may judge for others by myself, will afford some pleasure and entertainment. -WRIGHT, SAMUEL, 1715, Defoe's "The Family Instructor," Letter to the Publisher.

It

"The Family Instructor" of this author, in which he inculcates weightily his own notions of puritanical demeanour and parental authority, is very curious. It is a strange mixture of narrative and dialogue, fanaticism and nature; but all done with such earnestness, that the sense of its reality never quits us. Nothing, however, can be more harsh and unpleasing than the impression which it leaves. does injustice both to religion and the world. It represents the innocent pleasures of the latter as deadly sins, and the former as most gloomy, austere, and exclusive. One lady resolves on poisoning her husband, and another determines to go to the play, and the author treats both offences with a severity nearly equal!-TALFOURD, THOMAS NOON, 1842, On British Novels and Romances, Critical and Miscellaneous Writings, p. 16.

ROBINSON CRUSOE

1719

The LIFE and Strange Surprizing | ADVENTURES of ROBINSON CRUSOE, Of YORK, Mariner: | Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, where in all the Men perished but himself. | With | An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by PYRATES. Written by Himself. | LONDON. Printed for W. Taylor at the Ship in Pater-Noster Row. MDCCXIX. | -TITLE PAGE OF FIRST EDITION, 1719.

If ever the story of any private man's adventures in the world were worth making public, and were acceptable when published, the Editor on this account thinks this will be so. The wonders of this man's life exceed all that (he thinks) is to be found extant; the life of one man being scarce capable of a greater variety. The story is told with modesty, with seriousness, and with a religious application of events to the uses to which wise men always apply them, viz., to the instruction of others by this example, and to justify and honour the wisdom of Providence in all the variety of our circumstances, let

them happen how they will. The Editor believes the thing to be a just history of fact; neither is there any appearance of fiction in it; and, however, thinks, because all such things are despatched, that the improvement of it, as well to the diversion as to the instruction of the reader, will be the same. And as such, he thinks, without farther compliment to the world, he does them a great service in the publication.-DEFOE, DANIEL, 1719, Robinson Crusoe, Preface.

The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Mr. D-DeF-, of London, Hosier, who has lived above fifty years by himself, in the Kingdoms of North and South Britain. The various Shapes he has appear'd in, and the Discoveries he has made for the Benefit of his Country. In a Dialogue between Him, Robinson Crusoe, and his Man Friday. With Remarks Serious and Comical upon the life of Crusoe. Qui vult decipi, decipiatur. London. Printed for J. Roberts in Warwick Lane.--GILDON, CHARLES, 1719, Title Page.

We may remember that we have been most of us, when Children, wonderfully pleased with the achievements of Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant-Killer, Don Bellianis of Greece, The Seven Champions of Christendom, and such like extraordinary Heroes; and many of us, in our more advanced Age, are little less delighted with such Books as, "The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe;" which seems to have had that uncommon Run upon the Town for some Years past, for no other Reason but that it is a most palpable Lye, from Beginning to End; and I doubt not that the famous Passage of his Swimming to Shore Naked, with his Pockets full of Biscuits, tho' a most notorious Blunder in the Author, has pass'd for a very good Jest, and been received with abundance of Pleasure by many of his Readers. -HOADLEY, BENJAMIN, 1725, London Journal, Sept. 4.

Since we must have books, there is one which, to my mind, furnishes the finest of treatises on, education according to nature. My Émile shall read this book before any other; it shall for a long time be his entire library, and shall always hold an honorable place. It shall be the text on which all our discussions of natural science shall be only commentaries.

It shall be a test for all we meet during our progress toward a ripened judgment, and so long as our taste is unspoiled, we shall enjoy reading it. What wonderful book is this? Aristotle? Pliny? Buffon? No; it is "Robinson Crusoe."-ROUSSEAU, JEAN JACQUES, 1762-67, Émile, tr. Worthington, p. 147.

"Robinson Crusoe" must be allowed, by the most rigid moralists, to be one of those novels which one may read, not only with pleasure, but also with profit. It breathes throughout a spirit of piety and benevolence; it sets in a very striking light... the importance of the mechanic arts, which they, who know not what it is to be without them, are apt to undervalue: it fixes in the mind a lively idea of the horrors of solitude, and, consequently, of the sweets of social life, and of the blessings we derive from conversation and mutual aid; and it shows, how, by labouring with one's own hands, one may secure independence, and open for one's self many sources of health and amusement. I agree, therefore, with Rousseau, that this is one of the best books that can be put in the hands of children.-BEATTIE, JAMES, 1783, Dissertations, Moral and Critical.

Was there ever yet any thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting "Don Quixote," "Robinson Crusoe," and "The Pilgrim's Progress?"-JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1784-5, Piozzi's Anecdotes, No. 140.

It was the happiness of De Foe, that as many writers have succeeded in relating enterprises by land, he excelled in narrating adventures by sea, with such felicities of language, such attractive varieties, such insinuative instruction, as have seldom been equalled, but never surpassed. -CHALMERS, GEORGE, 1786-1841, The Life of Daniel De Foe, p. 78.

"Robinson Crusoe," the favourite of the learned and the unlearned, of the youth and the adult; the book that was to constitute the library of Rousseau's Emilius, owes its secret charm to its being a new representation of human nature, yet drawn from an existing state; this picture of self-education, self-inquiry, self-happiness, is scarcely a fiction, although it includes all the magic of romance; and is not a mere narrative of truth, since it displays all the forcible genius of one of the most original minds

our literature can boast. The history of the work is therefore interesting. It was treated in the author's time as a mere idle romance, for the philosophy was not discovered in the story; after his death it was considered to have been pillaged from the papers of Alexander Selkirk, confided to the author, and the honour, as well as the genius, of De Foe were alike questioned. . "Robinson Crusoe" was

not given to the world till 1719, seven years after the publication of Selkirk's adventures. Selkirk could have no claims on De Foe; for he had only supplied the man of genius with that which lies open to all; and which no one had, or perhaps could have, converted into the wonderful story we possess but De Foe himself. Had

De Foe not written "Robinson Crusoe," the name and story of Selkirk had been passed over like others of the same sort; yet Selkirk has the merit of having detailed his own history, in a manner so interesting, as to have attracted the notice of Steele, and to have inspired the genius of De Foe.-DISRAELI, ISAAC, 1791-1824, Robinson Crusoe, Curiosities of Literature.

I have for some time past been engaged in an Arabic exercise, which has proved of great utility to me; it is the metamorphosis of the well-known novel of "Robinson Crusoe," into an Arabian tale, adapted to Eastern taste and manners. A young Frank, born at Aleppo, who speaks Arabic like a native, but who neither reads nor writes it, has been my assistant in the undertaking. I take the liberty of sending you here enclosed a copy of this travestied Robinson, or as I call the book in Arabic, Dur el Bakur, the Peal of the Seas.-BURCKHARDT, JOHN LEWIS, 1810, Travels in Nubia, p. 28.

Perhaps there exists no work, either of instruction or entertainment, in the English language, which has been more generally read, and more universally admired, than the "Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe." It is difficult to say in what the charm consists, by which persons of all classes and denominations are thus fascinated: yet the majority of readers will recollect it as among the first works which awakened and interested their youthful attention; and feel, even in advanced life, and in the maturity of their understanding, that there are still

associated with Robinson Crusoe, the sentiments peculiar to that period, when all is new, all glittering in prospect, and when those visions are most bright, which the experience of afterlife tends only to darken and destroy.-BALLANTYNE, JOHN, 1810, ed. De Foe's Novels, Edinburgh ed., Memoir.

Never did human being excite more sympathy in his fate than this shipwrecked mariner we enter into all his doubts and difficulties, and every rusty nail which he acquires fills us with satisfaction. We thus learn to appreciate our own comforts, and we acquire, at the same time, a habit of activity; but, above all, we attain a trust and devout confidence in divine mercy and goodness. The author also, by placing his hero in an uninhabited island in the Western Ocean, had an opportunity of introducing scenes which, with the merit of truth, have all the wildness and horror of the most incredible fiction. That foot in the sand-those Indians who land on the solitary shore to devour their captives, fill us with alarm and terror, and, after being relieved from the fear of Crusoe perishing by famine, we are agitated by new apprehensions for his safety. The deliverance of Friday, and the whole character of that young Indian, are painted in the most beautiful manner; and, in short, of all the works of fiction that have ever been composed, Robinson Crusoe is perhaps the most interesting and instructive. -DUNLOP, JOHN, 1814-42, The History of Fiction, vol. II, p. 420.

