This love of virtue, and abhorrence of sin, were, as attributes of the Fairies, in a great measure, if not altogether, the gifts of Shakspeare, at least if we regard their mythology at that time prevalent in Britain, whether we refer to the Scottish system, or to that which existed among our own poets from Chaucer to Warner, though our familiarity with the picture is now such, owing to the popularity of the original artist and the consequent number of his copyists on the same subject, that we assign it a date much anterior to its real source.
If the moral and benevolent character of these children of fancy be, in a great degree, the creation of Shakspeare, the imagery which he has employed in describing their persons, manners, and occupations, will be deemed not less his peculiar offspring, nor inferior in beauty, novelty, and wildness of painting, to that which the magic of his pencil has diffused over every other part of his visionary world.
Thus, in imparting to us an idea of the diminutive size of his Fairies, with what picturesque minutiæ has he marked his sketch! Speaking of the altercation between Oberon and Titania, he mentions, as one of its results, that
————————— "all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there:"[341:A]
and he delineates Ariel as sleeping in a cowslip's bell, as living merrily "under the blossom that hangs on the bough," and flying after summer mounted on the back of the bat.[341:B]
In accordance with this smallness of stature, are all their accompaniments and employments contrived, with the most admirable proportion and the most vivid imagination. Their dress tinted "green and white[341:C]," is constructed of the "wings of rear-mice[341:D]," and their wrappers of the "snake's enamelled skin[341:E];" the pensioners of their queen are "the cowslips tall[341:F];" her lacquies, Peas-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed[341:G]; her lamps the green lustre of the glow-worm[341:H]; and her equipage, one of the most exquisite pictures of frolic imagination, is thus minutely drawn:
"O, then, I see, queen Mab hath been with you.
—————————————— She comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone