the ordinary things about him, as if he had been sunk in thought.  The man frequently bewailed his return to the world, which could not, he said, with all its enjoyments, restore him to the tranquillity of his solitude.”  Steele adds another very curious change in this wild man, which occurred some time after he had seen him.  “Though I had frequently conversed with him, after a few months’ absence, he met me in the street, and though he spoke to me, I could not recollect that I had seen him.  Familiar converse in this town had taken off the loneliness of his aspect, and quite altered the air of his face.”  De Foe could not fail of being struck by these interesting particulars of the character of Selkirk; but probably it was another observation of Steele which threw the germ of Robinson Crusoe into the mind of De Foe.  “It was matter of great curiosity to hear him, as he was a man of sense, give an account of the different revolutions in his own mind in that long solitude.”

The work of De Foe, however, was no sudden ebullition:  long engaged in political warfare, condemned to suffer imprisonment, and at length struck by a fit of apoplexy, this unhappy and unprosperous man of genius on his recovery was reduced to a comparative state of solitude.  To his injured feelings and lonely contemplations, Selkirk in his Desert Isle, and Steele’s vivifying hint, often occurred; and to all these we perhaps owe the instructive and delightful tale, which shows man what he can do for himself, and what the fortitude of piety does for man.  Even the personage of Friday is not a mere coinage of his brain:  a Mosquito Indian, described by Dampier, was the prototype.  Robinson Crusoe was not given to the world till 1719, seven years after the publication of Selkirk’s adventures.[143] Selkirk could have no claims on De Foe; for he had only supplied the man of genius with that which lies open to all; and which no one had, or perhaps could have, converted into the wonderful story we possess but De Foe himself.  Had De Foe not written Robinson Crusoe, the name and story of Selkirk had been passed over like others of the same sort; yet Selkirk has the merit of having detailed his own history, in a manner so interesting, as to have attracted the notice of Steele, and to have inspired the genius of De Foe.

After this, the originality of Robinson Crusoe will no longer be suspected; and the idle tale which Dr. Beattie has repeated of Selkirk having supplied the materials of his story to De Foe, from which our author borrowed his work, and published for his own profit, will be finally put to rest.  This is due to the injured honour and genius of De Foe.

CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT DRAMAS.