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Danish, Dresden, and Leipzig Adventurer. The most celebrated achievement of this literature of Robinsonades, which was continued down into the age of Frederick the Great, was a four-volume story, which appeared between 1731 and 1743, and was called "The Island of Felsenburg," after the scene of the narrative. It was written by Johann Gottfried Schnabel, courtagent and newswriter to Count Stolberg. His literary apparatus is on the whole the same as that employed in "Simplicissimus," but he gives still greater scope to ghostly and magical elements, he does not mind repeating himself, and he makes no attempt to introduce any higher thoughts into his fascinating narrative of changeful incidents.-SCHERER, WILHELM, 188386, A History of German Literature, tr. Conybeare, vol. 1, p. 392.

While he was not a great artist, he was a wonderful craftsman. That is to say, he studied his fellow-creatures from the point of view of their relations to society; he writes as a reformer with a direct practical end, with the end that was foremost in the minds of his generation, that of promoting civilization. Take his "Robinson Crusoe," for example; full as it is of fine things, as when Robinson sees with terror the print of a human print upon the sand, it is singularly devoid of any expression of the feeling of vast loneliness that would weigh down on the spirit of any such hero in a novel of the present day. The problem that lay before him, and which he accomplished, was how to make himself over from a worthless person into a peaceable, God-fearing citizen. The shadow of the municipal law and of the English Sunday seems to lie over the lonely island. The moral of the book, in short, is this: If a man in solitude, with a few scraps from a wreck and an occasional savage, dog, and cat to help him, can lead so civilized a life, what may we not expect of good people in England with abundance about them? This moral is what now makes the value of the book as a means of education for boys, that they may see, as Rousseau put it, that the stock of an ironmonger is better than that of a jeweller, and glass better than diamonds. PERRY, THOMAS SERGEANT, 1883, English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, p. 310.

No theory as to children's books would

be worth much attention which found itself obliged to exclude that memorable work. Although it submits in a certain measure to classification, it is almost sui generis; no book of its kind, approaching it in merit, has ever been written. In what, then, does its fascination consist? There is certainly nothing hermetic about it; it is the simplest and most studiously matter-of-fact narrative of events, comprehensible without the slightest effort, and having no meaning that is not apparent on the face of it. And yet children, and grown people also, read it again and again, and cannot find it uninteresting. I think the phenomenon may largely be due to the nature of the subject, which is really of primary and universal interest to mankind. It is the story of the struggle of a man with wild and hostile nature,in the larger sense an elementary theme, -his shifts, his failures, his perils, his fears, his hopes, his successes. The character of Robinson is so artfully generalized or universalized, and sympathy for him is so powerfully aroused and maintained, that the reader, especially the child reader, inevitably identifies himself with him, and feels his emotions and struggles as his own. The ingredient of suspense is never absent from the story, and the absence of any plot prevents us from perceiving its artificiality. It is, in fact, a type of the history of the human race, not on the higher plane, but on the physical one; the history of man's contest with and final victory over physical nature. The very simplicity and obviousness of the details give them grandeur and comprehensiveness: no part of man's character which his contact with nature can affect or develop is left untried in Robinson. He manifests in little all historical earthly experiences of the race; such is the scheme of the book; and its permanence in literature is due to the sobriety and veracity with which that scheme is carried out. To speak succinctly, it does for the body what the hermetic and cognate literature does for the soul; and for the healthy man, the body is not less important than the soul in its own place and degree. It is not the work of the Creator, but it is contingent upon creation.-HAWTHORNE, JULIAN, 1887, Confessions and Criticisms, p. 122.

When a boy I loved those books that

other boys love, and I love them still. I well remember a little scene which took place when I was a child of eight or nine. "Robinson Crusoe" held me in his golden thrall, and I was expected to go to church. I hid beneath a bed with "Robinson Crusoe," and was in due course discovered by an elder sister and a governess, who, on my refusing to come out, resorted to force. Then followed a struggle that was quite Homeric. The two ladies tugged as best they might, but I clung to "Crusoe" and the legs of the bed, and kicked till, perfectly exhausted, they took their departure in no very Christian frame of mind, leaving me panting, indeed, but triumphant.—HAGGARD, H. RIDER, 1887, Books which Have Influenced Me, p. 66.

