the process was _there_; the instances of it were highly reputed and widely known. It must in almost any case have gone hard but a further step still would be taken. It was actually taken by the person who had suggested the periodical essay itself. Much has been written about Defoe, but, curiously enough, the least part of what has been written about him has concerned the very part of him that is read--his novels. Nay, occasional eccentrics, and not only these, have shown a sort of disposition to belittle him as a novelist: indeed the stock description of Richardson as the Father of the English Novel almost pointedly rules Defoe out. Yet further, the most adequate and intelligent appreciation of his novel work itself has too often been mainly confined to what is no doubt a subject of exceeding interest--the special means by which he secures the attention, and procures the delight, of his readers. We shall have to deal with this too. But the point to which it is wished to draw special attention now is different, and we may reach it best by the ordinary "statement of case." Almost everybody who knows any literary history, knows that the book by which, after thirty or forty years of restless publication in all sorts of prose and rhyme, Defoe niched himself immovably in English literature, was a new departure by almost an old man. He was all but, if not quite, sixty when _Robinson Crusoe_ appeared: and a very few following years saw the appearance of his pretty voluminous "minor" novels. The subject of the first every one knows without limitation: it is not so certain, though vigorous efforts have been made to popularise the others, that even their subjects are clearly known to many people. _Captain Singleton_ (1720), _Moll Flanders_, and _Colonel Jack_ (both 1722) are picaresque romances with tolerably sordid heroes and heroines, but with the style entirely rejuvenated by Defoe's secret. _Roxana_ (1724), a very puzzling book which is perhaps not entirely his writing, is of the same general class: the _Voyage round the World_ (1725), the least interesting, but not _un_interesting, is exactly what its title imports,--in other words, the "stuffing" of the _Robinson_ pie without the game. The _Memoirs of a Cavalier_ (1720) approach the historical novel (or at least the similar "stuffing" of that) and have raised curious and probably insoluble questions as to whether they are inventions at all--questions intimately connected with that general one referred to above. One or two minor things are sometimes added to the list: but they require no special notice. The seven books just mentioned are Defoe's contribution to the English novel. Let us consider the quality of this contribution first--and then the means used to attain it.