The evolution of the fairy world, with special reference to its treatment in English literature.

Few things have been more lovely in the marvellous English poetry of the last three centuries than its pictures of the fairy world, real to our ancestors. So persistent was the fairy note throughout the evolution of our literature, that from Shakespeare, Drayton and Herrick, to Swinburne, Tennyson and Rossetti the tribute to the elfin realm was paid, and to-day in Ireland and Gaelic Scotland the horns of Elfland still blow "of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn." [...