BOOKS.

FIVE OLD FRIENDS AND A YOUNG PRINCE.*

ARE these rationalized fairy tales or enchanted tales of every- day life? We maintain that they are the latter, and that this it is which gives them their peculiar charm. Miss Thackeray is not

really rationalizing the tales of our childhood, as she may seem to be doing to those who hastily compare these stories with the old histories whose names she has adopted. Anybody could do that, but what our authoress alone could do is something much higher and more delicate. She can cast that atmosphere of wonder and delight, which children find in the spells and transformations of their fairy tales, round events of real life, and make us feel that rationalism is not, after all, the presiding genius of modern society ; that states of both feeling and perception of which we can give no account, and are wholly unable to command at pleasure, are introduced into our life by spiritual spells and talismans of which we have not the key, and which would lose their mysterious power if we had. -The only instance that we can pitch upon to sustain an accusation against our authoress of deliberately rationalizinga fairy tale, instead of investing with a true magic what is common-place and old, is where she substitutes for the magic mirror in which Beauty sees what her father is doing after he has left her in the Beast's palace, a telegraphic message. That is base of her, and the only thing conceived in the horrid school which is always prosing about "the fairy tales of science," the marvels of steam, the magic of the microscope, and the rest of the loathsome clap-trap of unima- ginative edification. It was such a shock to us to find the modern hysterics over the telegraph hinted,—for after all, they are only hinted, and the hint is only intelligible to those who carefully compare the old fairy tale with the new, —in one of these exquisite stories, that we could not help fearing we should come upon traces of spectrum-analysis or some other dreadfully scientific wonder, afterwards. However, there was no real fear. Miss Thackeray's glorifying spell is after all her true imagination, and we have no doubt she has felt the deepest humiliation for her little concession to the Philistines in the identification of the telegraphic message with the magic mirror. It is not really a magic mirror at all, for there is no freshness, no marvel, about it now, more than about the post or the messenger ; and what is aimed at, in all these tales, is to find an equivalent in the real mysteries of emotion and of bewilderi ng intellectual experience, for the sorcery of our child- hood's tales. We claim Miss Thackeray as the foe of the stupid, hard rationalism of our modern days, if only in virtue of the pathetic little passage with which her version of Jack the Giant Killer concludes :—

" Another giant is coming to meet him through the darkness. He is no hideous monster of evil like the rest; his face is pitiless, but his eyes are clear and calm. His still voice says, 'hold,' and then it swells by degrees, and deafens all other sound. I am a spirit of truth, men call me evil because I come out of the darkness,' the giant cries, but see my works are good as well as bad ! See what bigotry, what narrow preju- dice, what cruelty, and wickedness, and intolerance I have attacked and put to rent!' In the story-book it is Jack who is the conqueror ; he saws through the bridge by which the giant approaches, and the giant falls into the moat and is drowned. But, as far as I can see, the Jacks of this day would rather make a way for him than shut him out ; some of the heroes who have tried to saw away tho bridge have fallen into the moat with their enemy, and others are making but a weak defence, and in their hearts would be glad to admit him into the palace of the King."

The art of these tales consists, then, not in stupidly trying to be extremely surprised at things to which we are all perfectly accustomed, to go into hysterical platitudes over the

• Fire Old Friends and a Young Prince. By the Author of the Story of Elizabeth. With Four Illustrations by Frederick Walker. London: Smith and Elder,