Compare the contemptuous Swift with the contemned De Foe, and how superior will the latter be found! But by what test?-Even by this; that the writer who makes me sympathize with his presentations with the whole of my being, is more estimable than he who calls forth, and appeals but to, a part of my being-my sense of the ludicrous, for instance. De Foe's excellence it is, to make me forget my specific class, character, and circumstances, and to raise me while I read him, into the universal man.-COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1818, Mythology, Imagination, and Superstition; Miscellanies, Esthetic and Literary, ed. Ashe, p. 154.

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.SCOTT, SIR WALTER, C 1821, Memoir of Daniel De Foe, Miscellaneous Works, vol. IV, p. 279.

What man does not remember with regret the first time that he read "Robinson Crusoe?" Then, indeed, he was unable to appreciate the powers of the writer; or rather, he neither knew nor cared whether the book had a writer at

all. He probably thought it not half so fine as some rant of Macpherson about dark-browed Foldath and white-bosomed Strinadona. He now values Fingal and Temora only as showing with how little evidence a story may be believed, and with how little merit a book may be popular. Of the romance of Defoe, he entertains the highest opinion. He perceives the hand of a master in ten thousand touches, which formerly he passed by without notice. But though he understands the merits of the narrative better than formerly, he is far less interested by it. Xury, and Friday, and pretty Poll, the boat with the shoulder-of-mutton sail, and the canoe which could not be brought down to the water's edge, the tent with its hedge and ladders, the preserve of

kids, and the den where the old goat died, can never again be to him the realities which they were.-MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, 1828, Dryden, Edinburgh Review; Critical and Miscellaneous Essays.

Who

Few things, in an ordinary life, can come up to the interest which every reader of sensibility must take in the author of "Robinson Crusoe." "Heaven lies about us in our infancy;" and it cannot be denied, that the first perusal of that work makes a part of the illusion:-the roar of the waters is in our ears,—we start at the print of the foot in the sand, and hear the parrot repeat the well-known. sounds of "Poor Robinson Crusoe! are you? Where do you come from; and where are you going?"-till the tears gush, and in recollection and feeling we become children again! One cannot understand how the author of this world of abstraction should have had any thing to do with the ordinary cares and business of life; or it almost seems that he should have been fed, like Elijah, by the ravens. What boots it then to know that he was a hose-factor, and the owner of a tile-kiln in Essex-that he stood in the pillory, was over head and ears in debt, and engaged in eternal literary and political squabbles?-HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1830, Wilson's Life and Times of Daniel Defoe, Edinburgh Review, vol. 50, p. 400.

It has become a household thing in nearly every family in Christendom. Yet never was admiration of any work-universal admiration--more indiscriminately or more inappropriately bestowed.

Not

one person in ten-nay, not one person in five hundred-has, during the perusal of "Robinson Cruso," the most remote conception that any particle of genius, or even of common talent, has been employed in its creation! Men do not look upon it in the light of a literary performance. Defoe has none of their thoughts-Robinson all. The powers which have wrought the wonder have been thrown into obscurity by the very stupendousness of the wonder they have wrought! We read, and become perfect abstractions in the intensity of our interest; we close the book, and are quite satisfied that we could have written as well ourselves. All this is effected by the potent magic of verisimilitude. Indeed the author of "Crusoe" must have possessed, above all other

faculities, what has been termed the faculty of identification-that dominion exercised by volition over imagination, which enables the mind to lose its own in a fictitious individuality.-POE, EDGAR ALLAN, 1836, Marginalia, Works, vol. VII, p. 300.

It sinks into the bosom while the bosom is most capable of pleasurable impressions from the adventurous and the marvellous; and no human work, we honestly believe, has afforded such great delight. Neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey, in the much longer course of ages, has incited so many to enterprise, or to reliance on their own powers and capacities. It is the romance

of solitude and self-sustainment; and could only so perfectly have been written by a man whose own life had for the most part been passed in the independence of unaided thought, accustomed to great reverses, of inexhaustible resource in confronting calamities, leaning ever on his Bible in sober and satisfied belief, and not afraid at any time to find himself Alone, in communion with nature and with God. -FORSTER, JOHN, 1845-58, Daniel De Foe, Edinburgh Review, Historical and Biographical Essays, vol. II, p. 95.

One of the most truly genial, perfect, and original fictions that the world has ever seen. SHAW, THOMAS B., 1847, Outlines of English Literature, p. 252.

