"But we are spirits of another sort:
I with the morning's love have oft made sport
And, like a forester, the groves may tread,
Even till the eastern gate, all fiery red,
Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,
Turns into yellow gold his salt-green streams."[338a:A]
Of the originality of Shakspeare in the delineation of this tribe of spirits, or Fairies, nothing more is required in proof, than a combination or grouping of the principal features; a picture which, when contrasted with the Scandick system and that which had been built upon it in England and Scotland previous to his own time, will sufficiently show with what grace, amenity, and beauty, and with what an exuberant store of novel imagery, he has decorated these phantoms of the Gothic mythology.
The King and Queen of Faiery, who, in Chaucer, are identified with the Pluto and Proserpina of hell[338a:B], are, under the appellations of
Oberon and Titania[337b:A], drawn by Shakspeare in a very amiable and pleasing light; for, though jealous of each other, they are represented as usually employed in alleviating the distresses of the worthy and unfortunate. Their benign influence, indeed, seems to have extended over the physical powers of nature; for Titania tells her Lord, that, in consequence of their jealous brawls, a strange distemperature had seized the elements:—
"The seasons alter; hoary-headed frosts