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striking proof of this art, we should have to extract at least three-fourths of the book. Indeed the very first page will afford us a remarkable instance-and the reader will find that hardly any one of those which succeed, is without several of those minute and apparently careless touches, which give the picture such an inimitable air of life. In this point of view Robinson Crusoe would form an admirable manual for a young writer who desired to distinguish himself in fictitious composition in it he will find carried to the very highest point yet attained, that important art in narrative, the art of relat ing with an air of good faith and probability. When Crusoe tells us that he was born of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who first settled at Hull, who can resist yielding an almost implicit belief that he is reading an authentic narrative, and when he speaks of his mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country (York ), and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but, by the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called, nay, we call ourselves, and write our name, Crusoe : and so my companions always called me, he must have a sterner degree of incredulity than we, who can retain in full force the recollection that what is so artlessly and circumstantially detailed is not a true history.

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Perhaps one of the chief means by which the Author has succeeded in producing so certain and durable an impression upon all his readers, and in particular upon the young and inexperienced is the absence of Surprizes. It has been said that . Truth is strange-stranger than Fiction » : and the mind, in picturing to itself, with that anticipatory power which accompanies the perusal of a series of adventures and circumstances dissimilar to the ordinary and regular course of human affairs, naturally and almost involuntarily puts itself, if we may so express it, into the attitude of expectation-and looks forward by a kind of contradictory subtlety, to future surprise. To this craving for wonder De Foe has never ministered he knew well that in the realities of life our anticipation of future seldom if ever corresponds to the true course

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of the future, and that in the picture we draw of what is before us, neither the lights nor the shadows, in most cases, correspond to the reality. To perceive clearly the force of what we have remarked, let any one consider what would be the difficulties-in matters of comfort and subsistence, &c.,which he would naturally anticipate in the condition of a solitary, dwelling on a desert island; and we are inclined to believe, that the want, for instance, of a pot in which to boil his food, would by no means occur to him as one of the greatest inconveniences, or one which it would cause much labour and ingenuity to replace. Of the same kind is the difficulty about the ink. No less have we been always struck with that admirable and most acute touch of naturalness in the passage, where, after describing Robinson's labour in building a boat in order to make his escape, he discovers the impossibility of launching the canoe he has with so much exertion succeeded in constructing. In reading any of the multitude of imitations of this extraordinary fiction, which have followed it; who has not perceived their inferiority of interest in this respect. The difficulties which oppose the pseudoCrusoes are either of a much less probable nature in themselves, or are obviated by means which appear to depend less upon the skill or energy of the heroes of these romances than upon the invention and readiness of their authors-and must be regarded by the reader rather with that cold and languid interest which attends the descent of the Deus ex machina » of a tragedy, than with the eager sympathy accompanying the fluctuations of a real destiny.

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When Crusoe tells us of the loss of his shipmates as for them, I never saw them afterwards, or any sign of them except three of their hats, one cap, and two shoes that were not fellows: who can be insensible to the admirable truthhowever incapable he may be of appreciating the difficulty -of this last touch?

Again, his reflections during the storm of thunder and lightning which occurs while he is busily engaged in domesticating himself in his cave.

VOL. 111.

46

"I was not so much surprized with the lightning, as I was with a thought which darted into my mind as swift as the light-ning itself: O my powder!»

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If we compare this with even the most artfully designed strokes in such works as The Swiss Family Robinson, or the Memoirs of Sir Edward Seaward» we shall find out in what the difference between genius and imitation consists. But the best critics in the present case are, as we have said, children and their judgment has been recorded.

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We are not sure whether a peculiarity which runs through all De Foe's works, and which might at first sight appear likely to injure the effect of many of them, does not in this case add to the effect of Crusoe. We allude to that belief in divine interference with everyday human affairs, and that attention to dreams, omens, and the mysterious emotions which, though exceedingly common in De Foe's age and condition, seems to have been carried by him to an unusual height ; and which contrasts so remarkably with the plain, unvisionary, and generally unimpassioned tone of his style.