"Robinson Crusoe" is understood to be founded on the real history of Alexander Selkirk, a summary of which, charmingly written, was given to the public by Steele. The greatest genius might have been proud to paint a picture after that sketch. Yet we are not sure that Selkirk's adventure was not an injury, instead of a benefit to De Foe. A benefit it undoubtedly was, to him and to all of us, if it was required in order to put the thought into De Foe's head; but what we mean is, that the world would probably have had the fiction, whether the fact had existed or not. Desert islands and cast-away mariners existed before Selkirk: children have played at hermits and house-building, even before they read "Robinson Crusoe;' and the whole inimitable romance would have required but a glance of De Foe's eye upon a child at play, or at a page in an old book of voyages, or even at his own restless and isolated thoughts. This is a conjecture, however, impossible to prove; and we only throw it out in justice to an

original genius. After all, it would make little difference; for Selkirk was not Crusoe, nor did he see the ghost of a human footstep, nor obtain a man Friday. The inhabitant of the island was De Foe himself. HUNT, LEIGH, 1849, A Book for a Corner.

That Robertson, however, had carefully studied the best writers, with a view to acquire genuine Anglicism, cannot be He was intimately acquainted with Swift's writings; indeed, he regarded him as eminently skilled in the narrative art. He had the same familiarity with Defoe, and had formed the same high estimate of his historical powers. I know, that when a Professor in another University consulted him on the best discipline for acquiring a good narrative style, previous to drawing up John Bell of Antermony's "Travels across Russia to Tartary and the Chinese Wall," the remarkable advice he gave him was to read "Robinson Crusoe" carefully; and when the Professor was astonished, and supposed it was a jest, the historian said he was quite serious but if "Robinson Crusoe" would not help him, or he was above studying Defoe, then he recommended "Gulliver's Travels."-BROUGHAM, HENRY LORD, 1855, Robertson, Lives of Men of Letters of the Time of George III., p. 273.

But

"The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" appeared as far back as the year 1719, and at once rose to the popularity which it has ever since maintained. it failed to attract the notice of the critics. The men who sat in judgment on the small elegances of the wits of the reign of George I., and marked how sentences were balanced and couplets rounded, could not stoop to notice a composition so humble as a novel, more especially a novel written by a self-taught man. But his singularly vivacious production forced a way for itself, leaving the fine sentences and smart couplets to be forgotten. In a short time it was known all over Europe; several translations appeared simultaneously in France. . . And such was the rage of imitation which it excited in Germany, that no fewer than forty-one German novels were produced that had Robinson Crusoes for their heroes, and fifteen others that, though equally palpable imitations, had heroes that bore a different name. -MILLER, HUGH, 1856, Essays, p. 470.

This novel too, like many of the best ever written, has in it the autobiographical element which makes a man speak from greater depths of feeling than in a purely imaginary story.-STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1875, Hours in a Library, vol. 1, p. 43.

The vast mass of Defoe's writings received no kindly aid from distinguished contemporaries to float them down the stream; everything was done that bitter dislike and supercilious indifference could do to submerge them. "Robinson Crusoe" was their sole life-buoy.-MINTO, WILLIAM, 1879, Daniel Defoe (English Men of Letters), p. 137.

"Robinson Crusoe," which is a fairy tale to the child, a book of adventure to the young, is a work on social philosophy to the mature. It is a picture of civilization. The essential moral attributes of man, his innate impulses as a social being, his absolute dependence on society, even as a solitary individual, his subjection to the physical world, and his alliance with the animal world, the statical elements of social philosophy, and the germs of man's historical evolution have never been touched with more sagacity, and assuredly have never been idealised with such magical simplicity and truth. It remains, with Don Quixote, the only prose work of the fancy which has equal charms for every age of life, and which has inexhaustible teaching for the student of man and of society.-HARRISON, FREDERIC, 1879-86, The Choice of Books and Other Literary Pieces, p. 64.

Grimmelshausen has here introduced an idea which had already played a certain part in Shakspeare's "Tempest," and which Defoe made, fifty years later, the centre of his remarkable work, "Robinson Crusoe." But the idea started by Grimmelshausen remained dormant until it came before the public in a new form from England. Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" appeared in 1719; it was at once translated into various languages, and it continued for a long time to call forth numerous imitations in Germany. Foreign nations as well as native districts were made to furnish names for all these Robinsons or Adventurers; there was an Italian, French, Dutch, Norwegian, Saxon, Silesian, Thuringian, Swabian, Brandenburg, and Palatinate Robinson, a Swiss,