Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 2 of 2] / Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

by Nathan Drake

It appears even that the fairy-practice of purloining children, which, in every previous system of this mythology, had been carried on from malignant or self-interested motives, was in Titania the result of humanity and compassion: thus, when Oberon begs her "little changeling boy" to be his henchman, she answers—

"———— ——— ——— Set your heart at rest,

The fairy land buys not the child of me.

His mother was a vot'ress of my order:

And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,

Full often hath she gossip'd by my side;

And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,

Marking the embarked traders on the flood;

When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive,

And grow big-bellied, with the wanton wind: