L'Oranger et l'Abeille was also first published in a "The Diverting Works." I have given a note in explanation of the word Canambour, "Eagle 'wood," which occurs in the original and in Madame d'Aulnoy's "Travels in Spain," she mentions her first acquaintance with the material. "The Princess of Monteleon," she tells us, "presented me with a pair of beads of Palo d'Aguila, which is a curious sort of wood that comes from the Indies."
La Bonne Petite Souris concludes the first portion of "Contes des Fées." As "The Good Little Mouse," a modernised version appeared in the "Child's Fairy Library." The story is by no means equal to its predecessors.
Le Mouton is the first fairy tale in "Les Fées à la Mode," which are a series of stories, the first three supposed to be told by the personages in a Spanish novel, which Madame d'Aulnoy, in a fanciful introduction, says she has joined to them to make them more agreeable. "Le Mouton" is an old acquaintance with English juvenile readers, to whom several abridgments have been furnished, under the title of "The Royal Ram;" a more captivating one, I admit, but not the author's, which is simply "The Ram." It appears to have suggested to Madame de Villeneuve her charming story of "La Belle et la Bête"—"Beauty and the Beast." She has rendered the lover more hideous, and altered the tragical termination; but the general idea is too similar to be accidental.
Finette Cendron exposes Madame d'Aulnoy to a similar charge of imitation. This story is a curious compound of Perrault's "Petit Poucet," and his "Cendrillon," so familiarized to us as "Hop o' my Thumb," and "Cinderella." As the fair Countess does not neglect any opportunity of testifying to the popularity of Perrault, it is singular that she should have so boldly appropriated two of the best stories of a living author at a time when they were in everybody's hands, and his fame in its zenith. The pasticcio is still more remarkable, from the fact that in the title of Madame d'Aulnoy's story we find the name of Finette, also rendered celebrated by Perrault, as that of his "Adroite Princesse,"
