ON ‘“‘ ROBINSON CRUSOE.” 83

character of Friday is, nevertheless, extremely pleasing; and the whole sub-
sequent history of the shipwrecked Spaniards and the pirate vessel is highly
interesting. Here certainly the “ Memoirs of Robinson Crusoe” ought to
have stopped. The Second Part, though containing many passages which dis-
play the author’s genius, does not rise high in character above the “‘ Memoirs
of Captain’ Singleton,” or the other imaginary voyages of the author.

There scarce exists a work so popular as ‘‘ Robinson Crusoe.” It is read
eagerly by young people; and there is hardly an elf so devoid of imagination
as not to have supposed for himself a solitary island in which he could act
“Robinson Crusoe,” were it but in the corner of the nursery. To many it
has given the decided turn of their lives, by sending them to sea. For the
young mind is much less struck with the hardships of the anchorite’s situa-
tion than with the animating exertions which he makes to overcome them;
and “ Robinson Crusoe” produces the same impression upon an adventurous
spirit which the “ Book of Martyrs” would do on a young devotee, or the
“ Newgate Calendar ” upon an acolyte of Bridewell—both of which students
are less terrified by the horrible manner in which the tale terminates, than
animated by sympathy with the saints or depredators who are the heroes of
their volume. Neither does a reperusal of ‘“ Robinson Crusoe,” at a more
advanced age, diminish our early impressions. The situation is such as
every man may make his own; and, being possible in itself, is, by the
exquisite art of the narrator, rendered as probable as it is interesting. It
has the merit, too, of that species of accurate painting which can be looked
at again and again with new pleasure.

Neither has the admiration of the work been confined to England, though
Robinson Crusoe himself—with his rough good sense, his prejudices, and
his obstinate determination not to sink under evils which can be surpassed
by exertion—forms no bad specimen of the “ True-born Englishman.” The
rage for imitating a work so popular seems to have risen to a degree of
frenzy ; and, by a mistake not peculiar to this particular class of the servum
pecus, the imitators did not attempt to apply De Foe’s manner of managing
the narrative to some situation of a different kind, but seized upon and cari-
catured the principal incidents of the shipwrecked mariner and the solitary
island. It is computed that within forty years from the appearance of the
original work, no less than forty-one different ‘‘ Robinsons” appeared,
besides fifteen other imitations, in which other titles were used. Finally—
though, perhaps, it is no great recommendation—the anti-social philosopher
Rousseau will allow no other book than “ Robinson Crusoe” in the hands
of Emilius. Upon the whole, the work is as unlikely to lose its celebrity

as it is to be equalled in its peculiar character by any other of similar
excellence,

The reader will not be displeased; perhaps, to see what Rousseau’s opinion
really was.

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