Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/88

 80 in the course of its dispersion over the world than to comprehend how the reverse of that process could take place. The latter phenomenon is a mere incident of ethical growth: the former would have to be accounted for by what is certainly the difficult hypothesis that some races of lower civilisation have received the tradition of the particular myth from a more ethically advanced people. Meanwhile, let us all try and forgive Cruikshank for having re-written "Puss in Boots," because he considered that "it represented merely a series of successful falsehoods!" I have never seen this moralized version, but I should like to do so. "No, sir," replied Puss, "these fields are not the property of my master, the Marquis of Carabas—who indeed, to be frank with you, for we should always speak the truth, is not a marquis at all. But he is something much better than a nobleman: he is a most excellent though penniless young man, and you would do well to allow him to marry your daughter." I suppose it must be something in that style. But I know that I should not have liked that style so well as I did the other when I was a child, and I think too well of the children of the present day to believe that their taste would be different from mine.

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— In the English Illustrated Magazine for January.

NOTICES AND NEWS.

At last we have a book which deals with some of the most important phases of mythology and folk-lore, and in no single instance confuses the provinces and terminology of these sciences. How considerable an advantage this is to the student only those who have long felt the difficulties of a loose system of terminology can readily understand. And there is no mistaking the comprehensive grasp which this book takes of the subject, and which it imparts to its readers.