Amid these desultory remarks, it may be noticed that, through all his romances, De Foe has made a great deal of the narrative depend upon lucky hits and accidents, which, as he is usually at some pains to explain, ought rather to be termed providential occurrences. This is coupled with a belief in spiritual communication in the way of strong internal suggestions, to which De Foe, as we have seen, was himself sufficiently willing to yield belief. Odd and surprising accidents do, indeed, frequently occur in human life; and when we hear them narrated, we are interested in them, not only from the natural tendency of the human mind towards the extraordinary and wonderful, but also because we have some disposition to receive as truth circumstances, which, from their improbability, do not seem likely to be invented. It is the kind of good fortune, too, which every one wishes to himself, which comes without exertion, and just at the moment it is wanted; so that it gives a sort of pleasure to be reminded of the possibility of its arrival, even in fiction.

The continuation of Robinson Crusoe's history, after he obtains the society of his man Friday, is less philosophical than that which turns our thoughts upon the efforts which a solitary individuál may make for extending his own comforts in the melancholy situation in which he is placed, and upon the natural reflections suggested by the progress of his own mind. The character of Friday is nevertheless extremely pleasing; and the whole subsequent history of the shipwrecked Spaniards and the pirate vessel is highly interesting. Here, certainly, the Memoirs of Robinson Crusoe ought to have stopped. The Second Part, though containing many passages which display the author's genius, does not rise high in character above the Memoirs of Captain Singleton, or the other imaginary voyages of the author.

There scarce exists a work so popular as Robinson Crusoe. It is read eagerly by young people; and there is hardly an elf so devoid of imagination, as not to have supposed for himself a solitary island in which he could act Robinson Crusoe, were it but in the corner of the nursery. To many it has given the decided turn of their lives, by sending them to sea. For the young mind is much less struck with the hardships of the anchorite's situation than with the animating exertions which he makes to overcome them; and Robinson Crusoe produces the same impression upon an adventurous spirit which the Book of Martyrs would do on a young devotee, or the Newgate Calendar upon an acolyte of Bridewell; both of which students are less terrified by the horrible manner in which the tale terminates, than animated by sympathy with the saints or depredators who are the heroes of their volume. Neither does a re-perusal of Robinson Crusoe, at a more advanced age, diminish our early

impressions. The situation is such as every man may make his own, and, being possible in itself, is, by the exquisite art of the narrator, rendered as probable as it is interesting. It has the merit, too, of that species of accurate painting which can be looked at again and again with new pleasure.

Neither has the admiration of the work been confined to England, though Robinson Crusoe himself with his rough good sense, his prejudices, and his obstinate determination not to sink under evils which can be surpassed by exertion, forms no bad specimen of the True-born Englishman. The rage for imitating a work so popular seems to have risen to a degree of frenzy; and, by a mistake not peculiar to this particular class of the servum pecus, the imitators did not attempt to apply De Foe's manner of managing the narrative to some situation of a different kind, but seized upon and caricatured the principal incidents of the shipwrecked mariner and the solitary island. It is computed that, within forty years from the appearance of the original work, no less than forty-one different Robinsons appeared, besides fifteen other imitations, in which other titles were used. Finally, though perhaps it is no great recommendation, the antisocial philosopher Rousseau will allow no other book than Robinson Crusoe in the hands of Emilius. Upon the whole, the work is as unlikely to lose its celebrity as it is to be equalled in its peculiar character by any other of similar excellence.

APPENDIX.

No. 1.

SOME ACCOUNT OF ALEXANDER SELKIRK.

WOODES ROGERS, who relieved Selkirk from his solitude, was commodore of a commercial expedition round the world, which sailed February 1709, and returned to Britain 1711. A project for the re-settlement of the Bahama Islands having been submitted to Mr. Addison (then secretary of state) in 1717, the measure was determined on, and Rogers was appointed to head the expedition. He died governor of those islands in 1732. The following is the account he gives of his meeting, off the island of Juan Fernandez, with Alexander Selkirk :