steam engine and the newspaper and the electric wire, but in penetrating to the real fountains of wonder, which are as fresh as ever to a fine imagination, in the inner nature, and so bathing the common details of life with them as to give us back the special is charms which the fairy tale has for children, the marvellous fresh ness, the sense of enlarged resources and rich possibilities, the hope of a surprise at every moment, the breath of some new world at every turn. This is the secret of the fascination of these stories. We detest and despise rationalized fairy tales. These tales of Nlies Thackeray's we can read again and again, and yet find in them all the glamour that still hangs for us round their prototypes. What can be more perfect than the rendering of the dull, overgrown, shadow- haunted monotonous existence in which the youth of the sleeping Beauty, Cecilia Lulworth, is being dreamlessly slept away ? (By the way, is she Cecilia Lulworth, or is she Cecilia Dormer ?—in correcting these tales for their more permanent form our author really ought to have made her names consistent with themselves, and told us whether the name of the wilderness itself is Dorlicote Hall or Lulworth Hall,—it is called both,—and the name of the heroine and her parents Dormer, or Lulworth, for both are pretty freely given to them, and such little inaccuracies as these give excuses for grumbling to minds of the baser order.) However, the sketch of Dorlicote Hall, which we take to be the more authentic reading, and the suspended animation there, is really a piece of wonderful art, if you look carefully at its object, which is, to renew as far as is consistent with real life,—and this may be, and we think is, consistent with much more than the fairy tale itself can do,--that sense of mysterious gloom and drowsiness into which the young prince penetrates, to dispel it by a kiss. Even Tennyson has not painted it so forcibly.

"The varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and reclothes the happy plains ; Here rests the sap within the leaf, Hero stays the blood along the veins. Faint shadows, vapours lightly curled, Faint murmurs from the meadows come, Like hints and echoes of the world To spirits folded in the womb."

Now take the contrast as it is painted in our story :— "Frank Lulworth thought that in all his life ho bad never seen anything so dismal, so silent, so neglected, as Dorlicote Park, when he drove up a few days after, through the iron gates and along the black laurel wilderness which led to the house. The laurel branches, all unpruned, untrained, were twisting savagely in and out, wreathing and interlacing one another, clutching tender shootings, wrestling with the young oak trees and the limes. He passed by black and sombre avenues leading to mouldy temples, to crumbling snmmer-houses ; ho saw what had once been a flower garden, now all run to seed—wild, straggling, forlorn ; a broken-down bench, a heap of hurdles lying on the ground, a field mouse darting across the road, a desolate autumn sun shining upon all this mouldering ornament and confusion. It seemed more forlorn and melancholy by contrast, somehow, coming as he did out of the loveliest country and natural sweetness into the dark and tangled wilderness within these limestone walls of Dorlicote. The parish of Dorlicoto-cum-Rockington looks prettier in the autumn than at any other time. A hundred crisp tints, jewelled rays—greys, browns, purples, glinting golds, and silvers, rustle and sparkle upon the branches of the nut trees, of the bushes and thickets. Soft blue mists and purple tints rest upon the distant hills ; scarlet berries glow among the brown leaves of the hedges ; lovely mists fall and vanish suddenly, revealing bright and sweet autumnal sights ; blackberries, stacks of corn, brown leaves crisping upon the turf, great pears hanging sweetening in the sun over the cottage lintels, cows grazing and whisking their tails, blue smoke curling from the tall farm chimneys: all is peaceful, prosperous, golden. You can see the sea on clear days from certain knolls and hillocks Out of all these pleasant sights young Lulworth came into this dreary splendour. He heard no sounds of life—he saw no one. His coachman had opened the iron gate. 'They doan't keep no one to moind the gate,' said the driver, 'only tradesmen COOMS to th'ouse.'"

But it is the sleep within, which is most strikingly painted, after

all :— .

"Cecilia was not allowed a fire to dress herself by : a grim maid, however, attended, and I suppose she was surrounded, as people say, by every comfort. There was a horsehair sofa, with a creaking writing- table before it, a metal inkstand, a pair of plated candlesticks: every- thing was large, solid, brown, as I have said, grim, and in its place. The rooms at Lulworth Hall did not take the impress of their inmate, the inmate was moulded by the room. There was in Cecilia's no young lady-like trifles lying here and there; upon the chest of drawers there stood a mahogany workbox, square, with a key, and a faded needle-book and darning-cotton inside,—a little dusty chenille, I believe was to be seen round the clock on the chimney-piece, and a black and white check dressing-gown and an ugly little pair of slippers were set out before the toilet-table. On the bed, Cecilia's dinner costume was lying—a sickly green dress, trimmed with black—and a white flower for her hair. On the toilet-table an old-fashioned jasper serpent necklace and a set of amethysts were displayed for her to choose from, also mittens and a couple of hair bracelets. The girl was quite content, and she would

go down gravely to dinner, smoothing out her hideous toggory This especial night when Cecilia came down in her ugly green dross, it seemed to her as if something unusual had been going on. The old

lady's eyes looked bright and glittering, her father seemed more ani- mated than usual, her mother looked mysterious and put out. It might have been fancy, but Cecilia thought they all stopped talking as she came into the room; but then dinner was announced, and her father offered Mrs. Dormer his arm immediately, and they wont into the dining-room. It must have been fancy. Everything was as usual. "They have put up a few hurdles in Dalron's field, I see,' said Mrs. Lulworth. ' Charles you ought to give orders for repairing the lock of the harness-room.'—

