et him be content with these, and, to vary "The
Brave Lord Willoughby" a little, "turning to the [_others_] a thousand
more," he must "slay," or at least criticise.

[Sidenote: The main _Cabinet des Fees_--more on Mme. d'Aulnoy.]

He who ventures on the complete _Cabinet des Fees_[226] in its more than
forty volumes, will provide himself with "cabin furniture" of nearly as
good pastime-quality, at least to my fancy (and yet I may claim to be
something of a Balzacian), as the slightly larger shelf-ful which
suggested itself to the fancy of Mr. Browning and provoked (_as_ "cabin
furniture") the indignation of Mr. Swinburne. But he had better look
over the contents before he takes it on board, or he will find himself,
if his travelling library is anything like as large as that of the
patriarch Photius, in danger of duplication. For the _Cabinet_ holds,
not merely the _Arabian Nights_ in the original translation of Galland,
but also Hamilton: as well, of course, as much of what we may call the
classical fairy matter proper on which we have already dwelt, and which
is known to all decent people. Still, he will find more of Mme. d'Aulnoy
than, unless he is already something of an expert, he already knows, and
perhaps he will not be entirely rejoiced at the amplification. She wrote
more or less regular heroic romances,[227] which are very inferior to
her fairy tales; and though these are not in the _Cabinet_, she
sometimes "mixes the kinds" rather disastrously in shorter pieces. The
framework of _Don Gabriel Ponce de Leon_, which enshrines the sad but
charming "Golden Sheep," and a variant of _Cendrillon_, is poor stuff;
and _Les Chevaliers Errans_ only shows what we knew before, that the
junction of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is not the time or
the place in which to find the loved one, if that loved one is
mediaeval. Still, this invaluable lady does generally reck and exemplify
her own immortal rede. "Il me semble," says Prince Marcassin to the
fairies, "a vous entendre, qu'il ne faut pas meme croire ce qu'on voit."
And they reply, "La regle n'est pas toujours generale; _mais il est
indubitable que l'on doit suspendre son jugement sur bien des choses, et
penser qu'il peut entrer quelque chose de Feerie dans ce que nous paroit
de plus certain_."

[Sidenote: Warning against disappointment.]

Alas! it was precisely this _quelque chose de Feerie_ which is wanting
in the majority of the minor fairy-tale writers. T