BURLESQUES AND FATRY TALES.* TliKRK would seem to _lu: quite ;i revival in I'airy literature. Within a very recent period many pretentious volumes have been published dealing with goblin and cllin lore—some treatises, almost scientific in their hard matter-of-fact, dry, grave, and serious analysis of the popular stories, pointing out the origin of them, detesting resemblances between them and Persian myths or Saga's songs, explaining andexploding with a vandalism that spares no illusions, however cherished or time-sanctified—others simply relating, as if with faith and credence, the legends whoso recital Iki.s for many an ago brightened tlio hearthsides and brought pleasure! not unmixed with ill-mastered dread to the hearts of successive generations of listeners. Into these latter, however, the spirit of modern utilitarianism—if it maybe styled so—has in a manner infused itself ; and in the cleft hands of the later reciter they bike a new character, hiding a moral or a sting under their seeming innocent guile:lessne$s. Poor fairy and sprite, they have been in these latter days _remorselessly hauled into politics and chained to the wheel of its iron car. Few things now, indeed, are altogether what they seem ; something lurks under all the outward appearances, and, perhaps, one should not wonder that even the children's fairy tale should undergo the new influence and change like all things else. Just as, taught by sad necessity, we have, learned to search in almost everything for its cunningly hidden undermeaning or point, so one in reading the simplest composition is harassed at every stage by the oppressive self-suggested questions—Is that anything new 1 Is there any political reference in it? Is there any social grievance hinted at here ? Mr. Oscar Wilde with his "Happy Prince" and his "Remarkable Rocket broke up new ground, and others have not been slow to follow him. Oftener than not, it is the case that the first in the field has the greatest success, and so it seems to be here. Mr. Frank Hudson is charming, bright, racy, humorous, and winning, but he lacks in some of his work that lightness of touch, iiiriwss, indelinable grace, and delicate fancy which are never wanting in Mr. Wilde. He has, though, qualities of his own, which in part, though not altogether, make up for the deficiency. One thing, he is less subtle ; his meaning is more easily apprehended. Yet, perhaps, by reason of this very circumstance lie _losers somewhat of his end ; his stories lie intends for "little people and big," and precisely as they are more appropriate for childish reading through the simplicity nf the substance nnd the stvle of the narration, so are thev less suitable for elders, while on the other hand those which best lend themselves to "reading between the lines," which have a weightier purpose as it were, in the same degree are less effective in interesting and delighting the young. In most of Oscar Wilde's fanciful and highly poetical work of the kind, it might bo said in all, such is his cunning and skill that the pleasure and the profit are so interlaced and combined that each story is equally good in either. But to say that Mr. Hudson falls short of him is not, after all, great censure. Indeed, no one could read these little stories and preserve an unfriendly critical attitude towards them. They are like good wine, they bear their own commendation with them and argument as to the excellence of the vintage is undreamt of. The first is, perhaps, the least meritorious performance ; vet it is highly ingenious in its conception, giving, as it dons, a novel and amusing explanation of the origin of that famous institution, the Plum Pudding. Tim Blink, the tinker, after a too long sojourn at the "Two Tumblers," staggers homeward in an Euclidian-figured course, laden with Christmas gooel things ; over his shoulder, in a canvas bag, whoso two enrls his hands are occupied in catching-, he carries flour, sugar, raisins and currants, and eggs, under his arm a gammon of bacon, while from each side pocket protrudes the neck of a bottle of fruity old port and of brandy. Poor Tim, deceived by treacherous and frolicsome "Jack Frost," takes a short cut across the frozen river, the ice gives way, and in another second he was the deepest thinker—no Hnher—you ever heard of. When he scrambles out bacon and wine arc gone, and the sack is wet through and through, so in despair he plies himself with the brandy, and becomes so maudlin that, " to keep _th-?. nick warm,'' he twin's some, into it. At home at last, he is so treated by good Mrs. Blink that he flings away from him the cause of his misfortunes, the unfortunate sack, and where does it fall but into a pot then boiling on a fire. Midnight arrives, and with it fairies and Father Christmas, who in kindness waves over the pot an enchanting wand, joining its contents into a circular mass. And so when miserable Tim awakes in the morning he is conscious of a peculiar, novel, delicious odour, he rushes to the fire, and finds to his delight—the first Plum Pudding. In the second story, "The Fairy of Fashion," there are hits that call to mind some of Thackeray's Christinas stories. (_Jhristalina, the pearl of the fairy court ladies, has one wish ungratilied—she would dress like a mortal fashionable beauty. How she. _succeeids in her vain desire;, and the ruin it entails on her, is shown in the progress of tho tale, which, by the way, contains more puns than any other. Here is an extract that, so far as an extract can, gives a pretty just specimen of the whole :—

All male fairyland was, of course, in love willi Christalinn, though slw <Iiiln't oarea little bit for any nf them_. Hut the queerest tiling of all was that t.h« linrriil, ugly Old Frog of lilack Pool was terribly smitten. Of course lie ought lo liavo. known lie could never mate with a fairy, nnd, above all, with Cluistaliiia, because she wouldn't have him, and told him so on several occasions. "You nasty, slimy thing," she remarked at their last interview, "why, yon haven't pot a heart." Which was strictly true. Yet, heartless as he was, lie loved her madly. There are inany human

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" Besides," she continued, " you are mortal—that is, you are visible to mortal eyes, except when you dive beneath your dirty Black Pool, and even then you can't disappear for long. Why, yon can't even fly like me." Ami nway she flew like anything, _leaving the Frog croaking; with _ih-spair. " So," he muttered, " I'm not flv enough for her. ain't I ?'' Here Ins MtAnpcd up a large Bluebottle that hail lit on a leaf beside him.