DE FOE’S REAL STRENGTH. 81

conception ; how he was never tempted to indulge in any glowing delinea-
tion of tropical landscapes; how, from first to last, Fancy, with its many-
coloured gleams, should be so wholly absent from the picture. Almost the
_ only dramatic stroke in the romance—and its effect is so great that we
wonder its inventor refrained from further employment of a power which
he evidently possessed—is Crusoe’s discovery of the unknown footprint on
the sandy shore. Otherwise, the narrative flows on with an evenness, a
method, and a prosaic regularity which are absolutely wonderful, and which
so impose upon the reader that he accepts the most startling adventures as
if they were the ordinary events of life.

It seems to us that all De Foe’s strength lay in this inventiveness. His was
not the power of analyzing character. He was incapable of any psychological
development of passion or emotion. Not one of his heroes or heroines lives
in our recollection—except, indeed, Crusoe and Friday; and these, not
because they are boldly drawn, but from their association with certain
romantic circumstances. If we speak of Fielding, we immediately recall, with
all the sharpness and freshness of well-known portraits, Joseph Andrews,
and Parson Adams, and Lady Bellasis; Richardson reminds us of Lovelace,
and Grandison, and Clarissa; Scott, of Dandie Dinmont, Lucy Ashton,
Nicol Jarvie, Counsellor Pleydel, Dirck Hatteraick, Amy Robsart, and a
hundred other characters, who have become the familiar friends of -genera-
tions of readers. But when we think of De Foe, it is to remember the
striking incidents which make up his stories, and to admire the vraisem-
blance with which his minute genius has invested them. Thus, then, he
stands wholly apart from the other illustrious names of English fiction,
occupying a field which—but for the labours of a recent follower, William
Gilbert—he would occupy alone,

An immense mass of criticism has been accumulated in reference to
“Robinson Crusoe ;”’ and as it is always interesting to observe how a fine
work of art is regarded by competent judges, I shall select from it a few
specimens. First, I propose to condense Sir Walter Scott’s admirable
remarks.

FROM SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The style of probability with which De Foe invested his narratives was
perhaps ill bestowed, or rather wasted, upon some of the works which he
thought proper to produce, and cannot recommend to us their subject; but,
on the other hand, the same talent throws an air of truth about the delightful
history of ‘Robinson Crusoe,” which we never could have believed it pos-
sible to have united with so extraordinary a situation as is assigned to the
hero. All the usual scaffolding and machinery employed in composing
fictitious history are carefully discarded. The early incidents of the tale,
which in ordinary works of invention are usually thrown out as pegs to hang
the conclusion upon, are in this work only touched upon, and suffered to drop