24 DE FOE’S POWER AS A REALIST.

teristic of his works of fiction, he gave in his celebrated “True Relation of
the Apparition of one Mrs. Veal, the next day after her death, to one Mrs.
Bargraye, at Canterbury ” (published in July 1706). Being prefixed to the
fourth edition of a somewhat dreary work, Drelincourt on “ Death,” it
raised the latter on the flood-tide of popularity, while its own merits as a
masterly piece of narrative were acknowledged by the best judges. The
incidents it relates are utterly improbable; yet are they told with such
exquisite simplicity, and with so subtle an accumulation of details, that he
who reads is almost forced to believe, in spite of his own judgment.* The
power which afterwards secured the fame of “ Robinson Crusoe ” is visible
on every page.

Of all the fictions, says an able writer.t which De Foe has succeeded in
palming off as truths, none is more instructive than that admirable ghost, Mrs.
Veal. It is, as it were, a hand-specimen, in which we may study his modus
operandi on a convenient scale. Like the sonnets of some great poets, it
contains in a few lines all the essential peculiarities of his art. The first
device which strikes us is his ingenious plan for manufacturing corrobora-
tive evidence. The ghost appears to Mrs. Bargrave. The story of the
apparition is told by a * very sober and understanding gentlewoman, who
lives within a few doors of Mrs. Bargrave;” and the character of this
sober gentlewoman is supported by the testimony of a justice of peace at
Maidstone, “a very intelligent person.” This elaborate chain of evidence
is intended to divert our attention from the obvious circumstance that the
whole story rests upon the authority of the anonymous person who tells us
of the sober gentlewoman, who supports Mrs. Bargrave, and is informed by
the intelligent justice.

Another stratagem, carried out with equal success, is the apparent im-
partiality of the narrator.

The author, says the writer already quoted. affects to tuke us into his
confidence, to make us privy in regard to the pros and cons in regard to his
own characters, till we are quite disarmed. The sober gentlewoman
vouches for Mrs. Bargrave; but Mrs. Bargrave is by no means allowed to
have it all her own way. Mr. Veal is brought in, apparently to throw dis-
credit on her character; but his appearance is so well managed, that its
effect is to render us readier than before to accept Mrs. Bargrave’s story.
“The argument is finally clenched by a decisive coincidence. The ghost
wears a silk dress. In the course of a long conversation, she incidentally
mentioned to Mrs. Bargrave that this was a scoured silk, newly made up.
When Mrs. Bargrave reported this remarkable circumstance to a certain
Mrs. Wilson, ‘You have certainly seen her,’ exclaimed that lady, ‘ for

* It is by no means impossible that De Foe himself accredited the possibility of such
a visitation, and that he advocated many of the theories now put forward as new by the
so-called Spiritualists.

t “Cornhill Magazine,” vol. xvii. pp. 295, 296.