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Next, let us contrast the power and beauty of delights placed by Queen Titania at his will, with the mean, the sordid wretchedness of Bottom’s appetite and tastes.

“Tit. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?

“Bot. I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let’s have the tongs and bones.

“Tit. Or say, sweet love, what thou desir’st to eat.

“Bot. Truly a peck of provender: I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.

“Tit. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek The squirrel’s hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

“Bot. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me: I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.

“Tit. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. Fairies, be gone, and be always away. So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle Gently entwist; the female ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the elm. Oh, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!”

Is this a scene of mere fairy-land? No; but a thing of hard, every-day prosaic life. Have we not about us the children, the thick-headed descendants of Bottom, with the Titania fortune tempting them to the enjoyments of the rarest and sweetest delights? and yet the coarse animal craving of