And have we not in the heroine of these pages--Ellen Terry--the very embodiment of Fancy,--the true Princess of our Palace, one of the Queens of our little stage world? Other great artists have delighted us with the perfection of their impersonations, but there is in the method or inspiration of Ellen Terry something so ethereal that in many of her characters she stands alone. If the drama is indeed the Cinderella of the arts, then Ellen Terry must have been touched by the magic wand of a Fairy Godmother so that she might dazzle the Prince's ballroom with her beauty, radiance, and ever fragrant sweetness, and win the admiration of his guests. But those who thoughtlessly and even contemptuously call the drama "Cinderella" probably do not know the origin of the familiar fairy-tale--how the little kitchen maid is Ushas, the Dawn Maiden of the Aryans, and the Aurora of the Greeks; and how the Prince is the Sun, ever seeking to make the Dawn his bride; and how the envious stepmother and sisters are the Clouds and the Night, which vainly strive to keep the Sun and the Dawn apart. It is pleasant to think of Cinderella as the Dawn Maiden. Poor little lady! She has suffered considerably in her transplantation to English soil. To me the magic word "Fancy" has ever been associated with the pure art of Ellen Terry, and whenever I see her on the stage the lines of John Keats comes rippling through my mind:-- "Oh! sweet Fancy! let her loose; Everything is spoilt by use; Where's the cheek that doth not fade, Too much gazed at? Where's the maid Whose lip mature is ever new? Where the eye, however blue, Doth not weary? Where's the face One would meet in every place? Where's the voice, however soft, One would hear so very oft? At a touch sweet pleasure melteth Like to bubbles when rain pelteth. Let, then, winged Fancy find Thee a mistress to her mind; Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter Ere the god of Torment taught her How to frown and how to chide; With a waist and with a side White as Hebe's, when her zone Slipt its golden clasp, and down Fell her kirtle to her feet, While she held the goblet sweet, And Jove grew languid. Break the mesh Of the Fancy's silken leash; Quickly break her prison string, And such joys as these she'll bring-- Let the winged Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home."