London, Jan. 20. 1851.
_Early Culture of the Imagination_, (Vol. iii., p. 38.).--The interesting
article to which MR. GATTY refers will be found in the _Quarterly Review_,
No. XLI. Sir Walter Scott, in a letter addressed to Edgar Taylor, Esq. (the
translator of _German Fairy Tales and Popular Stories by M.M. Grimm_),
dated Edinburgh, 16th Jan. 1823, says--
"There is also a sort of wild fairy interest in them [the _Tales_]
which makes me think them fully better adapted to awaken the
imagination and soften the heart of childhood, than the good-boy
stories which have been in later years composed for them. In the latter
case, their minds are, as it were, put into the stocks, like their feet
at the dancing-school, and the moral always consists in good moral
conduct being crowned with temporal success. Truth is, I would not give
one tear shed over _Little Red Riding-Hood_ for all the benefit to be
derived from a hundred Histories of Jemmy Goodchild.... In a word, I
think the selfish tendencies will be soon enough acquired in this
arithmetical age; and that, to make the higher class of character, our
wild fictions--like our own simple music--will have more effect in
awakening the fancy and elevating the disposition, than the colder and
more elaborate compositions of modern authors and composers."