Or of the faiery troops which nimbly play, And by the springs dance out the summer's day, Teaching the little birds to build their nests, And in their singing how to keepen rests. _Song 4._ As men by fairies led fallen in a dream. _Ibid._ In his Shepherd's Pipe, also, Brown thus speaks of the Fairies:-- Many times he hath been seen With the fairies on the green, And to them his pipe did sound While they danced in a round. Mickle solace they would make him, And at midnight often wake him And convey him from his room To a field of yellow-broom; Or into the meadows where Mints perfume the gentle air, And where Flora spreads her treasure; There they would begin their measure. If it chanced night's sable shrouds Muffled Cynthia up in clouds, Safely home they then would see him, And from brakes and quagmires free him. But Drayton is the poet after Shakespeare for whom the Fairies had the greatest attractions. Even in the Polyolbion he does not neglect them. In Song xxi., Ringdale, in Cambridgeshire, says, For in my very midst there is a swelling ground About which Ceres' nymphs dance many a wanton round; The frisking fairy there, as on the light air borne, Oft run at barley-break upon the cars of corn; And catching drops of dew in their lascivious chases, Do cast the liquid pearl in one another's faces. And in Song iv., he had spoken of The feasts that underground the faëry did him (Arthur) make, And there how he enjoyed the Lady of the Lake. Nymphidia is a delicious piece of airy and fanciful invention. The description of Oberon's palace in the air, Mab's amours with the gentle Pigwiggin, the mad freaks of the jealous Oberon, the pygmy Orlando, the mutual artifices of Puck and the Fairy maids of honour, Hop, Mop, Pip, Trip, and Co., and the furious combat of Oberon and the doughty Pigwiggin, mounted on their earwig chargers--present altogether an unequalled fancy-piece, set in the very best and most appropriate frame of metre. It contains, moreover, several traits of traditionary Fairy lore, such as in these lines:-- Hence shadows, seeming idle shapes Of little frisking elves and apes, To earth do make their wanton skapes As hope of pastime hastes them; Which maids think on the hearth they see, When fires well near consumed be, There dancing hays by two and three, Just as their fancy casts them.[406]