From the thirteenth to the close of the sixteenth century, the Fairy Mythology of England, being derived from the same sources, and through the same medium as the Scottish System, which we have just delineated, the outlines of both will be found very similar. Thus in Gervase of Tilbury, in Chaucer, Lydgate, &c., even, with the exception of Spenser, down to R. Scot and Warner, whose "Albion's England" was printed, though not published, in 1586, the same ideas of fairy-land, the same infernal origin, and variety of species, the same mischievous and terrific character, and occasionally the same frolic and
capricious wantonness, as the property of one particular genus, may be readily detected.[337a:A] But in 1593, when the Midsummer-Night's Dream was presented to the public, nearly the whole of this Mythology which, as founded on the Scandick superstitions, had been, though with a few modifications, so long prevalent both in England and Scotland, seems to have received such vast additions from the plastic imagination of our bard, as, though rebuilt on the traditions of the "olden time," justly to merit, by their novelty and poetic beauty, the title of the English System, in contradistinction to that which still lingers in the wilds of Scotland.
The Fairies of Shakspeare have been truly denominated the favourite children of his romantic fancy, and, perhaps, in no part of his works has he exhibited a more creative and visionary pencil, or a finer tone of enthusiasm, than in bodying forth "these airy nothings," and in giving them, in brighter and ever-durable tints, once more
"A local habitation and a name."
Of his unlimited sway over this delightful world of ideal forms, no stronger proof can be given, than that he has imparted an entire new cast of character to the beings whom he has evoked from its bosom, purposely omitting the darker shades of their character, and, whilst throwing round them a flood of light, playful, yet exquisitely soft and tender, endowing them with the moral attributes of purity and benevolence. In fact, he not only dismisses altogether the fairies of a malignant nature, but clothes the milder yet mixed tribe of his predecessors with a more fascinating sportiveness, and with a much larger share of unalloyed goodness.
The distinction between the two species he has accurately marked where Puck, under some apprehension, observes to Oberon, that the night is waning fast, that Aurora's harbinger appears, and that the "damned spirits all" are flitting to their beds, adding, that
"For fear lest day should look their shames upon,
They wilfully themselves exile from light,
And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night:"
to which Oberon immediately replies,—