ur would not be bad if it were cut a great deal
shorter.

It is followed by a series of short tales, beginning with _The Little
Green Frog_, and not of the first class, which in turn are succeeded by
two (or, as the latter is in two parts, three) longer stories, sometimes
attributed to Caylus--_Le Loup Galeux_ and _Bellinette et Belline_. The
_Soirees Bretonnes_ themselves, though apparently the earliest, are not
the happiest of Gueulette's _pastiches_; the speaking names[244]
especially are irritating. A certain Madame de Lintot, who does not seem
to have had anything to do with the hero of Pope's famous "Ride with a
Bookseller," is what may be called "neutral," with _Timandre et
Bleuette_ and others; nor does a fresh instalment of Moncrif's efforts
show the historian of cats at his best. But in vol. xxxiii. Mlle. de
Lubert, glanced at before, raises the standard. She should have cut her
tales down; it is the mischief of these later things that they extend
too much. But _Lionnette et Coquerico_ is good; _Le Prince Glace et la
Princesse Etincelante_ is not bad; and _La Princesse Camion_ attracts,
by dint of extravagance in the literal sense. Fairy trials had gone far;
but the necessity of either marrying a beautiful sort of mermaid or else
of _flaying_ her, and the subsequent trial, not of flaying, but braying
her in a mortar as a shrimp, show at least a lively fancy. Nor is the
anonymous _Nourjahad_--an extremely moral but not dull tale, which
follows--at all contemptible.

The French Bar, inexhaustible in such things, gave another tale-teller
in one Pajon, who, besides the obligatory _polissonneries_, not included
in the _Cabinet_, composed not a few harmless things of some merit. The
first, _Eritzine et Paretin_, is perhaps the best. Nor is the complement
of vol. xxxiv., the _Bibliotheque des Fees et des Genies_ (the title of
which was that of a larger collection, containing much the same matter
as the _Cabinet_, and probably in Johnson's mind when he jotted down
_Prince Titi_), quite barren. _La Princesse Minon-Minette et le Prince
Souci_, _Apranor et Bellanire_, _Grisdelin et Charmante_, are none of
them unreadable. The next volume, too, is better as a whole than any we
have had for a long time. Mme. Fagnan's _Minet Bleu et Louvette_
contains, in its fifteen pages, a good situation by no means
ill-treated. The pair are under the same spell--that of being ugly and
witty for part of the week, handsome, stupid, and d