_You like the things I used to like, The things I'm fond of still, The sound of fairy wands that strike Men into beasts at will;_ _The cruel stepmother, the fair Stepdaughter, kind and leal, The bull and bear so debonair, The trenchant fairy steel._ _You love the world where brute and fish Converse with man and bird, Where dungeons open at a wish, And seas dry at a word._ _That merry world to-day we leave, We list an ower-true tale, Of hearts that sore for Charlie grieve, When handsome princes fail,_ _Of gallant races overthrown, Of dungeons ill to climb, There's no such tale of trouble known, In all the fairy time._ _There Montezuma still were king, There Charles would wear the crown, And there the Highlanders would ding The Hanoverian down:_ _In Fairyland the Rightful Cause Is never long a-winning, In Fairyland the fairy laws Are prompt to punish sinning:_ _For Fairyland's the land of joy, And this the world of pain, So back to Fairyland, my boy, We'll journey once again!_ INTRODUCTION IT is not without diffidence that the editor offers _The True Story Book_ to children. We have now given them three fairy books, and their very kind and flattering letters to the editor prove, not only that they like the three fairy books, but that they clamour for more. What disappointment, then, to receive a volume full of adventures which actually happened to real people! There is not a dragon in the collection, nor even a giant; witches, here, play no part, and almost all the characters are grown up. On the other hand, if we have no fairies, we have princes in plenty, and a sweeter young prince than Tearlach (as far as this part of his story goes) the editor flatters himself that you shall nowhere find, not in Grimm, or Dasent, or Perrault. Still, it cannot be denied that true stories are not so good as fairy tales. They do not always end happily, and, what is worse, they do remind a young student of lessons and schoolrooms. A child may fear that he is being taught under a specious pretence of diversion, and that learning is being thrust on him under the disguise of entertainment. Prince Charlie and Cortes may be asked about in examinations, whereas no examiner has hitherto set questions on 'Blue Beard,' or 'Heart of Ice,' or 'The Red Etin of Ireland.' There is, to be honest, no way of getting over this difficulty. But the editor vows that he does not mean to teach anybody, and he has tried to mix the stories up so much that no clear and consecutive view of history can possibly be obtained from them; moreover, when history does come in, it is not the kind of history