• Have they seen to the pump handle?' said Mr. Lulworth.—' I think not.' And then there was a dead siience.— Potatoes,' said Cecilia to the footman. ' Mamma, we saw over so many slugs in the laurel walk, Maria mid t—did'ut we, Maria ? I think there arc a great many slugs in our place.'"

What a perfect picture of arrested life ! And the awakening from the sleep when the kiss is given which breaks the spell, is as vividly drawn as is the sleep itself. Cindcrella, and Beauty and the Beast, and Jack the Giant Killer are all of them nearly as good in their way ; but we think that there is perhaps a more delicate finish upon this than upon any other of the tales, though it does not follow its original quite so closely as some of the others.

But perhaps the tale with most of depth and beauty of its Own, though less perfect a reflection of the sort of magic and marvel pertaining to the childish legends of early life, is the story of the modern Jack the Giant Killer. As we have said before,. there is no attempt to give a dry prosaic interpretation of the heroic feats of that remarkable adventurer. On the contrary, the story is an attempt to surround as far as possible the really heroic feats of our own day with something of the halo and mystery of the childish fairy tale. The difficulty in this case is that the old Jack the Giant Killer's feats are so solid and British in their humorous. materiality, that a bright and mystic atmosphere is a little alien to their nature. Bat our author rises to the occasion. She avails herself of every touch of poetry in the old legend, and yet has a broad and solid humour, ready to interpret the great crown- ing feat of the celebrated "hasty pudding," too. here is a touch of the former kind. " Jack " is it young clergyman of the active and indefatigable, not of the speculative and brooding sort. Ile has already slain a giant of the pestilential order of the Cormoran bred], and is buckling himself to further work, when that falls upon Lim which the old legend relates as follows :—" About four months after the death of Cormoran, as Jack was taking a journey into Wales, lie passed through a wood, and as he was very weary, he sat down to rest by the side of a pleasant fountain, and there he fell into a deep sleep." Miss Thackeray has been even more com- plimentary to her hero than the original. Ile does not sit down to rest because he is weary, but by way of self-sacrifice to lighten the weariness of another. lie marries a lady whom he does not love out of compassion, and the pleasant fountain' is the fasci- nation not of his wife, but of his child. The interlude of repose is exquisitely given :— "Jack the Giant-Killer's sleep lasted exactly three years in Trevithic's Case, during which the time did not pass, it only ceased to be. Once old Mr. Bellingham paid thorn a visit, and once Mrs. Trevithic, senior,.

arrived with her cap boxes, and then everything again went on as usual, until Dulcio came to live with her father and mother in the old sun- baked, wasp-haunted place. Dulcio was a little portable almanack to mark the time for both of them, and the seasons and the hour of the day, something in this fashion :--Six months and Dulcio began to crawl across nd. o iseoltdh eoud tr utregre t arms; floor of . her re r f a mu fat's rh as estudy; gone nblyn e fori nonDths uictio w e c rwoas making sweet inarticulate chattering and warblings, which changed into words by degrees—wonderful words of love, and content, and re- cognition, after her tiny life-long silence. Dulcio's clock marked the time of day something in this fashion :—Dulcie's breakfast o'clock. DlliCiC'6 walk in the garden o'clock. Dulcie's dinner o'clock. Dulcie's bedtime o'clock, &c. All the tenderness of Jack's heart was Dalcle's. Her little fat fingers would come tapping and scratching at his study door long before she could wall:. She was not in the least afraid of him, as her mother was sometimes. She did not care for his sad moods, or sympathize with his ambitions, or understand the pangs and pains he suffered, the regrets and wounded vanities and aspirations. Was time passing, was he wasting his youth and strength in that forlorn and stagnant Lincolnshire fen? What was it to bar? Little Dulcie thought that when he crossed his legs and danced her on his foot, her papa was fulfilling all the highest duties of life; and when she let hint kiss her soft cheek, it did not occur to her that every wish of his heart was not gratified. Hard-hearted, unsympathetic, trustful, and appealing little comforter and companion ! Whatever it might he to Anne, not even Lady Kidderminster's society soothed and comforted Jack as Dulcie's did."

