Page:Fairytales00auln.djvu/15

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
PREFACE.
xi

author, whose thoughts are so elegant and refined, their beauties would have been lost in a paraphrase." Is it possible that this person could have been acquainted with "the best edition of the original French," from which he professes this translation was made? I must, in charity, hope not, and imagine that he was himself deceived by the "several hands" who perpetrated the extraordinary concoction in which "The Palace of Revenge," "Anguilletta," "Young and Handsome," and "Perfect Love," by the Countess de Murat, take the places of "Fortunée," "Babiole," "Serpentin Vert," "Prince Marcassin," and "Le Dauphin;" while "The Knights-Errant," and "The Tyranny of the Fairies Destroyed," by the Countess d'Auneuil, are thrown in, I presume, to compound for the omission of "La Biche au Bois," "La Grenouille Bienfaisante," and the nine stories contained in the "Contes des Fées "of Madame d'Aulnoy.

The volume now presented to the Public, whatever may be its demerits, contains at any rate nothing that is not the composition of the Countess d'Aulnoy. The omissions consist of, first, the Novels with which the second series of her Fairy Tales, entitled, "Les Fées á la Mode," were interlarded, possessing little interest in themselves, and unnecessary as vehicles for the sprightly and ingenious stories they introduce; and, secondly, of the two concluding tales, "Prince Marcassin," and "Le Dauphin," which, though not wanting in merit, as far as fancy and humour are concerned, could not, without considerable alterations in their