THE FROLICS OF PUCK.
THE pleasant creation of Park, or Robin Goodfellow, is widely spread. lie is known, under different names, in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and Sweden, as well as in England,—" which abounds in popular traditions," sots the author of the Frolics, "to the full as much as Germany," if they were sought for amongst the people, and not in books. To illustrate, or rather to amplify some of the legends in connexion with Jolly Rob, is the object of these volumes.
The fmmett ork is not devoid either of skill or fancy. More than
a year is supposed to have elapsed since the quarrel—the Mid- summer Night's Dream quarrel—between Titania and Oberon. The breach is not yet healed; fur neither party N+ ill make the first advances, though both are dying to be reconciled. It is the mo- narch's birth-night ; he is reclining in his home amongst the clouds, attended by Puck ; on a sudden, Oberon casts his eyes downward, and sees, in no pleasant humour with their merriment, that "the greensward was alive with fairies, who hung upon the • cowslip bell, tippling the honeyed dew, or buzzing from flower to flower like a swarm of bees in a bed of macs." Alt at once, Sweet- ' briar and Heartsease, with the little henchman, are seen making towards. them, and Puck conjectures, on some mocking errand. .• The suspicion rouses the king, who threatens vengeance - but the tricksy yet good-natured spirit obtains permission diat their punishment shall be lett to him. Starting off in chase of a bail- cloud, lie guided it over the green field where Titania and her court were sporting, and discharged it over them.
Pelting away most furiously amongst the devoted elves, who ran belterskelter about the meadow, sonic burying their heads in the long grass, others holding
• up their gossamer robes against the storm, and others, more wisely, availing
themselves of their fairy power to slit ink into apau-long hums, and take refuge in the cowslip bells. 'there they lay, indiffereutly well protected front the keen hail-shafts, rocking to and fro in the wind, like the sailor-boy on the giddy top- mast, and wondering touch what had brought this sudden tempest about their ears when.just before the moon had been shining out so brightly. But the vil- lanous peels of laughter front. above did not long leave them in doubt whom they had to thank fur the unexpected favour. Titauia, who had been fortunate
. cuough to ensconce hymn' in a stout tulip, was the first to make the discovery.
Astonished at such unseasonable sounds of mirth, she ventured to peep out from her safe refuge, when, to the no little increase of her wrath, she spied Robin on his cloud, one moment toiling away with as much vigour as if he had a stake upon emptying it within a given time ; and the next, when sonic lucky hit had laid a cowslip low, with its fairy inmate' capering about for joy, and actually unable, for laughter, to proceed in the work of mischief. Too indignant to think any lon- ger of her proper emu itv and perhaps over-estimating the sacred uesit of her per- son with the malicious fuck, she hastily threwopeu the leaves of the tulip-bell, and, starting up from its shelter, held out her lily rod towards hint with ges- tures that threatened vengeance. This, however, as more immediately con- cerned herself, only made matters ten times worse; he bad lost sight of her in the general scramble of the fairies to get out of the storm, from which circum- stance and the stoutness of her hidingplace, she had hitherto escaped much bets ter than any of her attendants ; but now she had placed heft& fully and fairly in his aim, and no sooner did the malicious spirit make the discovery, than he hastened to show iu what regard he held the royal consort. Uttering a loud cry, or rather shriek of delight, he hurled a handful of the sharpest and largest hailstones right upon the tulip. Down popped the queen with the speed of light, act nut to fast but that the frozen drops rattled lustily about her eats, and, as she cowered beneath the leaves, she swore by the moon when it is brightest—an oath no fairy dares to break—that Puck should never see elfin land again. It would almost seem he had bean!, and meant to requite this hos- tile declaration; for, the moment it was uttered, a huge hailstone struck the tulip with such well-directed aim, that the stein was cut asunder, and dent came Titania in most ignoble fashion. It turns out that the embassy was one of peace and submission. Puck is of course made the scapegoat; but the Queen, by a men- tal reservation, limits his banishment till he shall, like CHAUCER'S " lusty bachelor," * discover " W hat it is that must pleases woman? " descends to earth for the information necessary to enable him to read theriddle: and the various adventures he is supposed to be connected with whilst in search of it, are presented to the reader in four tales.
• Wife of Bath's Tale.
The principal defect of the book is, that the author has not worked out his awn intentions. Except in the first story, very little if any progress is made towards solving the enigma; to the reader it seems penetrated at last by intuition rather than ex. perience. The mischievous yet humane spirit is often, too, rather heard of than seen; the frolics are exhibited. but the frolicker is not visible. Neither is the character of Puck well developed. When he becomes " of the earth," its grossness seems to weigh down the buoyant spirit of the jester of elfin land: he becomes
the character he assumes, without any distinctive markings:; or, at best, his humour breaks out in tricks of action. Thus, when in Trouble Fields he takes the character of the first Duke of Buck- ingham, with the good-natured view of breaking elf a match, he is GEORGE VILLizes, and nothing more. When in Calshot Castle he drives the pigs user his inasbter's.show tulip-beds, he is.merely a mischevous and impudent gipsy-boy; not the Robin Goodfellow of merry England.
