Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room;- With juice of balm, and every precious flower. No one could aspire to the favour and protection of the Fairies who was slovenly or personally impure; punishment, indeed, awaited all who thus offended; even the majesty of Mab herself condescended "To bake the elf-locks in foul sluttish hair;" † and Cricket, the fairy, being sent on a mission to the chimnies of Windsor, receives the following injunction: - "Where fires thou find'st unraked, and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry: Our radiant queen hates sluts, and sluttery." + In order to complete the picture of fairy superstition, as given us by Shakspeare, it remains to consider his description of Puck or Robin Good-fellow, the confidential servant of Oberon, an elf or incubus of a mixed and very peculiar character. This quaint, frolicksome, and often mischievous sprite, seems to have been compounded of the qualities ascribed by Gervase of Tilbury to his Goblin Grant, and to his Portuni, two species of dæmons whom he describes, both in name and character, as denizens of England; of the benevolent propensities attributed by Agricola to the Guteli, Cobali, or Brownies of Germany, and of additional features and powers, the gift and creation of our bard. A large portion of these descriptions of the German writers, and of his countryman Gervase, Shakspeare would find in Reginald Scot, and from their union with the product of his own fancy, has arisen the Puck of the Midsummer-Night's Dream, a curious amalgamation of the fairy, the brownie, and the hob-goblin, whom Burton calls " a bigger * Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. pp. 205, 206. Merry Wives of Windsor, act v. sc. 5. + Ibid. vol. xx. p. 59. Ibid. vol v. p. 203. Romeo and Juliet, act i. sc. 4. Merry Wives of Windsor, act v. sc. 5. kind of fairy." * Scot's vocabulary of the fairy tribe is singularly copious, including not less than nine or ten appellations which have been bestowed, with more or less propriety, on this Proteus of the Gothic elves. -"In our childhood," he observes, "our mother's maids have so terrified us with bull-beggers, spirits, urchens, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes, sylens, kit with the cansticke, dwarfes, imps, nymphes, changlings, incubus, Robin Good-fellowe, the spoone, the mare, the man in the oke, the hell waine, the fier drake, the puckle Tom thombe, hob goblin, Tom tumbler, boneless, and such other bugs, that we are afraid of our owne shadowes." + It is remarkable, however, that the Puck of Shakspeare is introduced by a term not found in this catalogue:-" Farewell, thou Lob of Spirits," says the fairy to him in their first interview, -a title which, as we shall perceive hereafter, could not be meant to imply, as Dr. Johnson supposed, either inactivity of body or dulness of mind, for Puck was occasionally swifter than the wind, and notorious, as the immediately subsequent passage informs us, for his shrewdness and ingenuity: "Either I mistake your shape and making quite," says the fairy, after bestowing the above title, * Burton's account of the Fairies, first published in 1617, is given with his usual erudition, and the part alluded to in the text, proceeds thus: "A bigger kind there is of them (fairies), called with us Hobgoblins, and Robin Good fellows, that would in those superstitious times, grind corn for a mess of milk, cut wood, or do any manner of drudgery work. They would mend old Irons in those Æolian Isles of Lypara, in former ages, and have been often seen and heard. Tholosanus calls them Trullos and Getulos, and saith, that in his dayes they were common in many places of France. Dithmarus Bleskenius, in his description of Island, reports for a certainty, that almost in every family they have yet some such familiar spirits; and Fælix Malleolus in his book de crudel. dæmon., affirms as much, that these Trolli or Telchines, are very common in Norway, and seen to do drudgery work, to draw water, saith Wierus, lib. i. cap. 32, dress meat or any such thing." Anatomy of Melancholy, fol. 7th edit., 1676, p. 29, col. 1. + The Discoverie of Witchcraft, 4to., 1584, pp. 152, 153. "Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite, Call'd Robin Good-fellow;" and then proceeds to characterise him by the peculiarity of his functions: "Are you not he, That fright the maidens of the villagery; an interrogatory to which he replies in the following terms: — "Thou speak'st aright; I am that merry wanderer of the night. I jest to Oberon, and make him smile, Neighing in likeness of a filly-foal : In very likeness of a roasted crab; And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob, And tailor cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe; And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there." + 66 The greater part of these frolics, indeed all but the last, may be traced in Gervase of Tilbury, Agricola, and Scot: the " misleading night-wanderers," for instance, " laughing at their harm," and neighing in likeness of a filly foal," feats which Puck afterwards thus again enumerates, 66 * Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. pp. 347, 348. Midsummer-Night's Dream, act ii. sc. 1. Ibid. vol. iv. pp. 350-352. "I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round, Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier; A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire; And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, are expressly attributed by Gervase to the goblins whom he has The domestic offices and drudgery which Puck delighted to perform for his favourites, are mentioned by Lavaterus as belonging to his Fairies of the Earth; by Agricola to his Cobali and Guteli, and by Scot to his Incubi and Virunculi. Thus the first of these writers observes, in the words of the English translation of 1572, that "men imagine there be certayne elves or fairies of the earth, and tell many straunge and marvellous tales of them, which they have heard of their grandmothers and mothers, howe they have appeared unto those of the house, have done service, have rocked the cradell, and (which is a signe of good luck) do continually tary in the house; and he subsequently gives us from Agricola the following passage: -“ There be some (demons) very mild and gentle, whome some of the Germans call Cobali, as the Grecians do, because they be as it were apes and counterfeiters of men: for they leaping, and skipping for joy do laughe, and same as though they did many things, when in very dæde they doo nothing. Some other call them Elves; —they are * Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 398. + Vide De Otiis Imperialibus, dec. iii. cap. 61, 62. Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by nyght, 4to. 1572, p. 49. not much unlike unto those whom the Germans call Guteli, bycause they same to beare good affection towards men, for they keepe horses, and do other necessary businesse.” * The resemblance which these descriptions bear both to the Brownie of the Scotch and the Puck of Shakspeare are very evident: but the combination and similitude are rendered still more apparent in the words of Scot; the "Virunculi terrei," says he, "are such as was Robin good fellowe, that would supplie the office of servants, speciallie of maids; as to make a fier in the morning, sweepe the house, grind mustard and malt, drawe water, &c. ;" and speaking of the Incubus, he adds:-" In deede your grandams maides were wont to set a boll of milke before him and his cousine Robin good-fellow, for grinding of malt or mustard, and sweeping the house at midnight: and you have also heard that he would chafe exceedingly, if the maid or goodwife of the house, having compassion on his nakednesse, laid anie clothes for him, beesides his messe of white bread and milke, which was his standing fee. For in that case he saith; What have we here? Hemten, hamten, here will I never more tread nor stampen." ‡ + The lines in italics point out one of the most characteristic features of the Brownie, while the preceding parts, and the last word of the quotation, are in unison, both with the passages just transcribed from our poet, and with that expression of Puck, where, describing to Oberon the terror and dispersion of the rustic comedians, he says "And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls." § It may be also remarked, that the idea of fixing "an ass's nowl" on Bottom's head, is most probably taken from Scot, who gives us a very curious receipt for this singular metamorphosis. || * Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by nyght, 4to. 1752, p. 75. + Discoverie of Witchcraft, 4to. 1584, p. 521. Discoverie, p. 85. Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 409. "Cut off the head of a horsse or an asse (before they be dead), otherwise the vertue or strength thereof will be the lesse effectuall, and make an earthen vessell of fit capacitie |