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or, A Tale of the Fairies

(1827)

Titania, and her moonlight Elves, were assembled under the canopy of a huge oak, that served to shelter them from the moon's radiance, which, being now at her full noon, shot forth intolerable rays—intolerable, I mean, to the subtil texture of their little shadowy bodies—but dispensing an agreeable coolness to us grosser mortals. An air of discomfort sate upon the Queen, and upon her Courtiers. Their tiny friskings and gambols were forgot; and even Robin Goodfellow, for the first time in his little airy life, looked grave. For the Queen had had melancholy forebodings of late, founded upon an ancient Prophecy, laid up in the records of Fairy Land, that the date of Fairy existence should be then extinct, when men should cease to believe in them. And she knew how that the race of the Nymphs, which were her predecessors, and had been the Guardians of the sacred floods, and of the silver fountains, and of the consecrated hills and woods, had utterly disappeared before the chilling touch of man's incredulity; and she sighed bitterly at the approaching fate of herself and of her subjects, which was dependent upon so fickle a lease, as the capricious and ever mutable faith of man. When, as if to realise her fears, a melancholy shape came gliding in, and that was—Time, who with his intolerable scythe mows down Kings and Kingdoms; at whose dread approach the Fays huddled together, as a flock of timorous sheep, and the most courageous among them crept into acorn cups, not enduring the sight of that ancientest of Monarchs. Titania's first impulse was to wish the presence of her false Lord, King Oberon, who was far away, in the pursuit of a strange Beauty, a Fay of Indian Land—that with his good lance and sword, like a faithful knight and husband, he might defend her against Time. But she soon checked that thought as vain, for what could the prowess of the mighty Oberon himself, albeit the stoutest Champion in Fairy Land, have availed against so huge a Giant, whose bald top touched the skies. So in the mildest tone she besought the Spectre, that in his mercy he would overlook, and pass by, her small subjects, as too diminutive and powerless to add any worthy trophy to his renown. As she besought him to employ his resistless strength against the ambitious Children of Men, and to lay waste their aspiring works, to tumble down their towers and turrets, and the Babels of their pride, fit objects of his devouring Scythe, but to spare her and her harmless race, who had no existence beyond a dream; frail objects of a creed; that lived but in the faith of the believer. And with her little arms, as well as she could, she grasped the stern knees of TIME, and waxing speechless with fear, she beckoned to her chief attendants, and Maids of Honour, to come forth from their hiding places, and to plead the Plea of the Fairies. And one of those small delicate creatures came forth at her bidding, clad all in white like a Chorister, and in a low melodious tone, not louder than the hum of a pretty bee—when it seems to be demurring whether it shall settle upon this sweet flower or that, before it settles—set forth her humble Petition. "We Fairies," she said, "are the most inoffensive race that live, and least deserving to perish. It is we that have the care of all sweet melodies, that no discords may offend the Sun, who is the great Soul of Music. We rouse the lark at morn; and the pretty Echos, which respond to all the twittering quire, are of our making. Wherefore, great King of Years, as ever you have loved the music which is raining from a morning cloud, sent from the messenger of day, the Lark, as he mounts to Heaven's gate, beyond the ken of mortals; or if ever you have listened with a charmed ear to the Night Bird, that

in the flowery spring,

Amidst the leaves set, makes the thickets ring

Of her sour sorrows, sweeten'd with her song:

spare our tender tribes; and we will muffle up the sheep-bell for thee, that thy pleasure take no interruption, whenever thou shall listen unto Philomel."

And Time answered, that "he had heard that song too long; and he was even wearied with that ancient strain, that recorded the wrongs of Tereus. But if she would know in what music Time delighted, it was, when sleep and darkness lay upon crowded cities, to hark to the midnight chime, which is tolling from a hundred clocks, like the last knell over the soul of a dead world; or to the crush of the fall of some age-worn edifice, which is as the voice of himself when he disparteth kingdoms."

A second female Fay took up the Plea, and said, "We be the handmaids of the Spring, and tend upon the birth of all sweet buds; and the pastoral cowslips are our friends, and the pansies; and the violets, like nuns; and the quaking hare-bell is in our wardship; and the Hyacinth, once a fair youth, and dear to Phœbus."

Then TIME made answer, in his wrath striking the harmless ground with his hurtful scythe, that "they must not think that he was one that cared for flowers, except to see them wither, and to take her beauty from the rose."

And a third Fairy took up the Plea, and said, "We are kindly Things; and it is we that sit at evening, and shake rich odours from sweet bowers upon discoursing lovers, that seem to each other to be their own sighs; and we keep off the bat, and the owl, from their privacy, and the ill-boding whistler; and we flit in sweet dreams across the brains of infancy, and conjure up a smile upon its soft lips to beguile the careful mother, while its little soul is fled for a brief minute or two to sport with our youngest Fairies."

Then Saturn (which is Time) made answer, that "they should not think that he delighted in tender Babes, that had devoured his own, till foolish Rhea cheated him with a Stone, which he swallowed, thinking it to be the infant Jupiter." And thereat in token he disclosed to view his enormous tooth, in which appeared monstrous dints, left by that unnatural meal; and his great throat, that seemed capable of devouring up the earth and all its inhabitants at one meal. "And for Lovers," he continued, "my delight is, with a hurrying hand to snatch them away from their love-meetings by stealth at nights, and to ravish away hours from them like minutes whilst they are together, and in absence to stand like a motionless statue, or their leaden Planet of mishap (whence I had my name), till I make their minutes seem ages."

