ther means of restoring peace in the Kingdom of
Astrachan, according to the enchanter himself, who modestly disclaims
being an enchanter, observing (again in a thoroughly Hamiltonian manner)
that as he lives on the top of a mountain close to the stars, they
probably tell him more than they tell other people. It is to collect
three spinning-wheels[302] which are scattered over the universe, but
of some of which we have heard earlier in the story.

One takes perhaps a certain pleasure in outraging the feelings of the
giant Moulineau, so hateful to Madame de Grammont, by beginning not
merely in the middle but at the end--an end, alas! due, if we believe
all the legends, to her own mistaken zeal when she became a _devote_--a
variety of person for whom her brother[303] certainly had small
affection, though he did not avenge himself on it in novel-form quite so
cruelly as did Marivaux later. It is, however, quite good to begin at
the beginning, though the verse-preface needs perhaps to be read with
eyes of understanding. Ostensibly, it is a sort of historical
condemnation of all the species of fiction which had been popular for
half a century or so, and is thus very much to our purpose, though, like
almost all the verses included in these tales, it does not show the
poetic power which the author of _Celle que j'adore_[304] undoubtedly
possessed. Mere tales, he says, have quite banished from court favour
romances, celebrated for their sentiments, from _Cyrus_ to _Zaide_,
_i.e._ from Mlle. de Scudery to Mme. de la Fayette. _Telemaque_ had no
better fate

On courut au Palais[305] le rendre,
Et l'on s'empressa d'y reprendre
Le Rameau d'Or et l'Oiseau Bleu.[306]

Then came the "Arabian tales," of which he speaks with a harshness, the
sincerity or design of which may be left to the reader; and then he
himself took up the running, of course obliged by request of
irresistible friends of the other sex. All which may or may not be read
with grains of salt--the salt-merchant of which everybody is at liberty
to choose for himself. Something may be said on the subject when we, in
all modesty, try to sum up Hamilton and the period.

But we must now give some more account of the "Four Facardins"
themselves. He of Trebizond is a tributary Prince of Schahriar's, much
after the fashion (it is to be feared here burlesqued) of the
innumerable second- and third-class heroes whom one meets in the
_Cyrus_. He begins, like Dinarzade