His Titania (also engraved in the Shakspeare Gallery), overflows with
elvish fun and imaginative drollery. It professes to embody that portion
of the first scene in the fourth act where the spell-blinded queen
caresses Bottom the weaver, on whose shoulders Oberon's transforming
wand has placed an ass' head. Titania, a gay and alluring being,
attended by her troop of fairies, is endeavoring to seem as lovely as
possible in the sight of her lover, who holds down his head and assumes
the air of the most stupid of all creatures. One almost imagines that
her ripe round lips are uttering the well-known words,--
"Come sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
And stick musk roses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy."
The rout and revelry which the fancy of the painter has poured around
this spell-bound pair, baffles all description. All is mirthful,
tricksy, and fantastic. Sprites of all looks and all hues--of all
"dimensions, shapes, and mettles,"--the dwarfish elf and the elegant
fay--Cobweb commissioned to kill a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a
thistle, that Bottom might have the honey-bag--Pease-Blossom, who had
the less agreeable employment of scratching the weaver's head--and that
individual fairy who could find the hoard of the squirrel and carry away
his nuts--with a score of equally merry companions are swarming
everywhere and in full employment. Mustard-Seed, a fairy of dwarfish
stature, stands on tiptoe in the hollow of Bottom's hand, endeavoring to
reach his nose--his fingers almost touch, he is within a quarter of an
inch of scratching, but it is evident he can do no more, and his new
master is too much of an ass to raise him up.