A little _too_ loose, peradventure!

Dr James Grimm, heroically bent upon rescuing from the throat of
oblivion and from the tooth of scepticism, to his own TEUTONS--yet
heathen--a faith outreaching and outsoaring the gross definite
cognisances of this fleshly eye and hand, sets apart one--profoundly
read and thought--chapter, to WIGHTS AND ELVES.{F}

These terms, WIGHT and ELF, are presented by Dr Grimm as being, after a
rough way, synonymous; and you have above seen another Germanic
writer--a native of Warwickshire--take ELF for equivalent, or nearly so,
with FAIRY.

Of his many-natured Teutonic _wights and elves_, then, but with glances
darted around, northwards and westwards, and southwards and eastwards,
Dr Grimm begins with speaking thus:--

"From the _deified_ and _half-divine_ natures [investigated by this
author in several of his antecedent chapters] _a whole order of other
beings_ is especially herein distinguished, that whilst the former
either proceed of mankind, or seek human intercourse, these form a
segregated society--one might say, a peculiar kingdom of their own--and
are only, by accident or the pressure of circumstances, moved to
converse with men. Something superhuman, approximating them to the gods,
is mingled up in them: they possess power to help and to hurt man. They
are however, at the same time, afraid of him, because they are not his
bodily match. They appear either far below the human stature, or
misshapen. Almost all of them enjoy the faculty of rendering themselves
invisible."

You turn away your head, exclaiming that the weighty words of our
puissant teacher are, for your proficiency, somewhat bewildering, and
for your exigency by much too--TEUTONIC.

Have a care!

However, "Westward Hoe!" Put the old Rhine between the master of living
mythologists and yourself, and listen to Baron Walckenaer unlocking the
fountains of the fairy belief, and showing how it streams, primarily
through France, and secondarily through all remaining Western Europe.
"If there is a specifically characterized superstition, it is that which
regards _the fairies_: those _female genii_,{G} most frequently _without
name_, without descent, without kin, who are incessantly busied
subverting the order of nature, for the weal or the woe of mortals whom
they love and favour _without a motive_, or, as causelessly, hate and
persecute."{H}

What, _female_ only? Where are Oberon and Puck? _Without a name?_ Where
Tita