The pastoral poets also employed the Fairy Mythology. Had they used it exclusively, giving up the Nymphs, Satyrs, and all the rural rout of antiquity, and joined with it faithful pictures of the scenery England then presented, with just delineations of the manners and character of the peasantry, the pastoral poetry of that age would have been as unrivalled as its drama. But a blind admiration of classic models, and a fondness for allegory, were the besetting sins of the poets. They have, however, left a few gems in this way.

Britannia's Pastorals furnish the following passages:[405]

Near to this wood there lay a pleasant mead, Where fairies often did their measures tread, Which in the meadows made such circles green, As if with garlands it had crowned been; Or like the circle where the signs we track, And learned shepherds call 't the Zodiac; Within one of these rounds was to be seen A hillock rise, where oft the fairy-queen At twilight sate, and did command her elves To pinch those maids that had not swept their shelves; And, further, if, by maiden's oversight, Within doors water was not brought at night, Or if they spread no table, set no bread, They should have nips from toe unto the head; And for the maid who had perform'd each thing, She in the water-pail bade leave a ring.

_Song 2._

Or of the faiery troops which nimbly play, And by the springs dance out the summer's day, Teaching the little birds to build their nests, And in their singing how to keepen rests.

_Song 4._

As men by fairies led fallen in a dream.

_Ibid._

In his Shepherd's Pipe, also, Brown thus speaks of the Fairies:--

Many times he hath been seen With the fairies on the green, And to them his pipe did sound While they danced in a round.

Mickle solace they would make him, And at midnight often wake him And convey him from his room To a field of yellow-broom; Or into the meadows where Mints perfume the gentle air, And where Flora spreads her treasure; There they would begin their measure.

If it chanced night's sable shrouds Muffled Cynthia up in clouds, Safely home they then would see him, And from brakes and quagmires free him.

But Drayton is the poet after Shakespeare for whom the Fairies had the greatest attractions. Even in the Polyolbion he does not neglect them.

In Song xxi., Ringdale, in Cambridgeshire, says,

For in my very midst there is a swelling ground About which Ceres' nymphs dance many a wanton round; The frisking fairy there, as on the light air borne, Oft run at barley-break upon the cars of corn; And catching drops of dew in their lascivious chases, Do cast the liquid pearl in one another's faces.

And in Song iv., he had spoken of

The feasts that underground the faery did him (Arthur) make, And there how he enjoyed the Lady of the Lake.

Nymphidia is a delicious piece of airy and fanciful invention. The description of Oberon's palace in the air, Mab's amours with the gentle Pigwiggin, the mad freaks of the jealous Oberon, the pygmy Orlando, the mutual artifices of Puck and the Fairy maids of honour, Hop, Mop, Pip, Trip, and Co., and the furious combat of Oberon and the doughty Pigwiggin, mounted on their earwig chargers--present altogether an unequalled fancy-piece, set in the very best and most appropriate frame of metre.

It contains, moreover, several traits of traditionary Fairy lore, such as in these lines:--

Hence shadows, seeming idle shapes Of little frisking elves and apes, To earth do make their wanton skapes As hope of pastime hastes them; Which maids think on the hearth they see, When fires well near consumed be, There dancing hays by two and three, Just as their fancy casts them.[406]

These make our girls their sluttery rue, By pinching them both black and blue, And put a penny in their shoe.

The house for cleanly sweeping; And in their courses make that round, In meadows and in marshes found, Of them so call'd the fairy ground, Of which they have the keeping.

These, when a child haps to be got, That after proves an idiot, When folk perceive it thriveth not, The fault therein to smother, Some silly, doating, brainless calf, That understands things by the half, Says that the fairy left this aulf, And took away the other.

And in these:--

Scarce set on shore but therewithal He meeteth Puck, whom most men call Hobgoblin, and on him doth fall With words from frenzy spoken; "Ho! ho!" quoth Puck, "God save your Grace!

Who drest you in this piteous case?

He thus that spoiled my sovereign's face, I would his neck were broken.

This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt.

Still walking like a ragged colt, And oft out of a bush doth bolt, Of purpose to deceive us; And leading us, makes us to stray Long winter nights out of the way; And when we stick in mire and clay, He doth with laughter leave us.

In his Poet's Elysium there is some beautiful Fairy poetry, which we do not recollect to have seen noticed any where. This work is divided into ten Nymphals, or pastoral dialogues. The Poet's Elysium is, we are told, a paradise upon earth, inhabited by Poets, Nymphs, and the Muses.

The poet's paradise this is, To which but few can come, The Muses' only bower of bliss, Their dear Elysium.

In the eighth Nymphal,

A nymph is married to a fay, Great preparations for the day, All rites of nuptials they recite you To the bridal, and invite you.

The dialogue commences between the nymphs Mertilla and Claia:--

_M._ But will our Tita wed this fay?

_C._ Yes, and to-morrow is the day.

_M._ But why should she bestow herself Upon this dwarfish fairy elf?

_C._ Why, by her smallness, you may find That she is of the fairy kind; And therefore apt to choose her make Whence she did her beginning take; Besides he's deft and wondrous airy, And of the noblest of the fairy,[407]

Chief of the Crickets,[408] of much fame, In Fairy a most ancient name.

The nymphs now proceed to describe the bridal array of Tita: her jewels are to be dew-drops; her head-dress the "yellows in the full-blown rose;" her gown

Of pansy, pink, and primrose leaves, Most curiously laid on in threaves;

her train the "cast slough of a snake;" her canopy composed of "moons from the peacock's tail," and "feathers from the pheasant's head;"

Mix'd with the plume (of so high price), The precious bird of paradise;

and it shall be

Borne o'er our head (by our inquiry) By elfs, the fittest of the fairy.

Her buskins of the "dainty shell" of the lady-cow. The musicians are to be the nightingale, lark, thrush, and other songsters of the grove.

But for still music, we will keep The wren and titmouse, which to sleep Shall sing the bride when she's alone, The rest into their chambers gone; And like those upon ropes that walk On gossamer from stalk to stalk, The tripping fairy tricks shall play The evening of the wedding day.

Finally, the bride-bed is to be of roses; the curtains, tester, and all, of the "flower imperial;" the fringe hung with harebells; the pillows of lilies, "with down stuft of the butterfly;"

For our Tita is to-day, To be married to a fay.

In Nymphal iii.,

The fairies are hopping, The small flowers cropping, And with dew dropping, Skip thorow the greaves.

At barley-break they play Merrily all the day: At night themselves they lay Upon the soft leaves.

And in Nymphal vi. the forester says,

The dryads, hamadryads, the satyrs, and the fawns, Oft play at hide-and-seek before me on the lawns; The frisking fairy oft, when horned Cynthia shines, Before me as I walk dance wanton matachines.

Herrick is generally regarded as the Fairy-poet, _par excellence_; but, in our opinion, without sufficient reason, for Drayton's Fairy pieces are much superior to his. Indeed Herrick's Fairy-poetry is by no means his best; and we doubt if he has anything to exceed in that way, or perhaps equal, the light and fanciful King Oberon's Apparel of Smith.[409]