who laughs at those whom he misleads—­’Lord, what fools these mortals be!’ Ariel cleaves the air, and executes his mission with the zeal of a winged messenger; Puck is borne along on his fairy errand like the light and glittering gossamer before the breeze.  He is, indeed, a most Epicurean little gentleman, dealing in quaint devices and faring in dainty delights.  Prospero and his world of spirits are a set of moralists; but with Oberon and his fairies we are launched at once into the empire of the butterflies.  How beautifully is this race of beings contrasted with the men and women actors in the scene, by a single epithet which Titania gives to the latter, ’the human mortals’!  It is astonishing that Shakespeare should be considered, not only by foreigners, but by many of our own critics, as a gloomy and heavy writer, who painted nothing but ’gorgons and hydras, and chimeras dire’.  His subtlety exceeds that of all other dramatic writers, insomuch that a celebrated person of the present day said that he regarded him rather as a metaphysician than a poet.  His delicacy and sportive gaiety are infinite.  In the MIDSUMMER’S night dream alone, we should imagine, there is more sweetness and beauty of description than in the whole range of French poetry put together.  What we mean is this, that we will produce out of that single play ten passages, to which we do not think any ten passages in the works of the French poets can be opposed, displaying equal fancy and imagery.  Shall we mention the remonstrance of Helena to Hermia, or Titania’s description of her fairy train, or her disputes with Oberon about the Indian boy, or Puck’s account of himself and his employments, or the Fairy Queen’s exhortation to the elves to pay due attendance upon her favourite, Bottom; or Hippolita’s description of a chace, or Theseus’s answer?  The two last are as heroical and spirited as the others are full of luscious tenderness.  The reading of this play is like wandering in a grove by moonlight:  the descriptions breathe a sweetness like odours thrown from beds of flowers.

Titania’s exhortation to the fairies to wait upon Bottom, which is remarkable for a certain cloying sweetness in the repetition of the rhymes, is as follows: 

     Be kind and courteous to this gentleman. 
     Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes,
     Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
     With purple grapes, green figs and mulberries;
     The honey-bags steal from the humble bees,
     And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs,
     And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,
     To have my love to bed, and to arise: 
     And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
     To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes;
     Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.

The sounds of the lute and of the trumpet are not more distinct than the poetry of the foregoing passage, and of the conversation between Theseus and Hippolita: