, and this is now, we believe, the most prevalent theory. To this it may be added, that in Gervase of Tilbury, and other writers of the thirteenth century, the Fada or Fée seems to be regarded as a being different from human kind.[12]