When we read "Robinson Crusoe" we feel that the hero would not naturally have acted in any other way than he actually did. And it is this fact which gives its life to the book. Defoe might have kept his inventive powers in their place and never have gained his reputation for untrustworthiness, and still have given "Robinson Crusoe" to the world as perfect as it is now, no doubt, but we must look at facts as they are and not as we should wish them to be. And the fact is that this immortal story-teller was a man to whom the truth was a stranger. He was seldom straightforward. He was fertile in expedients to pass off falsehood for truth, and it is this gift of invention which, rightfully exercised in "Robinson Crusoe," made, when carried into actual practice in life, so untrustworthy a character as his. In spite of all his faults he was great enough to write for his time, and for all time, "Robinson OSCAR FAY, 1889, Dear Old Story-Tellers, pp. 176, 177. "Robinson Crusoe" has a place in literature as unassailable as "Gulliver's Travels" or as "Don Quixote."

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Had he not written "Robinson Crusoe," he would still have held a high place in English literature, because of the other romances that came from his teeming brain, and because of the political tracts, that made so deep and lasting an impression even in that age of famous political tracts. But "Robinson Crusoe" is to his other works like Aaron's serpent, or the "one master-passion in the breast," which

the poet has compared with it-it "swallows all the rest."-MCCARTHY, JUSTIN, 1890, A History of the Four Georges, vol. II, pp. 1, 2.

And if you should ever have any story of your own to tell, and want to tell it well, I advise you to take "Robinson Crusoe" for a model; if you ever want to make a good record of any adventures. of your own by sea, or by land, I advise you to take "Robinson Crusoe" for a model; and if you do, you will not waste words in painting sunsets, or in decorating storms and sea-waves; but, without your straining, and by the simple colorless truth of your language, the sunsets will show their glow, and the storms rise and roar, and the waves dash and die along the beach as they do in nature. -MITCHELL, DONALD G., 1890, English Lands Letters and Kings, From Elizabeth to Anne, p. 277.

It is one of those immortal stories which appeal equally to the interest and sympathy of any period and any civilised race. -FIELD, MRS. E. M., 1891, The Child and His Book, p. 230.

Defoe would hardly recognize "Robinson Crusoe" as "a picture of civilization," having innocently supposed it to be quite the reverse; and he would be as amazed as we are to learn from Mr. Frederic Harrison that his book contains "more psychology, more political economy, and more anthropology than are to be found in many elaborate treatises on these especial subjects," blighting words which I would not even venture to quote if I thought that any boy would chance to read them, and so have one of the pleasures of his young life destroyed.-REPPLIER, AGNES, 1891, A Plea for Humor, Points of View, p. 4.

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Defoe's narratives all aim at exhibiting the processes of memory, untouched by the shaping imagination. And unambitious though such an aim may be, it was perhaps a necessary exercise for the modern novel in its infancy. Robinson Crusoe typifies the spirit of the Anglo-Saxon race, and illustrates in epitome the part it has played in India and America. He keeps his house in order, stores the runlets of rum, and converts Friday, telling him that God is omnipotent, that he "could do everything for us, give everything to us, take everything

from us." Poor Friday believed in a Great Spirit, and held that "All things say O to him"-an unpractical view that receives no manner of notice from Crusoe, who nevertheless reports their conversations, and honestly admits that he was "run down to the last degree" by some of Friday's theological arguments. But the very deficiencies in the story of Crusoe, and the imagination of Defoe, only gave the writer fuller scope for the exhibition of his particular talent. On a blank canvas small splashes are striking, and Defoe forces the reader to take the deepest interest in the minutest affairs of the castaway. It is a testimony to the practical nature of childhood that the book is so widely regarded as the best boy's book in the world. When the story leaves the magic limits of the island, it must be said the interest flags; and at last, in the "Serious Reflections," subjoined by an afterthought, it positively stagnates. But the main piece of original narrative is a masterpiece, and marks a new era in the writing of prose fiction. -RALEIGH, WALTER, 1894, The English Novel, pp. 132, 133.

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Jean-Jacques pronounced a splendid eulogy upon the educational qualities of the work, preferring its author to Aristotle, Pliny and Buffon. He saw quite clearly how closely the author of "Robinson Crusoe" had adhered to life, and perceived the lofty teaching he had managed to extract from it. Rousseau raised to its proper position what had been regarded nothing more than a novel, when in reality it was a moral treatise. It was his testimony to its qualities that gave Daniel Defoe's work a place in the philosophical heritage of humanity. TEXTE, JOSEPH, 1895-99, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Cosmopolitan Spirit in Literature, tr. Matthews, pp. 127, 128.

Aha, old Crusoe! I see thee now in yonder case smiling out upon me as cheerily as thou didst smile those many years ago when to a little boy thou broughtest the message of Romance! And I do love thee still, and I shall always love thee, not only for thy benefaction in those ancient days, but also for the light and the cheer which thy genius brings to all ages and conditions of humanity.FIELD, EUGENE, 1895, The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac, p. 17.

