By wells and rills, in meadowes greene, We chant our moon-light minstrelsies. Away we fling; And babes new borne steal as we go, And elfe in bed We leave instead, And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho!, From hag-bred Merlin's time have I Thus nightly revell'd to and fro: And for my pranks men call me by Who haunt the nightes, The hags and goblins do me know; And beldames old My feates have told; So Vale, Vale; ho, ho, ho! - 105 110 115 120 XXV. THE FAIRY QUEEN. We have here a short display of the popular belief concerning FAIRIES. It will afford entertainment to a contemplative mind to trace these whimsical opinions up to their origin. Whoever considers, how early, how extensively, and how uniformly, they have prevailed in these nations, will not readily assent to the hypothesis of those who fetch them from the East so late as the time of the Croisades. Whereas it is well known that our Saxon ancestors, long before they left their German forests, believed the existence of a kind of diminutive demons, or middle species between men and spirits, whom they called DUERGAR or DWARFS, and to whom they attributed many wonderful performances, far exceeding human art. Vid. Hervarer Saga Olaj Verelj. 1675. Hickes Thesaur. &c. This Song is given (with some corrections by another copy) from a book intitled "The Mysteries of Love and Eloquence, &c." Lond. 1658. 8vo. COME, follow, follow me, You, fairy elves that be:" Come follow Mab your queene. When mortals are at rest, Through key-holes we do glide; 5 10 Over tables, stools, and shelves, And, if the house be foul Up stairs we nimbly creep, There we pinch their armes and thighes; None escapes, nor none espies. 15 25 Upon a mushroomes head The brains of nightingales, The grashopper, gnat, and fly, Serve for our minstrelsie ; Grace said, we dance a while, And so the time beguile : And if the moon doth hide her head, The gloe-worm lights us home to bed. On tops of dewie grasse So nimbly do we passe, The young and tender stalk Ne'er bends when we do walk : Yet in the morning may be seen Where we the night before have been. 40 45 XXVI. THE FAIRIES FAREWELL. This humorous old song fell from the hand of the witty Dr. CORBET (afterwards bishop of Norwich, &c.) and is printed from his Poëtica Stromata, 1648, 12mo. (compared with the third edition of his Poems, 1672.) It is there called "A proper new Ballad, intitled, The "Fairies Farewell, or God-a-mercy Will, to be sung "or whistled to the tune of The Meddow Brow, by the learned; by the unlearned, to the tune of "Fortune." The departure of Fairies is here attributed to the abolition of monkery Chaucer has, with equal humour, assigned a cause the very reverse, in his Wife of Bath's Tale. "In olde dayes of the king Artour, "Of which that Bretons speken gret honour, 66 That serchen every land and every streme, "As thikke as motes in the sonne beme, 66 Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures, "Citees and burghes, castles high, and toures, "Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies, "This maketh that ther ben no faeries: "For |