simple and beautiful ballad school; the next, a Utilitarian might have written as a good encouraging lesson of poverty rising into wealth—a tale in the very spirit of la nation boutiquière; and as for Little Red Ridinghood, the terror, the only feeling it is calculated to produce, is beneath the capacity of any critic past five years of age.
"But look at the imagination, the vivacity, of the others: we read them in childhood for the poetry of their wonders, and in more advanced life for their wit; for they are the Horaces of fairy land. The French have the very perfection of short stories in their literature—little touches like the flight of a shining arrow. I remember one that began: 'There was once a king and queen, very silly people, but who loved each other as much as if they had been wiser, perhaps more.' Then, again, speaking of some fairy portent: 'They could not at all understand it—therefore took it for granted it was something very terrible or very fine;' or, again, 'The queen was for ever in an ill humour, but had the best heart in the world.' We English have no word that translates that of persiflage; and for this reason, a nation only wants words for the things it knows—and of this we have no
