Friday's meeting with his Father. Whed as the Sot directs. Tune. 10.1791, by Wittiäm Love, Leadenhall THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES O F ROBINSON CRUSOE, OF YORK, MARINER: WHO LIVED EIGHT AND TWENTY YEARS ALONE IN AN THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. TH HAT homely proverb, ufed on fo many occafions in England, viz. That what is bred in the bone will not go out of the flesh, was never more verified than in the ftory of my LIFE.-Any one would think, that after thirty-five years affliction, and a variety of unhappy circumftances, which few men, if ever any, went through before; and after near feven years of peace and enjoyment in the fulness of all things; grown old, and when, if ever it might be allowed me to have had experience of every state of middle life, and to know which was most adapted to make a man completely happy; I fay, after all this, any one would have thought, that the native propenfity to rambling, which I gave an account of in my first fetting out into the world, to have been fo predominant in my thoughts, fhould be worn out, the volatile part be fully evaporated, or at least condensed, and I might at fixty-one years of age have been a little inclined to stay at home, and have done venturing life and fortune any more. Nay, farther, the common motive of foreign adventures was taken away in me; for I had no fortune to make, I had nothing to feek.-If I had gained ten thou A 3 far KRAUS 24DEC'34 fand pounds, I had been no richer; for I had already fufficient for me, and for those I had to leave it to; and that I had was vifibly increafing; for having no great family, I could not fpend the income of what I had, unless I would fet up for an expenfive way of living, fuch as a great family, fervants, equipage, gaiety, and the like, which were things I had no notion of, or inclination to; fo that I had nothing indeed to do, but to fit ftill, and fully enjoy what I had got, and fee it increase daily upon my hands. Yet all thefe things had no effect upon me, or at least not enough to refift the firong inclination I had to go abroad again, which hung about me like a chronical disfemper; particularly the defire of feeing my new plantation in the island, and the colony I left there, run in my head continually.-I dreamed of it all night, and my imagination ran upon it all day; it was uppermost in all my thoughts, and my fancy worked fo fteadily. and ftrongly upon it, that I talked of it in my fleep; in fhort, nothing could remove it out of my mind.-It even broke fo violently into all my difcourfes, that it. made my converfation tirefome; for I could talk of nothing elfe; all my difcourfe ran into it, even to impertinence; and I faw it myself. I have often heard perfons of good judgment fay, that all the ftir people make in the world about ghofts and apparitions, is owing to the ftrength of imagination, and the powerful operation of fancy in their minds;. that there is no fuch thing as a spirit appearing, or a ghoft walking, and the like: That people's poring affec... tionately upon the paft converfation of their deceas'd friends, fo realizes it to them, that they are capable of fancying, upon fome extraordinary circumftances, that they see them, talk to them, and are anfwered by them; when, in truth, there is nothing but fhadow and vapour in the thing,and they really know nothing of the matter. For my part, I know not to this hour, whether there are any fuch things as real apparitions, spectres, or walking of people after they are dead, or whether there is any thing in the ftories they tell us of that kind, more than the product of vapours, fick minds, and wandering fancies. But this I know, that my imagina tion.x |