The erudite Lessing styles a preface the his tory of a book. Now, though there can be no necessity for a preface in that sense of the word to the reprint of a work of mere whim, which has been nearly ten years before the public, yet a few words are requisite to prevent the present con doused and revised edition from being considered an abridgment. However compact may be the mode of printing adopted, the act of compressing into one volume the three in which the Fairy Legends origi nally appeared, involved to a certain extent the necessity of selection, perhaps the most difficult of all tasks judiciously to perform but the follow ing statement will show the system proceeded on.