[42]As an antidote to the attractions of Neville's tract it was powerless, and to-day it remains as much of a curiosity as it was in 1668, when it was written. Indeed, a question might be raised as to which tract was less intentionally a joke--Neville's "Isle of Pines," or our German's ponderous essay upon it? At least the scientific ignorance of the Englishman, perfectly evident from the start, is more entertaining than the pseudo-science of the German critic, who boldly asserts as impossible what has come to be a commonplace.{1} 1 Das verdachtige Pineser-Eylandd, No. 29 in the Bibliography. It it dedicated to Anthonio Goldbeck, Burgomaster of Altona, and the letter of dedication b dated at Hamburg, October 26, 1668. Hippe calls attention to the geography of the relation as not the least interesting of its features, for the neighborhood of the Island of Madagascar was used in other sea stories as a place of storm and catastrophe. "The ship on which Simplicissimus wished to return to Portugal, suffered shipwreck likewise near Madagascar, and the paradisiac island on which Grimmelshausen permits his hero finally to land in company with a carpenter, is also to be sought in this region. In precisely the same way the shipwreck of Sadeur,{1} the hero of a French Robinson Crusoe story, [43]happens on the coast of Madagascar, and from this was he driven in a southerly direction to the coast of the southern land." 1 La Terre Australe commue, a romance written by Gabriel de Foigny (pseud. J. Sadeur), describing the stay of Sadeur on the southern continent for more than thirty-five years, The original edition, made in Geneva in 1676, is said to contain "many impious and licentious passages which were omitted in the later editions." Sabin (xviii. 220) gives a list of editions, the first English translation appearing in 1693. It is possible that the author owed the idea of his work to Neville's pamphlet.