Defoe has been charged with surreptitiously obtaining and making an unfair use of this man’s papers; but there seems to be no ground whatever for the accusation. Selkirk’s story had been made public in several forms seven years at least before Robinson Crusoe was written, and it was free to Defoe or to any man to take it as the ground upon which to build a tale. And far from Selkirk’s papers having been traced into Defoe’s hands, it does not even appear that these pretended papers ever were in existence: indeed Selkirk seems, from the published accounts of him, to have been so much below the fictitious Crusoe in the extent of his resources, and the fertility of his ingenuity (and we say this with no desire to undervalue his active spirit and contented temper), that it is hardly possible that he should have furnished more than the first hint, which Defoe has expanded into so instructive, fascinating, and varied a story. The following lively criticism of this remarkable work is extracted from Dunlop’s History of Fiction:— “Defoe and Swift, though differing very widely in education, opinions, and character, have at the same time some strong points of resemblance. Both are remarkable for the unaffected simplicity of their narratives—both intermingle so many minute circumstances, and state so particularly names of persons, and dates, and places, that the reader is involuntarily surprised into a persuasion of their truth. It seems impossible that what is so artlessly told should be a fiction, especially as the narrators begin the account of their voyages with such references to persons living, or whom they assert to be alive, and whose place of residence is so accurately mentioned, that one is led to believe a relation must be genuine, which could, if false, have been so easily convicted of falsehood. The incidents too are so very circumstantial, that we think it impossible they could have been mentioned, except they had been real....” Speaking of the moral of Robinson Crusoe, he continues, “We are delighted with the spectacle of difficulty overcome, and with the power of human ingenuity and contrivance to provide not only accommodation but comfort, in the most unfavourable circumstances. 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