d it because the
topic of kidnapping is one of which I think every collection of old
stories for children should take notice. In every book of this nature at
least one child's face must be stained with walnut juice. The story is
from the anonymous _Tales of the Hermitage, written for the Instruction
and Amusement of the Rising Generation_, 1778.

'The Rose's Breakfast,' also anonymous, is one of the many imitations of
Roscoe's _Butterfly's Ball_, about which the English reading public so
strangely lost its head in 1808. I never considered this a good story,
but now that I see it in its new type on the fair page of the present
volume, I am amazed to think I ever marked it for inclusion at all. It
seems to me poverty-stricken in fancy and very paltry in tone, the idea
of making beautiful flowers as mean-spirited as trumpery men and women
can be being wholly undesirable. It is too late to take it out,
especially as Mr. Bedford has drawn a very charming picture for it, but
I hope it will remain only as an object-lesson. Possibly its badness may
incite someone to write a better, and that would be my justification.
One interesting thing about it is the light it throws on the change of
fashion in garden flowers.

'The Three Cakes' is from an English translation of the great Monsieur
Berquin's _L'Ami des Enfants_--the most famous children's book in
France. Armand Berquin, who, in addition to his own stories, translated
_Sandford and Merton_ into French, was born in 1750 and died in 1791.
His _L'Ami des Enfants_, 1784, was in twelve small volumes, and it
covered most of the ground that a moralist for the young could cover in
those days. It is more like Priscilla Wakefield's _Juvenile Anecdotes_,
to which we are coming, on a larger scale, than anything I can name; but
no imitation, for M. Berquin came first. The idea of 'The Three Cakes'
was borrowed from M. Berquin by the Taylors for their _Original Poems_,
and Mary Howitt borrowed it too, also for rhyming purposes. French
writers when they have tried seriously to interest children, have been
very successful. I know of few better stories than that which in its
English translation is called _Little Robinson of Paris_; but it is a
long book in itself, and could not be condensed for our purposes. While
on the subject of French stories I may refer to 'The Bunch of Cherries,'
on page 242 of this volume, which is also French, and comes from a work
called in the English translation _T