The Fairies are as old as the Hathors of Egypt, the Moerae who came to the birth of Meleager, the Norns of Scandinavian myth. But Madame d'Aulnoy first developed them into our familiar _fées_ of fairy tale. Her _contes_ are brilliant little novels, gay, satirical, full of hits at courts and kings. Yet they have won a way into true popularity: translated and condensed, they circulate as penny scrap-books, and furnish themes for pantomime.[3] It is from Madame d'Aulnoy that the _Rose and the Ring_ of Thackeray derives its illustrious lineage. The banter is only an exaggeration of her charming manner. It is a pity that Sainte-Beuve, in his long gallery of portraits, found no space for Madame d'Aulnoy. The grave Fénelon follows her in his _Rosimond et Braminte_, by no means the worst effort of the author of _Télémaque_.[4] From Madame d'Aulnoy, then, descend the many artificial stories of the _Cabinet des Fées_, and among these the very prolix novel out of which _Beauty and the Beast_ has been condensed takes a high place. The tales of the Comte de Caylus have also humour, wit, and a pleasant invention.[5]
The artificial fairy tale was in the eighteenth century a regular literary _genre_, a vehicle, now for satire, now for moralities. The old courtly method has died out, naturally, but the modern _Märchen_ has taken a hundred shapes, like its own enchanters. We have Kingsley's _Water Babies_, a fairy tale much too full of science, and of satire not very intelligible to children, and not always entertaining to older people, but rich in tenderness, poetry, and love of nature. We have the delightful _Rose and the Ring_, full of characters as real to us, almost, as Captain Costigan, or Becky Sharpe. Angelica is a child's Blanche Amory; Betsinda is a child's Laura Bell, Bulbo is the Foker of the nursery, and King Valoroso a potentate never to be thought of without respectful gratitude. How noble is his blank verse.
--'He laid his hands on an anointed king, --Hedzoff! and floored me with a warming pan!'