_Jeune et Belle_ might almost be placed amongst the pastoral romances
of D'Urfey and George de Montemayor. It is full of Watteau-like
tableaux, many of them suggested, probably, to the writer as to the
painter by the Fêtes Champêtre so much in vogue during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries at the Court of Versailles.
The sudden and unexpected introduction of Zephyr at the very close of
the story as the Deus ex machinâ, is quite in accordance with the taste
of the period, though much out of place in a fairy tale. It is not,
however, for me to find fault with it, as it afforded me a hint for a
character which enabled Mr. Robson to display the versatility of his
genius in the last of that long series of extravaganzas I have already
alluded to.
In the "Collection" above mentioned, this tale was substituted for
Madame d'Aulnoy's _Serpentin Vert_, the _dénouement_ of which is also
produced by the incongruous introduction of mythological personages.