"On February 1st, 1709, we came before the island of Juan Fernandez, having had a good observation the day before, and found our latitude to be 31 degrees 10 minutes south. In the afternoon, we hoisted out our pinnace; and Captain Dover, with the boat's crew, went in her to go ashore, though we could not be less than four leagues off. As soon as the pinnace was gone, I went on board" the Duchess, who admired our boat attempting going ashore at that distance from land. It was against my inclination: but to oblige Captain Dover, I let her go. As soon as it was dark, we saw a light ashore. Our boat was then about a league off the island, and bore away for the ships as soon as she saw the lights. We put our lights aboard for the boat, though some were of opinion, the lights we saw were our boat's lights; but, as night came on, it appeared too large for that. We fired our quarter-deck gun and several muskets, showing lights in our mizen and fore-shrouds, that our boat might find us whilst we were in the lee of the island about two in the morning our boat came on board, having been two hours on board the Duchess, that took them up astern of us; we were glad they got well off, because it began to blow. We were all convinced the light was on the shore, and designed to make our ships ready to engage, believing them to be French ships at anchor, and we must either fight them, or want water. All this stir and apprehension arose, as we afterwards found, from one poor naked man, who passed in our imagination, at present, for a Spanish garrison, a body of Frenchmen, or a crew of pirates. While we were under these apprehensions, we stood on the back side of the island, in order to fall in with the southerly wind, till we were past the island; and then we came back to it again and ran close aboard the land that begins to make the north-east side.

"We still continued to reason upon this matter; and it is in a manner incredible, what strange notions many of our people entertained from the sight of the fire upon the island. It served, however to show people's tempers and spirits; and we were able to give a tolerable, guess how our men would behave, in case there really were any enemies upon the island. The flaws came heavy off the shore, and we were forced to reef our topsails when we opened the middle bay, where we expected to have found our enemy; but saw all clear, and no ships, nor in the other bay next the north-east end. These two bays are all that ships ride

in, which recruit on this island; but the middle bay is by much the best. We guessed there had been ships there, but that they were gone on sight of us. We sent our yawl ashore about noon, with Captain Dover, Mr. Fry, and six men, all armed: Meanwhile we and the Duchess kept turning to get in, and such heavy flaws came off the land, that we were forced to let go our topsail-sheet, keeping all hands to stand by our sails, for fear of the wind's carrying them away: But when the flaws were gone, we had little or no wind. These flaws proceeded from the land, which is very high in the middle of the island. Our boat did not return; we sent our pinnace with the men armed, to see what was the occasion of the yawl's stay; for we were afraid that the Spaniards had a garrison there, and might have seized them. We put out a signal for our boat, and the Duchess showed a French ensign. Immediately our pinnace returned from the shore, and brought abundance of cray-fish, with a man clothed in goats' skins, who looked wilder than the first owners of them.

He had been on the island four years and four months, being left there by Captain Stradling in the Cinque Ports; his name was ALEXANDER SELKIRK, a Scotchman, who had been master of the Cinque Ports, a ship that came here last with Captain Dampier, who told me, that this was the best man in her. I immediately agreed with him to be a mate on board our ship: It was he that made the fire last night when he saw our ships, which he judged to be English. During his stay here he saw several ships pass by, but only two came to anchor. As he went to view them, he found them to be Spaniards, and retired from them, upon which they shot at him: Had they been French he would have submitted; but chose to risk his dying alone on the island, rather than fall into the hands of the Spaniards in these parts; because he apprehended they would murder him, or make a slave of him in the mines; for he feared they would spare no stranger, that might be capable of discovering the South Seas.

"The Spaniards had landed, before he knew what they were; and they came so near him, that he had much ado to escape; for they not only shot at him, but pursued him to the woods, where he climbed to the top of a tree, at the foot of which they made water, and killed several goats just by, but went off again without discovering him. He told us that he was born in Scotland, and was bred a sailor from his youth. The reason of his being left here, was a difference between him and his captain; which, together with the ship's being leaky, made him willing rat her to stay here than go along with him at first; but when he was at last willing to go, the captain would not receive him. He had been at the island before, to wood and water, when two of the ship's company were left upon it for six months, till the ship returned, being chased thence by two French South-Sca ships. He had with him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock; some powder, bullets, and tobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a Bible, some practical pieces, and his mathematical instruments and books. He diverted and provided for himself as well as he could; but for the first eight months, had much ado to bear up against melancholy, and the terror of being left alone in such a desolate place. He built two huts with pimento-trees, covered them with long grass, and lined them with the skins of goats, which he killed with his gun as he wanted, so long as his powder lasted, which was but a pound; and, that being almost spent, he got fire by rubbing two slicks of pimento wood together upon his knee. In the lesser hut, at some distance from the other, he dressed his victuals; and in the larger, he slept, and employed himself in reading, singing psalms, and praying; so that he said, he was a better Christian, while in this solitude, than ever he was before, or than, he was afraid, he should ever be again.

