The three first books of the Faerie Queene were published in 1590, and, as Warton remarks, Fairies became a familiar and fashionable machinery with the poets and poetasters. Shakspeare, well acquainted, from the rural habits of his early life, with the notions of the peasantry respecting these beings, and highly gifted with the prescient power of genius, saw clearly how capable they were of being applied to the production of a species of the wonderful, as pleasing, or perhaps even more so, than the classic gods; and in the Midsummer-Night's Dream he presented them in combination with the heroes and heroines of the mythic age of Greece. But what cannot the magic wand of genius effect? We view with undisturbed delight the Elves of Gothic mythology sporting in the groves of Attica, the legitimate haunts of Nymphs and Satyrs. Shakspeare, having the Faerie Queene before his eyes, seems to have attempted a blending of the Elves of the village with the Fays of romance. His Fairies agree with the former in their diminutive stature,--diminished, indeed, to dimensions inappreciable by village gossips,--in their fondness for dancing, their love of cleanliness, and their child-abstracting propensities. Like the Fays, they form a community, ruled over by the princely Oberon and the fair Titania.[389] There is a court and chivalry: Oberon would have the queen's sweet changeling to be a "Knight of his train to trace the forest wild." Like earthly monarchs, he has his jester, "the shrewd and knavish sprite, called Robin Good-fellow." The luxuriant imagination of the poet seemed to exult in pouring forth its wealth in the production of these new actors on the mimic scene, and a profusion of poetic imagery always appears in their train. Such lovely and truly British poetry cannot be too often brought to view; we will therefore insert in this part of our work several of these gems of our Parnassus, distinguishing by a different character such acts and attributes as appear properly to belong to the Fairy of popular belief. MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. ACT II.--SCENE I. _Puck and a Fairy._ _Puck._ How now, spirit! whither wander you? _Fai._ Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough briar, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire. I do wander every where, Swifter than the moonès sphere, And I serve the Fairy-queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. The cowslips tall her pensioners be; 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.[390] Farewell, thou lob of spirits! I'll be gone; Our queen and all her elves come here anon.