at the same time neglects not to present ridicule in its true light, to chastise vice, and to throw irony and satire upon folly and prejudice.
If Musæus had only written the Chronicle of the Three Sisters that story alone would have been sufficient to establish his reputation, and to place him upon a level with the first authors of Germany. None of the tales of the Thousand and one Nights—so rich in beauties and wonders—can enter the lists against this production, in which the author has lavished all the treasures of fairyism, and joined to the most extraordinary tales, an interesting story of which the progress in the midst of the most fantastical events is always clear and not interrupted at every instant by episodes foreign to the tale, as in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. The plan of suspending one tale to begin another, and then suspending that to begin a third, tires the attention of the reader, who obliged to follow up three stories instead of one, loses sight of the events in the early portion of the work before he has half perused it, or else he is compelled to pause to arrange in his mind the events of the narrative, lest he should confound the different tales, and thus grows weary of the work which, instead of diverting fatigues.
