AN AUTHOR WANTED.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Mr. Fraser is surely mistaken. The eighteenth-century poets were too much absorbed with classical mythology to condescend—that they would have imagined—to our home- spun " little people." In their eyes the woods were inhabited only by " nymphs," and very unsatisfactory ladies they
were too. Autochthonous creatures were scorned : the _
Royal Society explained the phenomena of " fairy rings " by reference to the supposed habits of amorous moles ; reason ruled, and the wild fantasy of the previous centuries was forgotten. Nevertheless there are difficulties in the way of going further back for the author of these lines. Titania —which was Ovid's pet name for Diana—was introduced into Fairyland by Shakespeare : she was not indigenous. Puck, of course, we knew long since. But Ariel—he was never a British sprite. I know of no instance in all our literature where he is brought to these shores. In fact, he makes only one appearance, his first and his last—bows once, so to speak, to a human audience, and then vanishes for ever.
No ; in grouping these three names the poet makes a self-conscious and not very intelligent effort to create an atmosphere. The question must have been written in a period of facile and not very sincere versification—either before or after the age of classical allusion. One other word is significant ; that is the word " sober-sided," It_ is not a very usual word : certainly it has no very distinguished history. I fancy it took its origin in slang, coined by some lighthearted cavalier as a corollary to " ironside." This would seem to point to the Restoration as the period of the lines. but frankly I incline to another theory. The
fines have jiist ihe_ ring of facile verses penned by youthful rhymers of-to-day. Has Mr. Fraser, or has his " old friend," no son who might have scribbled the quatrain in •an idle moment af'any time within the last thirty years ?—I am,
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