But Jack does wake up, and rushes to the destruction of the wicked two-headed giant Blunderbore, who feeds on men's hearts, eating them "with pepper and vinegar,"—the cruel and hungry monster who rules in so many of our workhouses, and keeps his prisoners moaning in dungeons worse than those of the original Blunderbore till the whole air is full of their groans. Is not the ghastly effect of Blunderbore's castle reproduced with even greater force and mysterious effect, in the following description of one of Jack's first nights in his chaplain's room in the workhouse ?— "Poor Trevithic felt something in Jack's position when the gates were closed for the night, and he found himself shut in with his miserable companions. He could from his room hear the bolts and the ! bars and the grinding of the lock, and immediately a longing would !

seize him to get out. To-night, after pacing up and down, he at last ! took up his hat and a light in his hand, and opened his door and walked ' downstairs to assure himself of his liberty and get rid of this oppressive feeling of confinement. He passed the master's door and heard his snores, and then he came to the lower door opening into the inner court. The keys wore in it—it was only locked on the inside. As Jack came into the courtyard he gave a groat breath of relief : the stars wore shining thickly overhead, very still, very bright; the place seemed less God-forgotten than when he was up there in his bedroom ; the fresh night air blew in his face and extinguished his light. He did not care, be put it down in a corner by the door, and went on into the middle of the yard, and looked all round about him. Hero and there from 80L110 of the windows a faint light was burning and painting the bars in gigantic shadows upon the walls ; and st the end of the court, from what seemed like a grating to a cellar, some dim rays were streaming upward. Trevithic was surprised to see a light in such a place, and ho walked up to see, and then he turned quickly away, and if like Uncle Toby he swore a great oath at the horrible sight he saw, it was but an expression of honest pity and most Christian charity. The grating was a double grating, and looked into two cellars which were used as casual wards when the regular ward was full. The sight Trevithic saw is not one that I can describe hero. People have read of such things as they are and were only a little while ago when the Pall Mall Gazette first published that terrible account which set people talking and asking whether such things should be and could be still. Old Davy had told him a great many sad and horrible things, but they were not so sad or so horrible as the truth as Jack now saw it. Truth, naked, alas! covered with dirt and vermin, ehuddering with cold, moaning with disease, and heaped and tossed in miserable uneasy sleep at the bottom of her foul well. Every now and then a voice broke the darkness, or a cough or a moan reached him from the sleepers above. Jack did not improve his night's rest by his midnight wandering."

But we might go on extracting effects f ull of the marvels of action, of the mirage of fancy, and of the true light of imagination., till we had extracted half the book. The only tale that seems to us a failure is that called Little Red Riding Hood, where the authoress has spoiled the whole drift of the story by converting the wolf, who devours neither the grandmother nor the child. This is a spasm of tenderness of heart which is untrue to the imaginative burden of the tale, and is grievous to the reader. The story after the manner of Hans Christ Mn Andersen called " A Young Prince" which 'eoncludes the book is an exquisite piece of fantastic conception. The publishers have lavished all their skill on the externals of the volume, which is at once fanciful and simple. It is adorned with symbols of the six tales, a chrysalis, in its cocoon of silk, typifying the sleeping Beauty, the famous slipper, Cinderella, a rose grasped by a bear's paw, the loves of Beauty and the Beast, the little hood, Red Riding Hood, the sword of sharpness representing the irresistible

Jack, and a crown the Young Prince. one of Miss Thackeray's literary productions, all slight, but all possessed of a magic of which Bo other writer knows the secret, have been so novel, if any as per- fect after their kind, as this. With the magic there is so much of human nature too. What stepmother was ever so repulsive and yet so natural as Cinderella's, with her "long, soft, irritating kiss" ?