ns separately
accommodated with dances for their use. The following is the _urchin's_
dance:

"By the moone we sport and play,
With the night begins our day;
As we frisk the dew doth fall,
Trip it, little urchins all,
Lightly as the little bee,
Two by two, and three by three,
And about goe wee, goe wee."

In "The Tempest" (i. 2) their actions are also limited to the night:

"Urchins
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee."

The children employed to torment Falstaff, in "The Merry Wives of
Windsor" (iv. 4), were to be dressed in these fairy shapes.

Mr. Douce regards the word _urchin_, when used to designate a fairy, as
of Celtic origin, with which view Mr. Thoms[19] compares the _urisks_ of
Highland fairies.

[19] "Three Notelets on Shakespeare," pp. 79-82.

The term _ouphe_, according to Grimm, is only another form of the
cognate _elf_, which corresponds with the Middle High-German _ulf_, in
the plural _ulve_. He further proves the identity of this _ulf_ with
_alp_, and with our English _elf_, from a Swedish song published by
Asdwiddson, in his "Collection of Swedish Ballads," in one version of
which the elfin king is called Herr _Elfver_, and in the second Herr
_Ulfver_.

The name _elf_, which is frequently used by Shakespeare, is the same as
the Anglo-Saxon _alf_, the Old High-German and the Middle High-German
_ulf_. "Fairies and elvs," says Tollet, "are frequently mentioned
together in the poets without any distinction of character that I can
recollect."

The other fairies, Peas-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed probably
owe their appellations to the poet himself.

How fully Shakespeare has described the characteristics of the fairy
tribe, besides giving a detailed account of their habits and doings, may
be gathered from the following pages, in which we have briefly
enumerated the various items of fairy lore as scattered through the
poet's writings.

Beauty, then, united with power, was one of the popular characteristics
of the fairy tribe. Such was that of the "Fairy Queen" of Spenser, and
of Titania in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream." In "Antony and Cleopatra"
(iv. 8), Antony, on seeing Cleopatra enter, says to Scarus:

"To this great fairy I'll commend thy acts,
Make her thanks bless thee."

In "Cymbeline" (iii. 6), when the two brothers find Imogen in their
cave, Belariu