Sir James Barrie, of course, gives us much the same kind of hero in Peter Pan,' but though the charm is undoubtedly there, Peter, being more of a sprite than a human boy, does not appeal to us in quite the same human way as Tyltyl.

From Mrs. Peabody's Piper' we glean many exquisite thoughts about children. Answering his own query, "What's that creature that they call a child?" he says: "They are the brightest miracle I know. Wherever I Wherever I go, I search the eyes of men

to find such clearness-and it is not there."

All

his indignation is kept for the wrongs done to these beautiful ones; he is wrathful for their "trodden wings."

Wings! This is, above all, the hall-mark of the fairy tale. It is always occupied with birds, and here Mr. Maeterlinck, Sir J. Barrie, and M. Rostand are all at one in their use of and idealisation of birds. Heroines are served by them, carried aloft by them, as Wendy was, or changed into them like the enchanted princess in the German tale, who was turned into a nightingale, or they are employed, as by M. Rostand, to represent human characters, or, as by Mr. Maeterlinck, to signify certain qualities-"happiness," for instance-just as in the old German fairy tale, the bird of Paradise, which appeared in the garden, turned out to be the winged imagination-phantasy! But, through it all the dominant idea is Wings!' Wings as a means of elevation from earth, of escape to another world; Wings wherewith to elude pursuit, the pursuit of the materialism which can run its quarry to earth, but cannot pursue it in the heavens. Thus

the bird, like the child, is used as a symbol of the heavenly: ubi aves ibi angeli. It is in this respect a symbol of the soul.

In some of the fairy tales, notably in that of The Mermaid' and in 'Undine,' as rendered by Dr. Courtney, this symbolism is abandoned for a direct narrative of the search for the attainment of a human soul. The vital teaching of Undine' is that a soul can only be acquired by love-that lore begets the soul. The thought is also brought out that love can only be retained by love, and emphasises the desperate condition of those who, like Huldbrand, seek to recapture a love they have taken so little trouble to cherish. There is the old inexorableness of the fairy tale about it too-the inevitable price to be paid for evil-doing. Only by death was Huldbrand rewarded with the love which he had discovered was more to him than life.

From this beautiful story, as from a study of the Blue Bird,' and the Piper,' and the fairy tales, ancient or modern, already referred to, it will be seen that in going back to this species of literature modern writers have sought distraction from a world that is pressing too heavily upon us all, from a materialism that offers us no help, from a decadence that threatens with its corruption to poison the very springs of inspiration.

Fatigued with so-called realism, they have caught at the wings of the fairy tale to flee away and be mentally and spiritually at rest. They have seen its possibilities as a medium for conveying many beautiful truths, for the expression of other-worldliness, and for the illustration of all those qualities of the

child-spirit that have been the sources of finest inspiration to all great authors in the past. The great Victorians invoked the child-spirit to save the child; we have invoked it to save ourselves. And here may I be allowed to observe that possibly no more opportune or striking confirmation of all that I have been urging in this paper--as to the necessity of the child-spirit in connection with the basis of all true beauty and culture-could have been afforded than that offered in the address recently presented by English men of letters, many of them distinguished members of this Society, to their Russian colleagues, in which the following passage occurs:

"It is at a time like this, when the material civilisation of Europe seems to have betrayed us and shown the lie at its heart, that we realise that the poets and prophets are right, and that we must, like them and like your great writers, once more see life with the simplicity of the barbarian or the child, if we are to regain our peace and freedom and build up a better civilisation on the ruins of this that is crumbling"-(Times' report, December 23rd, 1914).

In the present troublous times we need all our courage, and there is, as Mr. Maeterlinck has shown us, a courage belonging to the child-heart which no mere material learning or scientific attainment can impart. We learn the same lesson from Mr. Watts' great picture. Everything mortal shrinks before the on-coming of Death, but it is the piteously fragile figure of innocent love that boldly faces and strives to push away the shrouded figure. We go to the child, as Wordsworth did, for its redolence of the

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airs of Paradise, for instruction and guidance in the way it has so recently come, for guidance to the realm of the Great Beyond.

Looking back at the course of our literary history during the past five hundred years, we see how continuously the child-spirit has pervaded it, working in it now as a secret leaven, lifting it to heights of joyful lyrical impulse-now as a hidden fire, shining from its darkest pages, glorifying it when it needed light, and creating a glow even during its most chilled and frosty period. We have likewise seen some of the greatest minds of the centuries appealing to it for guidance as we are appealing to it to-day, till we are brought to appreciate how many times in our long, literary history it has come true which was spoken by the ancient prophet: "And a little child shall lead them.”

WHY DOES SHAKESPEARE'S 'HAMLET'

DIFFER FROM THE

AMLETH' STORY

OF BELLEFOREST?

BY MRS. CHARLOTTE CARMICHAEL STOPES, HON. F.R.S.L.

[Read February 24th, 1915.]

In order fully to understand Shakespeare's work, it is necessary to study his originals, and follow his method of treating them. It is through noting the differences between what he finds and what he gives us, that we realise his genius. The delicate touches. of his art in creating, through the changes he makes in his materials, "something new and strange," is nowhere more fully illustrated than in the tragedy of Hamlet.'

The story of Hamlet is built upon various old Irish and Icelandic Sagas. Dr. Gilbert Murray, in his "Shakespeare Lecture" last year at the British Academy, dealt with this, its place in folk-lore, and its allegorical or inner meaning. But he did not connect his theory at all with Shakespeare's play.

The Danish Saxo Grammaticus, some time after 1177, compiled from various sources a history of the early kings of Denmark. The story of Hamlet' is preserved at the end of his third book and the beginning of the fourth, as part of the story of Rorique. The third book ends with what should have been the dramatic conclusion of any play, and

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