So far, then, the Puck of Shakspeare is in conformity with the tales of tradition, and of preceding writers; he is the "Goblin fear'd in field and town*,” who loves all things best "that befal preposterously t," and who, even when the poet wrote, had not ceased to excite apprehension; for Scot hath told us, nine years before the era of the Midsummer-Night's Dream, that Robin Good-fellowe ceaseth now to be much feared. ‡

66

But to these traits of customary character, Shakspeare has added some which greatly modify the picture, and which have united to the drudging goblin," and to the demon of mischievous frolic, duties and functions of a very different cast. He is the messenger §, and trusty servant || of the fairy king, by whom, in these capacities, he is called gentle¶ and good **, and he combines with all his hereditary attributes, the speed, the legerity, and the intellectual skill of the highest order of the fairy world. Accordingly when Oberon says —

"Fetch me this herb: and be thou here again,
Ere the leviathan can swim a league;"

to conteine the same, and let it be filled with the oile and fat thereof; cover it close, and dawbe it over with lome; let it boile over a soft fier three daies continuallic, that the flesh boiled may run into oile, so as the bare bones may be seene: beate the haire into powder, and mingle the same with the oile; and annoint the heads of the standers by, and they shall seeme to have horsses or asses heads." Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, p. 315. * Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 434. Midsummer-Night's Dream, act iii. sc. 2. + Ibid. vol. iv. p. 416.

Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584.- Epistle to the Readers, in which he afterwards speaks of "the want of Robin Goodfellowe and the fairies, which were woont to mainteine chat, and the common peoples talke in this behalfe."

Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 406. Midsummer-Night's Dream, act iii. sc. 2.
"Ob. Here comes my messenger."

he replies,

"I'll put a girdle round about the earth

In forty minutes;" *

and again, on receiving commission from the same quarter:

"Obe. About the wood go swifter than the wind;

Puck. I go, I go; look, how I go;

Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow." †

Upon the whole we may be allowed, from the preceding dissertation, to consider the following series of circumstances as entitled to the appellation of facts: namely, that the patria of our popular system of fairy mythology, was the Scandinavian Peninsula; that, on its admission into this country, it gradually underwent various modifications through the influence of Christianity, the introduction of classical associations, and the prevalence of feudal manners; but that, ultimately, two systems became established; one one in Scotland, founded on the wild and more terrific parts of the Gothic mythology, and the other in England, built, indeed, on the same system, but from a selection of its milder features, and converted by the genius of Shakspeare into one of the most lovely creations of a sportive imagination. Such, in fact, has been the success of our bard in expanding and colouring the germs of Gothic fairyism; in assigning to its tiny agents, new attributes and powers; and in clothing their ministration with the most light and exquisite imagery, that his portraits, in all their essential parts, have descended to us as indissolubly connected with, and indeed nearly, if not altogether, forming, our ideas of the fairy tribe.

The canvas, it is true, which he stretched, has been since expanded, and new groupes have been introduced; but the outline and the mode of colouring which he employed, have been invariably followed. It

* Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 374. Midsummer-Night's Dream, act ii. sc. 2. + Ibid. vol. iv. p. 415. Act iii. sc. 2.

is, in short, to his picture of the fairy world, that we are indebted for the Nymphidia of Drayton *; the Robin Goodfellow of Jonson † ; the miniatures of Fletcher and Browne; the full-length portraits of Herrick §; the sly allusions of Corbet |, and the spirited and picturesque sketches of Milton. ¶

To Shakspeare, therefore, as the remodeller, and almost the inventor of our fairy system, may, with the utmost propriety, be addressed the elegant compliment which Browne has paid to Occleve, certainly inappropriate as applied to that rugged imitator of Chaucer, but admirably adapted to the peculiar powers of our bard, and delightfully expressive of what we may conceive would be the gratitude, were such testimony possible, of these children of his playful fancy:

"Many times he hath been seene
With the faeries on the greene,
And to them his pipe did sound

As they danced in a round;
Mickle solace would they make him,

And at midnight often wake him;

* This beautiful and highly fanciful poem could not certainly have been written before 1605; for the Don Quixote of Cervantes, which was first published in Spain during the above year, is expressly mentioned in one of the stanzas; and Mr. Malone thinks that the earliest edition of the Nymphidia was printed in 1619.-Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 350.

+ Peck attributes this song to Ben Jonson; and Percy observes, that it seems to have been originally intended for some masque. Reliques, vol. iii. p. 203. ed. 1594.

See Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, and Browne's Britannia's Pastorals.

ý Herrick, as I have observed in a former work, seems more particularly to have delighted in drawing the manners and costume of the fairy world. He has devoted several of his most elaborate poems to these sportive creations of fancy. Under the titles of The Fairy Temple, Oberon's Palace, The Fairy Queen, and Oberon's Feast, a variety of curious and minute imagery is appositely introduced. Literary Hours, 3d edit. vol. iii.

p. 85.—To these may be added another elegantly descriptive piece, entitled, King Oberon's Apparel, written by Sir John Mennis, and published in The Musarum Delicia, or The Muses Recreation, 1656.

In his political ballad entitled The Fairies Farewell.

¶ Vide L'Allegro, and the occasional sketches in Paradise Lost and Comus.

* See Shepherd's Pipe, Eglogue I. Chalmers's English Poets, vol. vi. p. 315. col. 2.

CHAPTER X.

OBSERVATIONS ON ROMEO AND JULIET; ON THE TAMING OF THE SHREW; ON THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA; ON KING RICHARD THE THIRD; ON KING RICHARD THE SECOND; ON KING HENRY THE FOURTH, PARTS I. & II.; ON THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, AND ON HAMLET DISSERTATION ON THE AGENCY OF SPIRITS AND APPARITIONS, AND ON THE GHOST IN HAMLET.

In endeavouring to ascertain the chronological series of our author's plays, we must ever hold in mind, that, in general, nothing more than a choice of probabilities is before us, and that, whilst weighing their preponderancy, the slightest additional circumstance, so equally are they sometimes balanced, may turn the scale. It appears to us, that an occurrence of this kind will be found to point out, more accurately than hitherto, the precise period to which the first sketch of the following tragedy may be ascribed.

7. ROMEO AND JULIET: 1593. The passage in this play on which the commentators have chiefly relied for the establishment of their respective dates, runs thus:

Building on Shakspeare's usual custom of alluding to the events of his own time, and transferring them to the scene and period of the piece on which he happened to be engaged, Mr. Tyrwhitt with much probability conjectured, that the poet, in these lines, had in

* Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xx. pp. 37-39. Act i. sc. 3.