^ The Scented Qarden $£ 



crystal, walks of amber, orchards bearing fruit through- 

 out the year, groves filled with birds, fish ponds full of 

 nectar, and above all ' an abundance of lady-birds.' 

 Glimpses of Oberon and his queen enchant us. What 

 more attractive than the picture of the fairy king and 

 queen taking refuge from the rain under a mushroom, 

 * fretted overhead with glowwormes,' and giving such 

 glimmering light l as stars doe in a frosty night,' their 

 supper furnished by their ' nimble footed trayne ' 

 bringing the choicest dainties, one little fairy making his 

 way through the crowd loaded with an ear of wheat, 

 1 the whitest and the fairest hee cann gett.' What more 

 appealing than the ' Beggar's Petition to the Fairy 

 Queen.' Yet even in those days there were people who 

 did not believe in fairies. For according to Bishop 

 Corbet ' since of late Elizabeth and later James came in ' 

 the fairies had vanished, though one cannot help wonder- 

 ing whether the worthy Bishop really disbelieved in them, 

 when one reads the full title of the ballad in which he 

 deplored their departure — ' A proper new ballad intituled 

 the Fairies Farewell, or God of mercy Will ! to be sung or 

 whistled to the tune of the Medow Brow by the learned, 

 by the unlearned to the tune of Fortune.' 



Rarest of all are those glimpses of a race of beings more 

 beautiful even than the fairies to be found in all literature 

 and notably in ancient Celtic poetry, embodying folk- 

 memories of an age lost in the mists of antiquities and 

 possibly of beings who inhabited this planet before man. 



1 From thence we see, though we be not seen, 

 We know what has been and shall be again, 

 And the cloud that was raised by the first man's fall, 

 Has concealed us from the eyes of men.' 



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