It was an invention, a great, unexpected stroke of British genius, and it was immediately hailed as such by the rest of Europe. It was one of the first English books which was widely imitated on the Continent, and it gave direction and impetus to the new romantico-realistic conception of fiction all over the world.

In England, however, the bourgeois romances of Defoe long remained without influence and without prestige, widely read indeed, but almost furtively, as vulgar literature fit for the kitchen and the shop.-GoSSE, EDMUND, 1897, Short History of Modern English Literature, p. 227.

"Robinson Crusoe" has proved itself more than a story-book. At the beginning nobody thought it a mere book for children; and there is now something out of the way in that house where it is treated simply as a child's book. Its steady popularity, as great now as ever, is not easily explained by the critics. A boy who likes it need not, probably cannot, tell why he likes it. No, nor can the best critics, by counting the words or telling why the sentences are long or short, explain why the boy ought to like it. What is certain is this, that so many new editions of it are published every year that no librarian pretends to keep the account of them.-HALE, EDWARD EVERETT, 1897, Robinson Crusoe and Defoe, The Outlook, vol. 55, p. 1031.

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The first of my favorite authors of fiction is Daniel Defoe, and he comes to the front as naturally as if he saw a sail upon the horizon and was anxious to discover to what sort of craft it belonged. Defoe's prominence in my mind is based upon his ability to transmute a fictional narrative into a record of facts; things which might have been became, in his hands, things which actually were. But it is to the story itself that his supremacy as a fictional writer is confined; it does not extend to his personages. It is in the relation of a story, not in the delineation of character, that this great author excels. .. To reduce romance to realism without depriving the former of any of its charms was the example set by Defoe to the writers of English fiction. His characters, his situations, his incidents, his material, and his machinery, have all been surpassed, but

his story telling never. may sum up what I have to say about Defoe in the statement that it is the telling of his story and not the story itself which charms me and holds me to my allegiance. "Robinson Crusoe" is not the best work of English fiction, but it is, in my opinion, the best told story.-STOCKTON, FRANK R., 1897, My Favorite Novelist and His Best Book, Munsey's Magazine, vol. 17, pp. 351, 352, 353.

"Robinson Crusoe," first edition, 2 vols., 1719. Roxburghe (1812), £1, 4s. Sotheby's (1846), £4, 16s. (with "Serious Reflections;" 3 vols., 1719-20). Alfred Crampton, 1896 (3 vols.,) £75. Sir Cecile Domvile, 1897 (part i,) £45, 10s.

WHEATLEY, HENRY B., 1898, Prices of Books, p. 246.

Thus ends the authentic history of Alexander Selkirk. He left no children, but representatives of the family from which he sprang are still to be found in his native town. Mr. Davied Gillies, whose mother was a great-grandniece of Selkirk, has commemorated him in a statue which, since its unveiling by the Countess of Aberdeen in 1885, has made the leading feature of Largo for every visitor to the place. If you ask a native where any one lives, the position will almost certainly be indicated from a reference to "the statue." Nor is there any difficulty in identifying the statue, for the sculptor has dressed his Crusoe in the very garb with which necessity first and Defoe afterward adorned him. And Juan Two

Fernandez has its memorial, too. thousand feet above the sea-level, on the height which Selkirk called his "Lookout, a handsome tablet commemorates him in the following inscription:

In memory of Alexander Selkirk, mariner, a native of Largo, in the county of Fife, Scotland, who lived on this island in complete solitude for four years and four months. He was landed from the Cinque Ports galley, 96 tons, 18 guns, A. D. 1704, and was taken off in the Duke, privateer, 12th February, 1709. He died Lieutenant of H. M. S. Weymouth, A. D. 1723, aged This tablet is erected near Selkirk's lookout, by Commodore Powell and the officers of H. M. S Topaze, A. D. 1868.

47.

Thus while Defoe himself remains

undistinguished by statue or mark of public favor of any kind, the humble hero whose fame he created is memorialized in two widely separated corners of the globe. -HADDEN, J. CUTHBERT, 1899, The Making of "Robinson Crusoe," The Century Magazine, vol. 58, pp. 393, 394.

MEMOIRS OF A CAVALIER

1720?

The most life-like account of the Civil Wars in England in the seventeenth century that I know is contained in De Foe's "Memoirs of a Cavalier," which it is impossible to read without believing that it is the work of a writer who had been himself an actor in the scenes which he describes and which Lord Chatham indeed quoted as a genuine history. And yet it is as much a fiction as Waverley, with its picture of the Rebellion of 1745. -FORSYTH, WILLIAM, 1871, The Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century, p. 11.

