The Logan County banner. [volume] (Logan, W. Va.) 1889-1903, 1890-01-23
sHAkEsPEARE.s FAIRIES.


bard or Avon.
There isone part Of the merry Wives
which especially seems to favor the be-
LEI that the piece was originally q court
diversion. The scene with the false
fairies has the sportiye character, and
the touch OF ballet, which such courtIy
pastime preferred. 1t is curious to com
pare the false fairies Of the Merry
Wives with the true FAIRIES Of the Mid
summer Nights Dream that mostfairy
piece Of writing in the world. Probably
the serious and poetic sprites are the
earlier.
The quarto Of the Dream is dated
1900, but the comedy is mentioned two
years before in the Palladis Tamia
1889. So, to Shakespeare's fancy, his
Welsh fairy, and the rest Of his mas
querading citizens, may have been an
English rendering, almost an intention
81 trayesty, Of those Athenian fays,
more sweet Of voice than the Mercedes,
who departed, the wedding over,
Following darkness like a dream,
The Windsor sprites began by being
prosaic enough, and the very slang Of
the stage comes in when they cry:
Go, getus properties,
And trucking for our fairies;"
or,
a 80 : wherein fat Falstaff
Hath great scene.''
But when once the fairy queen of
these mimic imps appears, the poet can
not help himself, but must make her
poetical, nay, must show his old sympa-
-thies with the fantastic folk and knowl-
edge Of their world.
Fairies, black, gray, green and white,
You moonshine jewellers, and shades Of night,
You orphan heirs OF fixed destiny a-.-t
Attend your office, and your quality
Crier Hobgoblfn, make the fairy owes -
Orphan-heirs Of fixed destiny, these
are indeed the fairies, the shadows OF
the ancient dead, of the old classic gods,
unredeemed, who dwell in their own al
lotted ha1f-world of reflected light and
double shadow, the court of Queen Pros
erpina.
'sPinch them, arms, legs, backs, shout
ders, sides and shins." This is their lit
tie part in the moral government of
things, the everyday or every-night
duty, so peasant belief held, of
We fairies that do run
BY the triple Hecate's team,
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like dream"
The dread Hecate became in the mid
die ages the sovereign of mere moonlit
mischief.
But the pure poetry OF old loyalty re-
asserts itself in this courtly command:
/" Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out ;
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred
room;
That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
In state as wholesome, as in state It's fit,
Worthy the owner, and the owner it,
- =
And Honi sot qui NAL y pense, write,
In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and
white.
Then the poetry vanishes with the
fays, who brought it, as only to Shake
speare they could bring it, for he, too,
like Corneille, had his iutin, his brownie,
who never deserted him when he sang
of the border of the two worlds, and the
realms between night and light, between
ghosts and men.
The Ettrick Shepherd, in burst Of
confidence, once assured Sir Walter
Scott, "Awm the chief of far higher
schulz than yours, the Mountain and
Fairy schulz"
But the good Shepherd overestimated
himself. The Fairy school hath but
one chief-Shakespea Herrick
is his ancient.-Andrew Lang, in Har.
per's Magazine. - 1880 ------