James Stanier Clarke, a Navy Chaplain (1765-1834), published, in 1805,
Naufragia, or Historical Memoirs of Shipwrecks
. In that work he does not himself attribute the
first
volume of
Robinson Crusoe
to Lord Oxford. The following is the passage to which Byron refers (
Naufragia
, vol. i. pp. 12, 13):
"But before I conclude this Section, I wish to make the admirers of this Nautical Romance mindful of a Report, which prevailed many years ago; that Defoe, after all, was not the real author of Robinson Crusoe. This assertion is noticed in an article in the seventh volume of the Edinburgh Magazine [vol. vii. p. 269]. Dr. Towers, in his Life of Defoe in the Biographia, is inclined to pay no attention to it; but was that writer aware of the following letter, which also appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1788? (vol. lviii. part i. p. 208). At least no notice is taken of it in his Life of Defoe:
It is impossible for me to enter on a discussion of this literary subject; though I thought the circumstance ought to be more generally known. And yet I must observe, that I always discerned a very striking falling off between the composition of the first and second volumes of this Romance—they seem to bear evident marks of having been the work of different writers."'Dublin, February 25.
Mr. Urban,—In the course of a late conversation with a nobleman of the first consequence and information in this kingdom, he assured me, that Mr. Benjamin Holloway, of Middleton Stony, assured him, some time ago: that he knew for fact, that the celebrated Romance of 'Robinson Crusoe' was really written by the Earl of Oxford, when confined in the Tower of London: that his Lordship gave the manuscript to Daniel Defoe, who frequently visited him during his confinement: and that Defoe, having afterwards added the second volume, published the whole as his own production. This anecdote I would not venture to send to your valuable magazine, if I did not think my information good, and imagine it might be acceptable to your numerous readers, not-withstanding the work has heretofore been generally attributed to the latter. W. W.'"