great power of sarcasm, places in a ludicrous and contemptible light, that mode of communication between the people and the throne. All must recollect the story of Richard Cromwell, who, in removing from Whitehall, no longer his own, begged that particular care might be taken of a large chest, which contained, he said, “all the lives and fortunes of England," pledged, of course, in support of the Second Protector, by those who now saw him, with the utmost indifference, dragged from the seat of government. It is not, however, of such political subjects that we have undertaken to treat. The multifarious author whose head imagined, and whose pen executed, such variety of works upon them, that it is a labour even to collect their names, must be now treated of solely in his character of a writer of fictitious composition.

And here, before proceeding to attempt a few observations on Robinson Crusoe in particular, it may be necessary to consider what is the particular charm which carries the reader through, not that chef-d'oeuvre alone, but others of De Foe's compositions, and inspires a reluctance to lay down the volume till the tale is finished; and the desire, not generally felt in the perusal of works of fiction, to read every sentence and word upon every leaf, instead of catching up as much of the story as may enable us to understand the conclusion.

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It cannot be the beauty of the style which thus commands the reader's attention; for that of De Foe, though often forcible, is rather rendered so by the interest of a particular situation than by the art of the writer. In general the language is loose and inaccurate, often tame and creeping, and almost always that of the lower classes in society. Neither does the charm depend upon the character of the incidents; for although in Robinson Crusoe the incidents are very fine, yet in the History of the Plague the events are disgusting, and scarce less in those works where the scene lies in low life. Yet, like Pistol eating his leek, we go on growling and reading to the end of the volume, while we nod over many elegant subject, treated by authors who exhibit a far greater command of language. Neither can it be the artful conducting of the story, by which we are so much interested. De Foe seems to have written too rapidly to pay the least attention to this circumstance; the incidents are huddled together like paving-stones discharged from a cart, and have as little connection between the one and the other. The scenes merely follow, without at all depending on each other. They are not like those of the regular drama, connected together by a regular commencement, continuation, and conclusion, but rather resemble the pictures in a showman's box, which have no relation further than as being inclosed within the same box, and subjected to the action of the same string.

To what, then, are we to ascribe this general charm attached to the romances of De Foe? We presume to answer, that it is chiefly to be ascribed to the unequalled dexterity with which our author has given an appearance of REALITY to the incidents which he narrates. Even De Foe's deficiencies in style, his homeiiness of language, his rusticity of thought, expressive of what is called the Crassa Minerva, seem to claim credit for him as one who speaks the truth, the rather that we suppose he wants the skill to conceal or disguise it. The principle is almost too simple to need illustration, and yet, as it seems to include something of a paradox, since in fact it teaches that with the more art a story is told, the less likely it is to attract earnest attention, it may be proved by reference to common life. If we meet with a friend in the street, who tells us a story containing something beyond usual interest, and not of every-day occurrence, our feeling with respect to the truth of the story will be much influenced by the character of the narrator. If he is a man of wit or humour, and places the ludicrous part of the tale in the most prominent point of view, the hearer will be apt to recollect that his friend is a wag, and make some grains of allowance accordingly. On the other hand, supposing the person who communicates the narrative to be of a sentimental or enthusiastic character, with romantic ideas and a store of words to express them, you listen to his tale with a sort of suspicion that it is too well told to be truly told, and that though it may be at bottom real, yet it has been embroidered over by the flourishes of the narrator. But if the same fact be told by a man of plain sense, and sufficient knowledge of the world, the minuteness with which he tells the story, mixing up with it a number of circumstances which are not otherwise connected with it, than as existing at the same moment, seems to guarantee the truth of what he says; and the bursts, whether of mirth or emotion, which accompany the narrative, appear additional warrants of his fidelity, because neither is the usual mood of his mind. You believe, as coming from such a person, that which upon other information you might have thought an imposition, as Benedict credits the report of Beatrice's affection towards him, because "the fellow with the grey beard said it.”

In the testimony of such a person upon a subject which is at all interesting, we generally detect some point which ascertains the eye-witness, and some expression which would seem to have only occurred to an individual who had heard and seen the facts to which he speaks. Those who are in the habit of attending courts of justice, during the leading of evidence, frequently hear not only from men or women of observation, but from "iron-witted fools and unrespective boys," such striking circumstances as the follow

ing: A horrible murder had been committed by a man upon a person whom he had invited into his house in friendship; they were alone together when the deed was done, and the murderer, throwing on his coat, hastily left the house before the deed was discovered. A child of twelve or thirteen years old gave evidence that she was playing in the under part of the dwelling, and heard the accused person run hastily down stairs, and stumble at the threshold. She said she was very much frightened at the noise she heard; and being asked whether she had ever before thought of being frightened by a man running hurriedly down stairs, she replied no, but the noise then made was like no other she had ever heard before. The poet of the most active imagination would hardly have dared to inscribe such impressive effects to the wild and precipitate retreat of guilt in making its escape from justice, This peculiar effect upon the child's imagination we might have doubted if we had read it in fiction, and yet how striking it becomes, heard from the mouth of the child herself!

