nius in their composers becomes almost disgustingly apparent. Yet even
these masterpieces are masterpieces outside the main run of the novel.

[Sidenote: Caylus.]

Although, therefore, it would be very ungrateful not to acknowledge that
they do sometimes comply with the demands of that sensible tyrant
already mentioned, Sultan Hudgiadge, and "either amuse us or send us to
sleep," it must be admitted to be with some relief that one turns once
more, at about the five and twentieth volume, to something like the
fairy tale proper, if to a somewhat artificial and sophisticated form of
it. The Comte de Caylus was a scholar and a man of unusual brains;
Moncrif showed his mixture of Scotch and French blood in a corresponding
blend of quaintness and _esprit_; others, such as Voisenon in one sex
and Voltaire's pet Mlle. de Lubert in the other, whatever they were,
were at any rate not stupid.

[Sidenote: _Prince Courtebotte et Princesse Zibeline._]

To Anne Claude Philippe de Tubieres de Grimoard de Pestels de Levi,
Comte de Caylus, one owes particular thanks, at least when one comes to
the history of _Le Prince Courtebotte_, after wrestling with the
_macedoine_ of orientalities just discussed. It is not, of course,
Perrault, and it is not the best Madame D'Aulnoy. But you are never "put
out" by it; the hero, if rather a hero of Scott in the uniform propriety
of his conduct, or of Virgil in his success, is not like Waverley,
partly a simpleton, nor like Aeneas, wholly a cad. One likes the
Princess Zibeline both before she had a heart and afterwards; it can be
very agreeable to know a nice girl in both states. Perhaps it was not
quite cricket of the good fairy to play that trick[239] on the
ambassador of King Brandatimor, but it was washed out in fair fight; and
King Biby and his people of poodles are delightful. One wonders whether
Dickens, who was better read in this kind of literature than in most,
consciously or unconsciously borrowed from Caylus one of his not least
known touches.[240]

[Sidenote: _Rosanie._]

In the next of the Caylus stories there is an Idea--the capital seems
due because the Count was a man of Science, as science (perhaps better)
went then, and because one or his other tales (not the best) is actually
called _Le Palais des Idees_. The idea of _Rosanie_ is questionable,
though the carrying of it out is all right. Two fairies are fighting for
the (fairy) crown, and the test is who shall produce the most