s exclaims:

"But that it eats our victuals, I should think
Here were a fairy."[20]

And he then adds:

"By Jupiter, an angel! or, if not,
An earthly paragon! behold divineness
No elder than a boy."

[20] Showing, as Mr. Ritson says, that they never ate.

The fairies, as represented in many of our old legends and folk-tales,
are generally noticeable for their beauty, the same being the case with
all their surroundings. As Sir Walter Scott,[21] too, says, "Their
pageants and court entertainments comprehended all that the imagination
could conceive of what were accounted gallant and splendid. At their
processions they paraded more beautiful steeds than those of mere
earthly parentage. The hawks and hounds which they employed in their
chase were of the first race. At their daily banquets, the board was set
forth with a splendor which the proudest kings of the earth dared not
aspire to, and the hall of their dancers echoed to the most exquisite
music."

[21] "Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft," 1831, p. 121.

Mr. Douce[22] quotes from the romance of "Lancelot of the Lake," where
the author, speaking of the days of King Arthur, says, "En celui temps
estoient appellees faees toutes selles qui sentre-mettoient
denchantemens et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principalement
en la Grande Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la vertu des paroles,
des pierres, et des herbes, parquoy elles estoient tenues et jeunesse et
en beaulte, et en grandes richesses comme elles devisoient."

[22] "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 115.

"This perpetual youth and beauty," he adds, "cannot well be separated
from a state of immortality;" another characteristic ascribed to the
fairy race. It is probably alluded to by Titania in "A Midsummer-Night's
Dream" (ii. 1):

"The human mortals want their winter here."

And further on (ii. 1), when speaking of the changeling's mother, she
says:

"But she, being mortal, of that boy did die."

Again, a fairy addresses Bottom the weaver (iii. 1)--

"Hail, mortal!"

--an indication that she was not so herself. The very fact, indeed, that
fairies "call themselves _spirits_, ghosts, or shadows, seems to be a
proof of their immortality." Thus Puck styles Oberon "king of shadows,"
and this monarch asserts of himself and his subjects--

"But we are spirits of another sort."

Fletcher, in the "Faithful Shepherdess," describes (i. 2)--