CINDERELLA.

Of all the narratives either of fact or of fiction there are none, I

will pledge my veracity, like the Fairy Tales of the Nursery, for

interesting all the best feelings of our nature, and for impressing an

imperishable and beautiful morality upon the heart. Was there ever, can

you imagine--was there ever a young woman hardened and heartless enough

to explore a forbidden closet, after she had perused the romantic

history of Bluebeard? Would she not fearfully fancy that every box, bag,

and bottle, jar, jelly, and jam-pot was grinning hideously at her in the

person of one of the departed Mrs. Bluebeards? In fact, there is not a

tale that does not convey some fine instruction, and, I would venture to

affirm, that does not produce more salutary influence on the youthful

mind, than all that Dr. Gregory and Mrs. Chapone, Dr. Fordyce and Miss

Hannah More, have ever, in their wearisome sagacity, advised.

Of the whole of these entertaining stories, perhaps the best, and

deservedly the most popular, is the History of Cinderella. How deeply do

we sympathise in her cinders! how do we admire her patient endurance and

uncomplaining gentleness,--her noble magnanimity in not arranging her

sisters’ _tresses amiss_--for presuming to be her _miss-tresses_--and

finally, how do we rejoice at her ultimate and unexpected prosperity!

Judge then of my horror, imagine my despair, when I read the New Monthly

Magazine, and saw this most exquisite story derived from the childish

folly of a strolling player! The account, which is in a paper entitled

“Drafts on La Fitte,” states, that the tale originated in an actual

occurrence about the year 1730 at Paris. It is to this effect:--An

actor, one Thevenard, saw a shoe, where shoes are frequently to be seen,

viz. at a cobbler’s stall, and, like a wise man, fell deeply in love

with it. He immediately took his stand by the stall all the rest of the

day--but nobody came for the shoe. Next morning “Ecce iterum Crispinus,”

he was with the cobbler again, still nobody came: however, to make a

short story of a long one, day after day the poor actor stood there,

till the proprietor of the shoe applied for it, in the person of a most

elegant young woman; when monsieur Thevenard took the opportunity of

telling her, he admired her foot so much he was anxious to gain her

hand; to this modest desire she kindly complied, and they were

accordingly married. Thus ends this pitiful account. He must have had an

inventive fancy, indeed, who could manufacture the sweet story of

Cinderella out of such meagre materials--it was making a mountain out of

a molehill! The gentle and interesting Cinderella dwindles down into a

girl, whose only apparent merit was her economy in having her shoe

patched--and the affable and affluent prince melts away into a French

actor. Were the prize of squeezing her foot into the little slipper only

to become the bride of an actor, I should imagine the ladies would not

have been quite so anxious to stand in her shoes!

Now, gentle reader, as I have told you what is _not_ the origin of my

story, it is but incumbent on me to tell you what _is_.--In the

thirteenth book of the “Various History” of Ælian is the real genuine

narrative from which Cinderella is derived--it is the twenty-third

anecdote: and the similarity of the two stories is so great, that, I

trust, a simple repetition of it will prove beyond a doubt the

antiquity, as well as the rank, of my favourite Cinderella. Of all the

Egyptians, says the historian, Rhodope was reckoned the most

beautiful;--to her, when she was bathing, Fortune, ever fond of sudden

and unexpected catastrophes, did a kindness more merited by her beauty

than her prudence. One day, when she was bathing, she judiciously left

her shoes on the bank of the stream, and an eagle (naturally mistaking

it for a sheep or a little child) pounced down upon one of them, and

flew off with it. Flying with it directly over Memphis, where king

Psammeticus[501] was dispensing justice, the eagle dropped the shoe in

the king’s lap. Of course the king was struck with it, and admiring the

beauty of the shoe and the skill and proportion of the fabrication, he

sent through all the kingdom in search of a foot that would fit it; and

having found it attached to the person of Rhodope, he immediately

married her.

P.S.--I have given my authority, chapter and verse, for my story; but

still farther to substantiate it, I am willing to lay both my name and

address before the reader.