When larks 'gin fing,

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
The name of Robin Good-fellow.
Fiends, ghosts, and sprites,
Who haunt the nightes,

The hags and goblins do me know;

And beldames old

My feates have told;

So Vale, Vale; ho, ho, ho!

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110

115

120

THE

XXV.
FAIRY

QUEEN.

We have here a short display of the popular belief concerning FAIRIES. It will afford entertainment to a contemplative mind to trace thefe whimsical opinions up to iheir origin. Whoever confiders, how early, how extenfively, and how uniformly, they have prevailed in thefe nations, will not readily affent to the hypothefis of thofe, who fetch them from the east fo late as the time of the Croijades. Whereas it is well known that our Saxon anceflors, long before they left their German forefts, believed the exiflence of a kind of diminutive deamons, or middle fpecies between men

and

and Spirits, whom they called DUERGAR or DWARFS, and to whom they attributed many wonderful performances, far exceeding buman art. Vid. Hervarer Saga Olaj Verelj. 1675. Hickes Thefaur, &c.

This Song is given (with fome corrections by another copy) from a book intitled, "The Mysteries of Love and Eloquence, &c." Lond. 1658. 8vo,

C

OME, follow, follow me,

You, fairy elves that be:
Which circle on the greene,
Come follow Mab your queene.
Hand in hand let's dance around,
For this place is fairye ground.

When mortals are at ret,
And fnoring in their neft;
Unheard, and un-efpy'd,
Through key-holes we do glide;
Over tables, ftools, and fhelves.
We trip it with our fairy elves.

Aud, if the house be foul
With platter, difh or bowl,
Up ftairs we nimbly creep,

And find the fluts afleep:

There we pinch their armes and thighes;

None escapes, nor none efpies.

For we use before we goe

To drop a tefter in her shoe.

Upon a mushroomes head
Our table-cloth we spread;
A grain of rye, or wheat,
Is manchet, which we eat;
Pearly drops of dew we drink
In acorn cups fill'd to the brink.

The brains of nightingales,
With unctuous fat of fnailes,
Between two cockles ftew'd,
Is meat that's easily chew'd;
Tailes of wormes, and marrow of mice
Do make a dish, that's wonderous nice.

The grafhopper, gnat, and fly,
Serve for our minstrelfie;

Grace faid, we dance a while,

And fo the time beguile:

And if the moon doth hide her head,
The gloe-worm lights us home to bed.

On tops of dewie graffe

So nimbly do we passe,

The young and tender stalk

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30

35

40

45

Ne'er bends when we do walk:

Yet in the morning may be seen

Where we the night before have been.

VOL. III.

P

XXVI. THE

1

XXVI.

THE FAIRIES FAREWELL.

This humorous old fong 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 fung 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, affigned a
caufe the very reverfe, in his Wife of Bath's Tale.
"In olde dayes of the king Artour,
"Of which that Bretons fpeken gret honour,
"All was this lond fulfilled of faerie;
"The elf-quene, with hire joly compagnie
"Danced ful oft in many a grene mede.
"This was the old opinion as I rede;
"I Speke of many hundred yeres ago;
"But now can no man fee non elves mo,
"For now the grete charitee and prayeres
Of limitoures and other holy freres,
"That ferchen every land and every ftreme,
"As thikke as motes in the fonne beme,

"Bliffing balles, chambres, kichenes, and boures,
"Citees and burghes, caftles highs and toures,
"Thropes and bernes, fhepenes and dairies,
"This maketh that ther ben no faeries:
"For ther as wont to walken was an elf,
"Ther walketh now the limitour himself,
"In undermeles and in morweninges,

66

And fayth his Matines and his holy thinges,

"As he goth in his limitatioun.
"Women may now go fafely up and down,
86 In every bufb, and under every tree,
"Ther is non other incubus but he,
"And he ne will don hem no dishonour."

Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, I. p. 255.

Dr. Richard Corbet, having been bishop of Oxford about three years, and afterwards as long bishop of Norwich, died in 1635, Ætat. 5o.

F

AREWELL rewards and Fairies!

Good housewives now may say;

For now foule fluts in dairies,

Doe fare as well as they :

And though they sweepe their hearths no lefs 5

Than mayds were wont to doe,

Yet who of late for cleaneliness

Finds fixe-pence in her shoe?

Lament, lament old Abbies,

The fairies loft command ;
They did but change priests babies,

But some have chang'd your land:

And all your children stoln from thence

Are now growne Puritanes,

Who live as changelings ever since,

For love of your demaines.

At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,
So little care of fleepe and floth,

These prettie ladies had.

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