to give an accurate idea of what the Persian poets designed by a perie; this aërial being not resembling our fairies. The strongest resemblance he can find is in the description of Milton in Comus. The sublime idea which Milton entertained of a fairy vision corresponds rather with that which the Persian poets have conceived of the peries:
It is, by no means, credible, however that Milton had any knowledge of the oriental peries; though his enthusiastic or poetical imagination might have easily peopled the air with spirits.
There are two sorts of fays, according to 'M. le Grand.' The one a species of nymphs or divinities; the others, more properly called sorceresses, or women instructed in magic. From time immemorial, in the abbey of Poissy, founded by St. Lewis, they said every year a mass to preserve the nuns from the power of the fays. When the process of the damsel of Orleans was made, the doctors demanded, for the first question, "If she had knowledge of those who went to the sab-
- ↑ D'Israelis Romances, p. 13.
