believed, by the way, and with good reason, to be the first Fairy Tale of this class ever written. The occurrence of the actual name of Cendrillon towards the close of the story, (see page 243, note,) completes the mystification, and induces one almost to imagine that the authors had a common original, which has hitherto escaped notice.[1]
Fortunée is a pleasant little story, which the translators of "The Collection" thought proper to omit, substituting in its place, without a word of explanation, "Le Palais de Vengeance," by the Countess de Murat. Fortunée, I believe, has not been previously translated.
Babiole has been published with some little compression in the "Child's Fairy Library." In this story the author's Spanish reminiscences are particularly obvious. There is more fancy than intention in the plot, and it conveys no particular moral. It is altogether more like an Arabian Nights' tale, and may indeed have had an eastern original. In "The Collection" this story is supplanted by the Countess de Murat's "Anguillette," the name being coolly substituted for that of Babiole in the paragraph which precedes it, without the slightest explanation.
Le Nain Jaune, the "Yellow Dwarf," is a more popular story, and though as tragical in its termination as "The Ram," has been more frequently presented to the English public in one shape or another, and especially in a dramatic form. The genius of Mr. Robson is, at the moment I write, illustrating it at the Olympic Theatre, in a most remarkable manner. This story is introduced by Madame d'Aulnoy in a novel called "Don Ferdinand de Toledo."
Serpentin Vert is a story that has been altogether neglected by English translators; and, substituted for it in "The Collection," we find "Young and Handsome," the "Jeune et Belle" of Madame de Murat. "Serpentin Vert," which I could only render in English "Green Serpent," is a singular story, and were it not for the incongruous and rather clumsy employment of mythological machinery in the working out of its dénoûment, might rank with the happiest of Madame
- ↑ See Additional Note, p. 619.
