magnificent nursery monster, with his blood-stained
closet, where his group of former wives
all stood up with their heads cut off—this
horrible old Blue Beard, we rejoice to say, is
not of English origin; and we are only too
sorry that he should ever have become so
tragically popular among our infant minds.
"Little Red Riding Hood," another most
popular and delightful tale, from the excitement
and the tearful pity it causes, but nevertheless
one of the most shocking and cruel
of all tales—this also is derived from the
French. Shall we ever forget our childhood's
impressions on first hearing it related by an
old nurse—especially that final part where the
Wolf having eaten Red Riding–hood's poor
old sick grandmama, and got into her bed
dressed in her night-gown and cap, asks the
little girl to undress herself and get into bed
with her, as she is so cold. We think even now
we see and hear our old nurse imitating the
hypocritical Wolf, in the dreadful dialogue
of ''What great eyes you've got, grand'ma!"
"The better to see you, my dear." " What a
great nose you've got, grand'ma!" " The
better to smell you, my dear." (Is not this
truly dreadful to a listening child!) "What
a large mouth and great sharp teeth you've
got, grand'ma!" "The better to eat you up!"
—and Little Red Riding-hood is accordingly
torn to pieces, and devoured, which is usually
represented by a sudden rush towards the
little trembling listener. Will any mother in
the world, who once brings her mind to think
of it, say that such stories and pictures are fit
for children? Will she not at once see that
they are among the very worst images,
emotions, and influences that could possibly
be communicated to an infant mind? But we
have no thought of being unjust or ungrateful
to the French,—for the beautiful story of
"Cinderella" belongs to them; and so, we
believe, does the delightfully romantic tale of
"Puss in Boots" (Le Chat Botté). Beranger
has more recently given us a portrait of the
celebrated Marquis de Carabas, of a very
picturesque and amusing kind. The pretty
story of the "White Cat" also belongs
originally to France. Some of these stories
appear to be of Norman origin.

We have not spared our own nursery
literature; and though we admit that Germany
is greatly in advance of us in respect of its
tales for children (those, we mean, which are
written by the best authors of this class), we
have something to add from the evil stock
they possess. We will conclude our list,
which too truly may be entitled "horrid
deeds for infant minds," with a few selections
from the Undertundfünfzig moralische
Erzählungen für kleine Kinder, von Franz Hoffman.

This Franz Hoffman, besides his story of
"Loango," which is full of the most atrocious
butcheries, and other horrors in slave-ships
and among tigers (with prints to match); and
his story of the "Evil Spirit," in which a King
murders the father of his wife, and makes a
drinking cup of his skull, out of which he
compels his wife to drink; besides these more
than bewitched, these demoniacal stories, he
has composed the above-mentioned "Hundred-and-fifty
moral Tales for little Children." With
very few exceptions, one principle pervades
them all. We have heard of a certain traveller
who inquired of the king of a savage
tribe as to his penal code. His black majesty
calmly replied: "Our code is perfect. Our
least punishment is death." The suggestion
of gradations of torture was sufficiently obvious.
So of this author's code of morals, in
writing stories for the good of children, as he
pretends, and the correction or prevention of
their disobedience. We should prefer death,
as the lesser punishment, instead of many of
the shocking mutilations he depicts, as the
consequence of little acts of wilfulness in
children. A boy has been told not to swing
so high; he forgets the injunction, and has
a fall, which fractures his leg. A little girl,
named Meta, plays with scissors, after being
warned—and jobs out one eye. But the
author, not content with this, follows up poor
Meta, for putting pins in her mouth. She
happens to have some in her mouth, when her
aunt, whom she loves, suddenly arrives, and
in joy of the moment, running to embrace
her, little Meta falls—pins stick in her throat
—she suffers tortures, and then dies. A little
boy gets upon a great horse—the horse runs
away with him—the little fellow is thrown—
breaks his arm, and the author takes care to
inform his young friends, that the broken
arm caused "frightful pain." Another boy
gets up a tree after a hawk's nest. As a salutary
warning, the hawk tears out one of his eyes,
and we are assured that the boy "remained
a hideous object all his life." As to what the
King of the savages called his "least" punishment
—namely, death—there is abundance of
it in this book; but in most cases it is attended
or preceded by torture; bites of adders, and
apes, tearing of limbs by dogs, shots from
guns, and lacerations from fox-traps, tumbles
headlong from high towers, drownings, pursuits
by lions, &c., most impressively illustrated
by prints and vignettes. We hence discover
that the "morality " of these tales is that of
vengeance, and its code one of the most cruel
for the most common of children's offences.

In educational books—education of children
by means of books of a direct and practical
kind—we are supplied to overflowing. More
than enough have we of little primers of all
the arts and sciences, and geographies, and
histories, and the useful knowledges; but, of
books well suited to the earliest and best
feelings, and the purest moral principles, as
indirectly, but no less profoundly, instilled
through the heart and the imagination—oh!
how few, in comparison with the masses of
trash, or of sanguinary and otherwise unwholesome
excitement! At the top of the best of
this class of books we should place the
children's stories of Hans Christian Andersen;