THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

206 THE FAIRIES OF SHAKESPEARE
what ridiculous fairies was developed as early as 1627,
and the enthronement of Mab as the Queen of the fairies,
it is equally important in showing also that a recognition
of the fairies of native tradition still prevailed. Side by
side, with the absurdities of the court of Mab and of
Oberon on grasshoppers and earwigs, are set down the
homely features of the traditional fairy world; the pinch-
ing of mortals black and blue, the reward for cleanliness,
and the stealing of ~hange1ings.l~~
The three years which elapsed between the publication
of Nimphidia and The Muses Elizium, saw the coarse
and country fairy, as far as Drayton was concerned, com-
pletely supplanted by those created by Shakespeare's
imagination. In the second Nimphall of the latter poem,
the alliance of a Rivelet and a Fay is noted.'@ In the
third Nimphall, devoted to " Poetick Raptures " and
impossibilities, the " Countrey of the Fayries " is cited
as an imaginary place invented by human imagination,
and the fairies are described as follows:
NAIJS. The Faires are hopping,
The small Flowers cropping,
And with dew dropping,
Skip thorow the Greaues.
CLOE. At Barly-breake they play
Merrily all the day,
At night themselues they lay
Vpon the soft leaue~.~~~
In the sixth 145 and in the tenth 14' Nimphalls, the
" Fayry " designated by the adjectives frisking or wanton
Page 126, 11. 65-80.
143 Drayton, The Mvses Elizivm, rpt. of 1630 ed., Spenser Soc.,
1892, p. 20.
Pages 35-36.
146 Page 60.
140 Page 91.