[220] His own admirable introduction to Perrault in the Clarendon Press series will, as far as our subject is directly concerned, supply whatever a reader, within reason further curious, can want: and his well-known rainbow series of Fairy Books will give infinite illustration.
[221] The longest of all, in the useful collection referred to in the text, are the Oiseau Bleu and the charming Biche au Bois, each of which runs to nearly sixty pages. But both, though very agreeable, are distinctly "sophisticated," and for that very reason useful as gangways, as it were, from the simpler fairy tale to the complete novel.
[222] Enchanters, ogres, etc. "count" as fairies.
[223] Apuleius, who has a good deal of the "fairy" element in him, was naturally drawn upon in this group. The Psyche indebtedness reappears, with frank acknowledgment, in Serpentin Vert.
[224] If Perrault really wrote this, the Muses, rewarding him elsewhere for the good things he said in "The Quarrel," must have punished him here for the silly ones. It has, in fact, most of the faults which neo-classicism attributed to its opposite.
[225] For a spoiling of this delightful story v. inf. on the Cabinet.
[226] Its full title, "ou Collection Choisie des C. des F. et autres Contes Merveilleux," should in justice be remembered, when one feels inclined to grumble at some of the contents.
[227] This indeed was the case, in one or other kind of longer fiction writing, with most of the authors to be mentioned. The total of this in the French eighteenth century was enormous.
[228] She is even preceded by a Mme. de Murat, a friend of Mme. de Parabère, but a respectable fairy-tale writer. It does not seem necessary, according to the plan of this book, to give many particulars about these writers; for it is their writings, not themselves, that our subject regards. The curious may be referred to Walckenaer on the Fairy Tale in general, and Honoré Bonhomme on the Cabinet in particular, as well as (v. inf.) to the thirty-seventh volume of the collection itself.
[229] There is sometimes alliance and sometimes jealousy on this subject. In one tale the "Comte de Gabalis" is solemnly "had up," tried, and condemned as an impostor.