40 INFERIORITY OF THE SEQUEL.

the author had supplied the story out of his invention, they take from it the
improvement which alone recommends that invention to wise and good
men. ‘he injury these men do the proprietor of this work is a practice all
honest men abhor; and he believes he may challenge them to show the
difference between that and robbing on the highway, or breaking open a
house. If they can’t show any difference in the crime, they will find it
hard to show any difference in the punishment. And he will answer for it
that nothing shall be wanting on his part to do them justice.”

Notwithstanding this ingenious pleading, the public fully understood that
De Foe, and De Foe alone, was the author and “ inventor” of “ Robinson
Crusoe,” whose popularity becameso extensive thata Tory pamphleteer, named
Gildon, availed himself of it to secure a reception for his scurrilous attack
on De Foe: ‘The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Mr. D De
F. , of London, Hosier, who has lived above fifty years by himself, in the
Kingdoms of North and South Britain. The various Shapes he has appeared
in, and the Discoveries he has made for the Benefit of his Country. In a
Dialogue between Him, Robinson Crusoe, and his Man Friday. With
remarks, Serious and Comical, upon the Life of Crusoe.” But neither
Gildon nor any other assailant could prevent the public from reading and
admiring the narrative of the Solitary in his island fastness, and his later ad-
ventures in many lands; and its reception continued to be so enthusiastic that
De Foe ventured, in August 1720, on once more appearing before the public
under the old familiar colours, drawing, as it were, the moral to the story, in
a book which he entitled “ Serious Reflections during the Life and Surpris-
ing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: With his Vision of the Angelick World.”

As the second part was inferior to the first, so was the third inferior to the
second ; and it has so entirely dropped out of public favour that I believe to
most readers of ‘ Robinson Crusoe”’ its existence is wholly unknown. A
recent biographer asserts that “ it contains profound thought, great wisdom,
morality of the highest character, an extensive acquaintance with metaphysi-
cal subtleties, and is pervaded with a solemn tone of religious instruction,
doctrinal and practical.” I confess that my estimate of it is not so high.
I admit its devout and earnest tone; but in a work of this kind, De Foe’s
plain, homely, matter-of-fact style palls upon the reader; and as his reflec-
tions are neither very deep nor very broad, and do not come to us recom-
mended by any beauty of imagery or subtlety of fancy, I cannot but think the
third part of ‘‘ Robinson Crusoe” very dreary reading.

In October 1719, De Foe published ‘The Dumb Philosopher; or, Great
Britain’s Wonder,’’—an account of an ideal Cornishman, one Dickory Cronke,
who ‘was born dumb, and continued so for fifty-eight years.” The subject
seems to have had a peculiar attraction for our author, since, in 1720, he
came before the public with the ‘‘ History of the Life and Adventures of Mr.
Duncan Campbell;” who, however, was not only dumb but deaf. It was
founded on the career of a celebrated fortune-teller of the time, who laid