THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

218 THE FAIRIES OF SHAKESPEARE
name, popularly, stood for loveliness, etherealness, and
an imaginary fabrication. It would be a work of super-
erogation to recall the modern conception of English
fairies. These are the fairies, not of Shakespeare's
time, but of his mind, who were invented to play a part
in a midsummer night's dream, and have found them-
selves cast forever in the r6le of English fairies.lS3
Is3 The difference between the fairies of the 16th century and of the
zoth, is at once perceptible in the difference attached to the meaning
of fairy-like, as used in M. W. of W., IV, 4:
"And, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight,"
and the meaning associated with fairy-like, today.