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That the first convictions of religion in a mind uncultivated and comparatively ignorant as Crusoe is represented to be, should be accompanied by fancied signs and omens, particularly when the subject of these impressions is, from his loneliness, in precisely the position most calculated to receive them, is but natural. Even the presentiments, and the Sortes Biblico of the worthy tradesman who is supposed to keep the Journal of the Plague Year are admirably conceivedif they are no more than an artifice of the author to inspire us with some portion of the dread which must have darkened all mens' minds at the approach of the « Pestilence that walketh in darkness" but perhaps the most wonderful instance of that power by which De Foe could annihilate that great gulf which is fixed between this life and the next is to be found in his narrative of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal in which he has succeeded in bringing a visitor from the world of spirits in close contact-and this without in the least shocking our feeling of probability with the dullest and most common-place details of a provincial town.

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As this is perhaps the most astounding instance of De Foe's literary boldness, and at the same time one of the hardiest experiments ever ventured upon human credulity, we trust that some account of it will not be displeasing to our readers as the book is not generally known, at least in this country. De Foe's publisher, who in all probability was likewise a personal friend, appears to have printed a large impression of a work written by a French Protestant clergyman named Drelincourt, and translated into English, under the title of the Christian's Defence against the Fear of Death, with several directions how to prepare ourselves to die well. This work, it appears, met with no more attention from the public than the very uninviting nature of the subject rendered probableand lay a dead and ponderous load upon the shelves of the too adventurous publisher. In this emergency De Foe conceived and executed a plan to give popularity to this weight of dull divinity, which for audacious ingenuity, we believe has no parallel in the history of puffing. He wrote a narrative, supposed to be drawn up by a Justice of Peace at Maidstone in Kent, and a very intelligent person, and attested by a very sober and understanding gentlewoman, a kinswoman of the said gentleman's, who lives in Canterbury, within a few doors of the house in which the within named Mrs. Bargrave lives. This narrative, entitled: A True Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs. Veal, the next day after her death, to one Mrs. Bargrave, at Canterbury, the 8th of September, 1705, which Apparition recommends the perusal of Drelincourt's Book of Consolations against the fears of Death: was appended to the work of Drelincourt, which had immediately a vogue which abundantly attested the success of De Foe's most extraordinary advertisement.

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The scene, the language, the dramatis personæ of this singular fiction were all selected with De Foe's usual skill, and with that happy audacity which silences the objections of incredulity by the very impossibility which the reader feels to believe that it can be assumed. The artful manner in which it is attested-and the care which the author takes to reply to any preliminary objections as to the credibility of his story,

not concealing, as an author of less confidence would have done, that such objections had been advanced, but assigning reasonable and natural grounds for them-every circumstance unites to render the reader a dupe to the imposition.

Indeed it requires all the self-command even of a reader who is acquainted with the true history of the work to peruse it without falling into the snare. The conversation of the two interlocutors too, one of whom has quitted the land of spirits for the benevolent purpose of recommending (i. e. helping the sale) of Drelincourt's book on Death, is so exactly suited to the condition of the supposed speakers-one an exciseman's sister and the other a seamstress,-that it is difficult to say which feeling predominates in the reader's mind-admiration of De Foe's boldness and skill, or a half involuntary belief in the truth of his narration. Mixed up with religious consolation and recommendation of good books, we find the two friends talking of broken tea-cups, scoured silk gowns, and such humble matters, which naturally form so great a proportion of conversation between persons of their sex, age, and mean condition. Now the reader finds it impossible to deny his belief to circumstances which it seems so unlikely that any author would have thought of feigning, and his incredulity is further soothed by the candour with which the objections against the credibility of the story are stated.

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The impression of reality in the present case is greatly heightened by the absence of all the usual mise en scène. of a supernatural drama. The apparition arrives at noon-day, has all the manners and apparent reality of the person whom it represents-nay even the infirmities-is sensible to touch, and departs, as it came, with all the circumstance of flesh and blood nor is the favoured object of this ghostly communication aware, until after the departure of the person with whom she has been talking, that her companion was a visitant from the other world. It is curious to remark, that beside Drelincourt's book, which was the best, she said, on the subject ever wrote, she (the ghost) also mentioned Doctor Sherlock, and two Dutch books, which were translated, wrote upon death, and several others is it very improbable

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