birth of Christ to the discovery of America,” and _To Be or Not to Be_, the last of his novels, in which he sought to “reconcile Nature and the Bible.” We are told of his vexation when a statue was put up in Copenhagen, representing him as surrounded by a group of children. “Not one of the sculptors,” he declared, “seems to know that I never _could_ tell tales whenever anyone is sitting behind me, or close up to me, still less when I have children in my lap, or on my back, or young Copenhageners leaning right against me. To call me the children’s poet is a mere figure of speech. My aim has always been to be the poet of older people of all sorts: children alone cannot represent me.” It is possible, however, that Andersen rather enjoyed taking up a grumpy pose in regard to his stories for children. In any case he continued to publish fresh series of them until 1872, three years before his death. He also enjoyed the enthusiastic reception their popularity brought him during his frequent travels in most of the countries of Europe between England and Turkey. Nor did he object to turning himself into a story-teller at a children’s party. There is a description in one of Henry James’s books of such a party at Rome, at which Hans Andersen read “The Ugly Duckling” and Browning “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” followed by “a grand march through the spacious Barberini apartment, with [W. W.] Story doing his best on a flute in default of bagpipes.” Nor does Andersen seem to have thought too disrespectfully of his fairy-tales when he wrote “The Cripple.”