This defect—and a certain degree of heaviness—are attribu- table (0 rare circumstance!) to the rejection of advice. "A friendly critic," says the Preface, "objected to me,. that I should have done better in giving the traditionary superstitions .precisely as I received them; but I cannot agree with this upinion: it seems to confound the very distinct offices of the antiquary and the novelist." We think not. Had lie indeed taken down the ac- count in short-hand and published a verbatim report, it would have been nearer antiquarianism than any thing else. But to re- tain the outlines, the distinguishing features of the traditions, fil- ling them up in the popular spirit which conceived and with the popular genius which created them, is no slight matter, and very far above the capabilities of a mere antiquary. To ingraft the legends upon a human story, so as to combine the fancy of a fairy tale with the interest of a novel, would task the highest. powers. It would require qualities which the author has,—a mind full of fancy, great powers of description, with a reflective vein, which somewhat reminds us of Scow, and a full knowledge of the habits ascribed to the "good people." It would also require qualities which the author has not,—a mind so thoroughly imbued with the spirit and manners of fairy-land, and of the age when its inhabi- tants visited earth, that he should pour forth his creations com- plete and proportioned; great felicity in investing trifles and homely qualities with something of elegance; and a power not only olconceiving, but of developing character. After all, would the production be popular? We suspect not. The Midsummer Night's Dream, notwithstanding the consummate art of its con- struction and the beauties of its poetry, is rather heavy work for the million. A fairy tale should be short. Where there is no direct instruction to be conveyed, and little human interest to be admitted, brevity is essential to excellence.
We have spoken of the fancy of the author. His description of the fairies' residence in the clouds will afford a specimen.
The fairies were not always, as now, invisible to mortal eyes. There was a time when they would play their pranks in the merry moonlight upon the greensward, often the friends, and seldom the enemies of their human brethren; but even then their natural element was the air, which they divided with the births as man divides the posse-lion of the earth with the beasts, and their proper home was the clouds. These vapoury masses, which to us, who view them at a distance, appear all to be of the satne texture and for the same pur- pose, are, like the world below, separated into more or less habitable portions. Sonic are the depositories of snow and hail ; and these, which resemble the more northern parts of our globe, are seldom visited, and never dwelt in; others, like the oceans of earth, are the receptacles of the living waters, and in these the faries love to sail and frolic, when the moon is brightest, in barks of orient amber, scarcely thicker than the thin shell of the nautilus, the mast cut from the tallest tulips, the cordage twisted from the spider's web, the sails formed of the golden wings of bees, that are cemented into a piece by the gluti- nous juices of some rare plant, and right gallantly does this strange canvas swell to the midnight breezes ; others again. are warm as the lands of the East, and dry as its sands ; and, though but little mote substantial than the gossamer, are vet firm enough for the light treading of a fairy. With us the restless elves seldom stayed for many days together, though they loved to sport on the meadows in the long summer nights, and would some times even gossip ou the winter hearth with the cricket. Our earth, with its fixed forms of hill and vale and tree, that know no change but what they bor- row from the seasons or from decay, had been, for a constant dwelling, the worst of penances to their fickle dispositions. But in the clouds they enjoyed, and still enjoy, a world as variable as their own ever-varyingfancies. One moment these elfin realms are tinged with all the colours of the rainbow but ten times brighter, glittering and glancing. from rock and from tower, like a diamond throwing off its tinted brilliance in the sunbeams ; then on a sudden the myriad hues and shades of light will blend into one azure, deeper and clearer than the skies when they are deepest and clearest; in the next moment, hills and trees and cities will glow with the yellow of the topaz, and then again be bright with the richest crimson or fade into the more sober purple of the violet. Anon the form itself of this fairy world will be entirely changed at the voice of the winds, who wait round the throne of Oberon, and, at a motion of his lily sceptre, destroy and build up, and again destroy, with a suddenness that almost mocks the eye to follow it. Never has earthly potentate such miuisters to do his biddiug ; without wings they fly, without tee: they rum without bawls they work; and, although impalpable to sight, thair bodies have the weight and force of iron. Their voice alone is all-powerful over the clouds; they speak, and rocks melt into seas ; seas lift up their waters into cities ; cities split and rend into mighty forests; and the forests pasa through a autism' bright and fanciful combinations, for which language has no name, but all as beautiful as they arc varied.
Here we have their sports, and a portraiture of the fairies. The inferior fays sported in merry groups; sonic wrestling, some bathing in the liquid moonbeams, and others tilting in mimic war with spears of reed, tint with rte sharp thorn of the Maybush,••■11 favourite weapon of chase when they touted the humble-bee by day, or galloped after the leather-winged bat by .atrioulight. Others again tripped in quaint mazes to the music of the1);oliaa harp, which was now gently, stew more boldly, struck by the west wind ; and, as they paced gracefully to its !ow plaintive minas, or frolicked to its wilder measures, their triage, tort were of the texture of bees' wings, but slightly
Previous page