Next stood up a male fairy, clad all in green, like a forester, or one of Robin Hood's mates, and doffing his tiny cap, said, "We are small foresters, that live in woods, training the young boughs in graceful intricacies, with blue snatches of the sky between; we frame all shady roofs and arches rude; and sometimes, when we are plying our tender hatches, men say, that the tapping wood-pecker is nigh: and it is we that scoop the hollow cell of the squirrel; and carve quaint letters upon the rinds of trees, which in sylvan solitudes sweetly recall to the mind of the heat-oppressed swain, ere he lies down to slumber, the name of his Fair One, Dainty Aminta, Gentle Rosalind, or Chastest Laura, as it may happen."

Saturn, nothing moved with this courteous address, bade him be gone, or "if he would be a woodman, to go forth, and fell oak for the Fairies' coffins, which would forthwith be wanting. For himself, he took no delight in haunting the woods, till their golden plumage (the yellow leaves) were beginning to fall, and leave the brown black limbs bare, like Nature in her skeleton dress."

Then stood up one of those gentle Fairies, that are good to Man, and blushed red as any rose, while he told a modest story of one of his own good deeds. "It chanced upon a time," he said, "that while we were looking cowslips in the meads, while yet the dew was hanging on the buds, like beads, we found a babe left in its swathing clothes—a little sorrowful deserted Thing; begot of Love, but begetting no love in others; guiltless of shame, but doomed to shame for its parents' offence in bringing it by indirect courses into the world. It was pity to see the abandoned little orphan, left to the world's care by an unnatural mother, how the cold dew kept wetting its childish coats; and its little hair, how it was bedabbled, that was like gossamer. Its pouting mouth, unknowing how to speak, lay half opened like a rose-lipt shell, and its cheek was softer than any peach, upon which the tears, for very roundness, could not long dwell, but fell off, in clearness like pearls, some on the grass, and some on his little hand, and some haply wandered to the little dimpled well under his mouth, which Love himself seemed to have planned out, but less for tears than for smilings. Pity it was, too, to see how the burning sun scorched its helpless limbs, for it lay without shade, or shelter, or mother's breast, for foul weather or fair. So having compassion on its sad plight, my fellows and I turned ourselves into grasshoppers, and swarmed about the babe, making such shrill cries, as that pretty little chirping creature makes in its mirth, till with our noise we attracted the attention of a passing rustic, a tender-hearted hind, who wondering at our small but loud concert, strayed aside curiously, and found the babe, where it lay on the remote grass, and taking it up, lapt it in his russet coat, and bore it to his cottage, where his wife kindly nurtured it, till it grew up a goodly personage. How this Babe prospered afterwards, let proud London tell. This was that famous Sir Thomas Gresham, who was the chiefest of her Merchants, the richest, the wisest. Witness his many goodly vessels on the Thames, freighted with costly merchandise, jewels from Ind, and pearls for courtly dames, and silks of Samarcand. And witness more than all, that stately Bourse (or Exchange) which he caused to be built, a mart for merchants from East and West, whose graceful summit still bears, in token of the Fairies' favours, his chosen crest, the Grasshopper. And, like the Grasshopper, may it please you, great King, to suffer us also to live, partakers of the green earth!"

The Fairy had scarce ended his Plea, when a shrill cry, not unlike the Grasshopper's, was heard. Poor Puck—or Robin Goodfellow, as he is sometimes called—had recovered a little from his first fright, and in one of his mad freaks had perched upon the beard of old Time, which was flowing, ample, and majestic, and was amusing himself with plucking at a hair, which was indeed so massy, that it seemed to him that he was removing some huge beam of timber rather than a hair; which Time by some ill chance perceiving, snatched up the Impish Mischief with his great hand, and asked "What it was?"

"Alas!" quoth Puck, "A little random Elf am I, born in one of Nature's sports, a very weed, created for the simple sweet enjoyment of myself, but for no other purpose, worth, or need, that ever I could learn. 'Tis I, that bob the Angler's idle cork, till the patient man is ready to breathe a curse. I steal the morsel from the Gossip's fork, or stop the sneezing Chanter in mid Psalm; and when an infant has been born with hard or homely features, mothers say, that I changed the child at nurse; but to fulfil any graver purpose I have not wit enough, and hardly the will. I am a pinch of lively dust to frisk upon the wind, a tear would make a puddle of me, and so I tickle myself with the lightest straw, and shun all griefs that might make me stagnant. This is my small philosophy."

Then Time, dropping him on the ground, as a thing too inconsiderable for his vengeance, grasped fast his mighty Scythe; and now not Puck alone, but the whole State of Fairies had gone to inevitable wreck and destruction, had not a timely Apparition interposed, at whose boldness Time was astounded, for he came not with the habit, or the forces, of a Deity, who alone might cope with Time, but as a simple Mortal, clad as you might see a Forester, that hunts after wild coneys by the cold moonshine; or a Stalker of stray deer, stealthy and bold. But by the golden lustre in his eye, and the passionate wanness in his cheek, and by the fair and ample space of his forehood [forehead], which seemed a palace framed for the habitation of all glorious thoughts, he knew that this was his great Rival, who had power given him to rescue whatsoever victims Time should clutch, and to cause them to live for ever in his immortal verse. And muttering the name of Shakspeare, Time spread his Roc-like wings, and fled the controuling presence. And the liberated Court of the Fairies, with Titania at their head, flocked around the gentle Ghost, giving him thanks, nodding to him, and doing him curtesies, who had crowned them henceforth with a permanent existence, to live in the minds of men, while verse shall have power to charm, or Midsummer moons shall brighten.

What particular endearments passed between the Fairies and their Poet, passes my pencil to delineate; but if you are curious to be informed, I must refer you, gentle reader, to the "Plea of the [Midsummer] Fairies," a most agreeable Poem, lately put forth by my friend, Thomas Hood: of the first half of which the above is nothing but a meagre, and a harsh, prose-abstract. Farewell.

Elia.

The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.