It is no doubt true, that, in assuming this peculiar style of narrative, the author does so at a certain risk. He debars himself from the graces of language, and the artifice of narrative; he must sometimes seem prolix, sometimes indistinct and obscure, though possessing occasional points of brilliancy; in which respect his story may resemble some old Catholic towns on the Continent, where the streets are left in general darkness, save at those favoured spots where lamps are kept burning before the altars of particular saints; whereas, a regularly composed narrative represents an English country town, so well lighted throughout, that no particular spot, scarce even the dwelling of Mr. Mayor, or the window of the apothecary, can exhibit any glow of peculiar lustre. And certainly it is the last style which should be attempted by a writer of inferior genius; for though it be possible to disguise mediocrity by fine writing, it appears in all its native inanity, when it assumes the garb of simplicity. Besides, this peculiar style of writing requires that the author possess King Fadlallah's secret of transmigrating from one body to another, and possessing himself of all the qualities which he finds in the assumed character, retaining his own taste and judgment to direct them.

Sometimes this is done, by the author avowedly taking upon himself an imaginary personage, and writing according to his supposed feelings and prejudices. What would be the Vicar of Wakefield's history unless told by the kindest and worthiest pedant that ever wore a cassock, namely, the Vicar himself? And what would be the most interesting and affecting, as well as the most comic, passages of Castle Rackrent, if narrated by one who had a less regard for "the family" than the immortal Thady, who, while

he sees that none of the dynasty which he celebrates were perfectly right, has never been able to puzzle out wherein they were certainly wrong. Mr. Galt's country Provost, and still more his reverend Annalist of the Parish, should be also distinguished in this class. Wordsworth, himself, has assumed, in one of his affecting poems, the character of a sea-faring person retired to settle in the country.

These are, however, all characters of masquerade: we believe that of De Foe was entirely natural to him. The high-born Cavalier, for instance, speaks nearly the same species of language, and shows scarce a greater knowledge of society than Robinson Crusoe; only he has a cast of the grenadier about him, as the other has the trim of a seaman. It is greatly to be doubted whether De Foe could have changed his colloquial, circuitous, and periphrastic style for any other, whether more coarse or more elegant. We have little doubt it was connected with his nature, and the particular turn of his thoughts and ordinary expressions, and that he did not succeed so much by writing in an assumed manner, as by giving full scope to his own.

The subject is so interesting, that it is worth while examining it a little more closely, with which view we have reprinted, as illustrating our commentary on what may be called the plausible style of composition, "The True History of the Apparition of one Mrs. Veal the next day after her Death, to one Mrs. Bargrave, at Canterbury, the eighth of September, 1705, which Apparition recommends the perusal of Drelincourt's Book of Consolation against the Fears of Death." We are induced to this, because the account of the origin of the pamphlet is curious, the pamphlet itself short, and, though once highly popular, now little read or known, and particularly because De Foe has put in force, within these few pages, peculiar specimens of his art of recommending the most improbable narrative, by his specious and serious mode of telling it.

An adventurous bookseller had ventured to print a considerable edition of a work by the Reverend Charles Drelincourt, minister of the Calvinist Church in Paris, and translated by M. D'Assigny, under the title of the "Christian's Defence against the Fear of Death, with several directions how to prepare ourselves to die well," But however certain the prospect of death, it is not so agreeable (unfortunately) as to invite the eager contemplation of the public; and Drelincourt's book, being neglected, lay a dead stock on the hands of the publisher. In this emergency, he applied to De Foe to assist him (by dint of such means as were then, as well as now, pretty well understood in the literary world), in rescuing the unfortunate book from the literary death to which general neglect seemed about to consign it.

De Foe's genius and audacity devised a plan which, for assurance and ingenuity, defied even the powers of Mr. Puff in the Critic: for who but himself would have thought of summoning up a ghost from the grave to bear witness in favour of a halting body of divinity? There is a matter-of-fact, business-like style in the whole account of the transaction, which bespeaks ineffable powers of self-possession. The narrative is drawn up "by a gentleman, a Justice of Peace at Maidstone, in Kent, a very intelligent person." And, moreover, "the discourse is attested by a very sober and understanding gentlewoman, who lives in Canterbury, within a few doors of the house in which Mrs. Bargrave lives." The Justice believes his kinswoman to be of so discerning a spirit, as not to be put upon by any fallacy-and the kinswoman positively assures the Justice, "that the whole matter, as it is related and laid down, is really true, and what she herself heard, as near as may be, from Mrs. Bargrave's own mouth, who, she knows, had no reason to invent or publish such a story, or any design to forge and tell a lie, being a woman of so much honesty and virtue, and her whole life a course, as it were, of piety." Scepticism itself could not resist this triple court of evidence so artfully combined, the Justice attesting for the discerning spirit of the sober and understanding gentlewoman his kinswoman, and his kinswoman becoming bail for the veracity of Mrs. Bargrave. And here, gentle reader, admire the simplicity of those days. Had Mrs. Veal's visit to her friend happened in our time, the conductors of the daily press would have given the word, and seven gentlemen unto the said press belonging, would, with an obedient start, have made off for Kingston, for Canterbury, for Dover,-for Kamtschatka, if necessary,-to pose the Justice, cross-examine Mrs. Bargrave, confront the sober and understanding kinswoman, and dig Mrs. Veal up from her grave, rather than not get to the bottom of the story. But in our time we doubt and scrutinize; our ancestors wondered and believed.

Before the story is commenced, the understanding gentlewoman (not the Justice of Peace), who is the reporter, takes some pains to repel the objections made against the story by some of the friends of Mrs. Veal's brother, who consider the marvel as an aspersion on their family, and do what they can to laugh it out of countenance. Indeed, it is allowed, with admirable impartiality, that Mr. Veal is too much of a gentleman to suppose Mrs. Bargrave invented the story-scandal itself could scarce have supposed that although one notorious liar, who is chastised towards the conclusion of the story, ventures to throw out such an insinuation. No reasonable or respectable person, however, could be found to countenance the suspicion, and Mr. Veal himself