Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/27

Rh for that world to which he hastens, yet leaves him purposely ignorant of its nature and of that of its inhabitants. Thus situated, who can marvel that man has peopled this unknown universe with his own ideal conceptions? Upon the shapes and attributes of these imaginary denizens of 'that undiscovered country' the countless generations of mankind have lavished all the treasures of their imagination."

He claims that the true home of the fairy is England, for its lovely scenery and its wide moors, so bountifully covered with the rich heath bells, "have always attracted these charming and unearthly little creatures, so generous in their friendships, and yet so capricious, so implacable in their resentments against whoso shall break in upon" their concealed solemnity. After turning aside to give a little word-lore, Knight refers to "the beautiful romance of Orfeo and Heurodis" as being a great curiosity in fairy literature, "one of the most beautiful of the Fairy Romances we possess," and "analyzed by Scott in the second volume of his 'Border Minstrelsy,'" in which he gives it as an instance of "Gothic mythology engrafted on the fables of Greece."

The paper shows a most ultimate knowledge of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Herrick, and Spenser. With Spenser Knight is angry, for he "indeed calls his poem 'The Faerie Queen,' and talks about the land of Faerie; but as far as regards any reference it contains to the 'good folk,' he might as well have called it 'The Queen of Tahite' or 'Queen Dido.' Throughout the whole of Spenser's great poem there are but two incidental allusions to the popular attributes of the Faeries Spenser's account of the origin and genealogy of his Faeries is totally different from anything we meet with in any other work, prose or poetical, on the subject. He seems in its formation to have drawn as largely upon the rich and varied stores of his imagination as he has in any of the marvellous adventures with which his enchanting work is stored. He seems to have studiously put on one side all that his predecessors had said or sung concerning them, and to have given them an origin and pedigree of his own, and one which should enable him to adhere consistently to one of the (we are sorry to record it) main objects of his poem that of paying a long and elaborate compliment to that most beflattered of all women, Queen Elizabeth."

Knight complains of the neglect of Drayton, who is "now only known to the student of early English literature, or the antiquary," but who "has done most after Shakespeare to secure to the Faeries an immortality of beauty." After making reference to "many beautiful allusions scattered through his works," Knight calls special attention to his poem entitled 'Nymphidia; or, The Court of the Fairy,' in which "a high degree of poetical merit is blended with a lively style and wit, and a playful turn of fancy almost Shakespearian."