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620 referred to, I must beg to deny the round assertion of that writer, that "all the best Fairy Tales" of Madame d'Aulnoy, or even "most of them," are "mere translations" from those two works, "with scarcely any variation." Out of the four-and-twenty contained in this Collection, only three are to be found shadowed forth in the "Tredeci Notti Piacevoli," of Straparola, viz. "The Princess Belle-Etoile," "Prince Marcassin," and "The Dolphin;" and certainly the two last have no pretension to be ranked amongst "the best," all of which, if borrowed, must have been taken from other sources. That the "Cendrillon" of Perrault has features in unison with the "Gatta Cenerentola" of Basile, I readily admit; but I dispute the sweeping conclusion of Mr. Dunlop, and of Mr. Keightley, who has followed him, and still believe that a common original has yet to be discovered.

I may shortly have an opportunity of entering more at large into this subject: for the present I must content myself with simply entering my protest against the rather hasty judgment of those deservedly popular writers, the historian of "Fiction," and the author of the "Fairy Mythology."