Almost all the battles and incidents it relates, are so evidently taken from Clarendon and other contemporaries of the Civil Wars (with whose writings I was familiar before I read this work) that I confess I was not so much struck with "The Cavalier" as I expected.-BRAY, ANNA ELIZA, 1883, Autobiography, ed. Kempe, p. 190.

Defoe is with me not seldom. The style of these men is refreshing. For narrative, it would be difficult to beat Defoe. "The

History of a Cavalier" is a downright masterpiece.-BROWN, THOMAS EDWARD, 1893, Letters, ed. Irwin, March 10, vol. I, p. 173.

It is well known that the Earl of Chatham believed the "Memoirs of a Cavalier' to be genuine history, and said they gave the best account of the Civil War which was extant. Opinions as to the duties of a serious historian have altered much since then; historical romances, if good of their kind, will always be welcome, and will serve other useful ends besides amusements; but nowadays we expect a writer to make it clear whether his work is fact or fiction. Defoe felt perfectly warranted in giving greater point and interest to his narrative by the interposition of an imaginary Cavalier who could describe the events of the time as his own experiences. He thought it much more

important that his readers should have before them a striking picture of the chief events of a war than that the story should be of impeccable accuracy, but dull. There is certainly a place in the historical library for such work as Defoe's, and the "Memoirs of a Cavalier'' is, from the historical point of view, one of the very best books of its class in existence.-AITKEN, GEORGE A., 1895, ed. Defoe's Romances and Narratives, Memoirs of a Cavalier, vol. VII, Introduction, p. xviii.

One of the most vivid and apparently genuine military histories ever printed. SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1896, Social England, ed. Traill, vol. v, p. 86.

MOLL FLANDERS

1722

The various incidents in the eventful life of Moll Flanders, from the time of her seduction to that of her becoming a convict and a quiet settler in Maryland, are those of real life, as exemplified by multitudes of individuals, who have run the career of their vicious propensities. The artless disposition of the narrative, the lively interest excited by unlooked for coincidences, the rich natural painting, the moral reflections, are all so many proofs of the knowledge and invention of the writer; but the facts were furnished him by the annals of Newgate.

From the character of the incidents that compose the present narrative, De Foe was fully aware of the objections that would be urged against it by the scrupulous. To conceal a single fact, would have taken so much from the fidelity of the portrait; all that he could do, therefore, was to neutralize the poison, by furnishing the strongest antidotes. Accordingly, whilst he paints the courses of an every-day profligate in their natural colours, he shows us with the same faithfulness their natural tendency; and that, first or last, vice is sure to bring down its own punishment. His villains never prosper; but either come to an untimely end, or are brought to be penitents. In dressing up the present story, he tells us, he had taken care to exclude every thing that might be offensive; but conscious that he had a bad subject to work upon, he endeavours to interest the reader in the reflections arising out of it, that the moral might be more enticing than the fable.-WILSON, WALTER, 1830, Memoirs

of the Life and Times of Daniel De Foe, vol. III, pp. 489, 490.

Of these novels we may, nevertheless, add, for the satisfaction of the inquisitive reader, that "Moli Flanders" is utterly vile and detestable: Mrs. Flanders was evidently born in sin. evidently born in sin. The best parts are the account of her childhood, which is pretty and affecting; the fluctuation of her feelings between remorse and hardened impenitence in Newgate; and the incident of her leading off the horse from the inn-door, though she had no place to put it in after she had stolen it.—HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1830, Wilson's Life and Times of Daniel Defoe, Edinburgh Review, vol. 50, p. 422.

Deals with the sore of society in very much the spirit of M. Zola and his followers. Defoe lays bare the career of an abandoned woman, concealing nothing, extenuating nothing, but also hoping nothing. It could only be when inspired by the hope of amelioration, that such a narrative could be endurable. But Defoe's novel is inspired merely by hope of the good sale which of course it achieved: the morbid way in which he, like M. Zola, lingers over disgusting detail, and the perfunctory manner in which any necessary pieces of morality are introduced, preclude us from attributing any moral purpose to a vivid and clever, but most revolting novel. -ROWLAND, P. F., 1894, A Comparison, Criticism and Estimate of the English Novelists from 1700 to 1850, p. 6.

RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP

1722

As a work of pure and orthodox morality, its progress was slow, but sure. Seven years elapsed before a Second Edition was required; but in 1789, the twenty-first was published, and they have since been innumerable, from the respectable octavo, to the coarse paper publications for cheap distribution. It is still the most popular work ever published on the subject; and would alone secure the lasting fame of its author, independently of any other of his productions. The frame work of the book is skilfully contrived, yet no art whatever is apparent. The reader becomes interested in the welfare of a particular family, and is carried along through the history of its members; sharing their happiness, and, as a friend, touched with

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