od wizards
and evil sorcerers, whose powers are unlimited for weal and for woe; by
mermen and mermaids, flying horses, talking animals, and reasoning
elephants; by magic rings and their slaves, and by talismanic couches
which rival the carpet of Solomon. Hence, as one remarks, these Fairy
Tales have pleased and still continue to please almost all ages, all
ranks, and all different capacities.

Dr. Hawkesworth observes that these Fairy Tales find favor "because even
their machinery, wild and wonderful as it is, has its laws; and the
magicians and enchanters perform nothing but what was naturally to be
expected from such beings, after we had once granted them existence."
Mr. Heron "rather supposes the very contrary is the truth of the fact.
It is surely the strangeness, the unknown nature, the anomalous
character of the supernatural agents here employed, that makes them to
operate so powerfully on our hopes, fears, curiosities, sympathies, and
in short, on all the feelings of our hearts. We see men and women who
possess qualities to recommend them to our favor, subjected to the
influence of beings whose good or ill will, power or weakness, attention
or neglect, are regulated by motives and circumstances which we cannot
comprehend: and hence we naturally tremble for their fate with the same
anxious concern as we should for a friend wandering in a dark night
amidst torrents and precipices; or preparing to land on a strange
island, while he knew not whether he should be received on the shore by
cannibals waiting to tear him piecemeal and devour him, or by gentle
beings disposed to cherish him with fond hospitality."

Both writers have expressed themselves well; but meseems each has
secured, as often happens, a fragment of the truth and holds it to be
the whole Truth. Granted that such spiritual creatures as Jinns walk the
earth, we are pleased to find them so very human, as wise and as foolish
in word and deed as ourselves; similarly we admire in a landscape
natural forms like those of Staffa or the Palisades, which favor the
works of architecture. Again, supposing such preternaturalisms to be
around and amongst us, the wilder and more capricious they prove, the
more our attention is excited and our forecasts are baffled, to be set
right in the end. But this is not all. The grand source of pleasure in
fairy tales is the natural desire to learn more of the Wonderland which
is known to many as a word and nothing more, like Ce