"At first he never ate anything till hunger constrained him, partly for grief, and partly for want of bread and salt: Nor did he go to bed, till he could watch no longer; the pimento-wood, which burnt very clear, served him both for fire and candle, and refreshed him with its fragrant smell. He might have had fish enough,

C

but would not eat them for want of salt, because they occasioned a looseness, except cray-fish, which are as large as our lobsters, and very good : These he sometimes boiled, and at other times broiled; as he did his goats' flesh, of which he made very good broth, for they are not so rank as ours. He kept an account of 500 that he killed while there, and caught as many more, which he marked on the ear, and let go. When his powder failed, he took them by speed of foot; for his way of living, continual exercise of walking and running, cleared him of all gross humours; so that he ran with wonderful swiftness through the woods, and up the rocks and hills, as we perceived when we employed him to catch goats for us : We had a bull-dog, which we sent with several of our nimblest runners, to help him in catching goats; but he distanced and tired both the dog and the men, caught the goats, and brought them to us on his back.

"He told us, that his agility in pursuing a goat had once like to have cost him bis life; he pursued it with so much eagerness, that he catched hold of it on the brink of a precipice, of which he was not aware, the bushes hiding it from him; so that he fell with the goat down the precipice, a great height, and was so stunned and bruised with the fall, that he narrowly escaped with his life; and, when he came to his senses, found the goat dead under him: He lay there about twenty-four hours, and was scarce able to crawl to his hut, which was about a mile distant, or to stir abroad again in ten days.

"He came at last to relish his meat well enough without salt or bread; and, in the season, had plenty of good turnips, which had been sowed there by Captain Dampier's men, and have now overspread some acres of ground. He had enough of good cabbage from the cabbage-trees, and seasoned his meat with the fruit of the pimento-trees, which is the same as Jamaica pepper, and smells deliciously. He found also a black pepper, called Malageta, which was very good to expel wind, and against griping in the guts.

"He soon wore out all his shoes and clothes by running in the woods; and, at last, being forced to shift without them, his feet became so hard, that he ran every where without difficulty; and it was some time before he could wear shoes after we found him; for not being used to any so long, his feet swelled, when he came first to wear them again.

"After he had conquered his melancholy, he diverted himself sometimes with cutting his name on the trees, and the time of his being left, and continuance there. He was at first much pestered with cats and rats, that bred in great numbers, from some of each species which had got ashore from ships that put in there to wood and water. The rats gnawed his feet and clothes whilst asleep, which obliged him to cherish the cats with his goats' flesh, by which many of them became so tame, that they would lie about him in hundreds, and soon delivered him from the rats. He likewise tamed some kids; and, to divert himself, would, now and then, sing and dance with them, and his cats: So that by the favour of Providence, and vigour of his youth, being now but thirty years old, he came, at last, to conquer all the inconveniences of his solitude, and to be

very easy.

"When his clothes were worn out, be made himself a coat and a cap of goatskins, which be stitched together with little thongs of the same, that he cut with his knife. He had no other needle but a nail; and when his knife was worn to the back, he made others, as well as he could, of some iron hoops that were left ashore, which he beat thin, and ground upon stones. Having some linen-cloth by him, he sewed him some shirts with a nail, and stitched them with the worsted of his old stockings, which he pulled out on purpose. He had his last shirt on when we found him in the island.

"At his first coming on board us, he had so much forgot his language, for want of use, that we could scarce understand him; for he seemed to speak his words by halves. We offered him a dram; but he would not touch it, having drank nothing but water since his being there; and it was some time before he could