"The grand secret of his art, however, if art it can be called, and were not rather an instinct, consists doubtless in the astonishing minuteness of the details, and the circumstantial particularity with which everything is laid before us. It is by this, perhaps more than anything else, that fictitious narratives are distinguishable from the genuine memoirs of those who have been eyewitnesses of what they relate. The parts in the one case may be as probable as in the other, the descriptions as vivid and striking, the style as natural and unconstrained; still there is an indefinable something which seems to be wanting to the former, though we may not have remarked its presence in the latter. Some unimportant particular, some minute circumstances, which none but he who had seen it with his own eyes would have thought of remarking, will always serve, like the scarcely discernible lines on a genuine note, to distinguish between the true and the counterfeit. The eye of the imagination, however strong and piercing, cannot always pervade the whole scene, and see everything distinctly; the more prominent features, indeed, it may develope with the clearness and accuracy of an almost unclouded vision, but all besides is either obscured with mist, or lost in impenetrable shade; and he who paints from the ideal must consequently either leave these parts unfinished, or spread his colours at random. It is the singular merit of De Foe to have overcome this difficulty, and to have communicated to his fictitious narratives every characteristic mark by which we distinguish between real and pretended adventures. The whole scene lay expanded before him in the fulness of light and life, and, down to the minutest particular, everything is delineated with truth and accuracy. It is not necessary that we should have the light fall advantageously, or wink with our eyes, in order to make the delusion complete, by hiding the defects and softening down the harsh lines of the representation; the most penetrating gaze, aided by the strongest light, cannot detect the imposition, or distinguish between the shade and the substance. Writers of fiction may, in general, be said rather to shadow forth than fully to delineate their visions, either because they flit away too early, or are never seen with sufficient distinctness; like the first discoverers of countries, they trace out a few promontories on their chart, and give a faint outline of something indistinctly seen. In the solitude of his closet, De Foe could travel round the world in idea, seeing everything with the distinctness of natural vision, and noting everything with the minuteness of the most accurate observer. His chart presents us not merely with the bold headland, shooting forth into the deep, or the clearly defined mountain that rises into middle air behind; we have the whole coast fully and fairly traced out, with the soundings of every bay, the direction of every current, and the quarter of every wind that blows."
Sir Walter Scott says, "The fertility of De Foe was astonishing. He wrote on all occasions and on all subjects, and seemingly had little time for preparation on the subject in hand, but treated it from the stores which his memory retained of early reading, and such hints as he caught up in society, not one of which seems to have been lost upon him. His language is genuine English, often simple, even unto vulgarity, but always so distinctly impressive, that its very vulgarity has an efficacy in giving an air of truth or probability to the facts or sentiments it conveys. Exclusive of politics, De Foe's studies led chiefly to those popular narratives which are the amusement of children and the lower classes; those accounts of travellers who have visited remote countries; of voyagers who have made discoveries of new lands and strange nations; of pirates and buccaneers who have acquired great wealth by their desperate adventures on the ocean. There is reason to believe, from a passage in his Review, that he was acquainted with Dampier, a mariner, whose scientific skill in his profession, and power of literary composition were at that time rarely found in that profession, especially among those rough sons of the ocean who acknowledged no peace beyond the line, and had as natural an enmity to a South American Spaniard as a greyhound to a hare, and who, though distinguished by the somewhat milder term of buccaneer, were little better than absolute pirates. The English government, it is well known, were not, however, very active in destroying this class of adventurers, while they confined their depredations to the Dutch and Spaniards, and indeed seldom disturbed them if they returned from the roving life and sat down to enjoy their ill-gotten gains. The courage of these men, the wonderful risks they incurred, their hairbreadth escapes, the romantic countries through which they travelled, seemed to have had infinite charms for De Foe. All his works on this topic are entertaining in the highest degree, and remarkable for the accuracy with which he personates the character of a buccaneering adventurer. De Foe's general acquaintance with nautical affairs has not been doubted, as he is said never to misapply the various sea phrases, or display an ignorance unbecoming the character under which he wrote. He appears also to have been familiar with foreign countries, their produce, their manners, and government, and whatever rendered it easy or difficult to enter into trade with them. We may therefore conclude that Purchas's Pilgrims, Hakluyt's Voyages, and the other ancient authorities, had been curiously examined by him, as well as those of his friend Dampier, of Wafer, and others, who had been in the South Seas, whether as privateers, or, as it was then called, 'upon the account.'
"Shylock observes, that there are land thieves and water thieves; and as De Foe was familiar with the latter, so he was not without some knowledge of the practices and devices of the former. We are afraid we must impute to his long imprisonment the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the secrets of thieves and mendicants, their acts of plunder, concealment, and escape. But whatever way he acquired his knowledge of low life, De Foe certainly possessed it in the most extensive sense, and applied it in the composition of several works of fiction in the style termed by the Spaniards Gusto Picaresco, of which no man was ever a greater master. This class of fictitious narration may be termed the Romance of Roguery, the subjects being the adventures of thieves, rogues, vagabonds, swindlers, viragoes, and courtezans. The strange and blackguard scenes which De Foe describes, are fit to be compared to the Gipsy Boys of Murillo, which are so justly admired as being, in truth of conception and spirit of execution, the very chef-d'œuvre of art, however low and loathsome the originals from which they were taken.
"A third species of composition, to which the author's active and vigorous genius was peculiarly adapted, was the account of great national convulsions, whether by war, or by the pestilence, or the tempest. These are tales which are sure when even moderately well told, to arrest the attention, and which, narrated with that impression of reality which De Foe knew so well how to convey, make the hair bristle and the skin creep. In this manner he has written the Memoirs of a Cavalier, which have been often read and quoted as the real production of a real personage. Born himself almost immediately after the Restoration, De Foe must have known many of those who had been engaged in the civil turmoils of 1642-6, to which the period of these memoirs refers. He must have lived among them at the age when boys, such as we conceive De Foe must necessarily have been, cling to the knees of those who can tell them of the darings, the dangers of their youth, at a period when their own passions and views of pressing forward in life have not begun to operate upon their minds, and while they are still pleased to listen to the adventures which others have encountered on that stage which they themselves have not yet entered upon. The Memoirs of a Cavalier have certainly been enriched by some such anecdotes as were likely to fire De Foe's active and powerful imagination, and hint to him in what colours the subject ought to be treated. The contrast, for instance, between the soldiers of the celebrated Tilly and those of the illustrious Gustavus Adolphus, almost seems too minutely drawn to have been executed from anything short of oracular testimony. But De Foe's genius has shown, in this and other instances, how completely he could assume the character he describes.
"Another species of composition, for which this multifarious author showed a strong predilection, was that upon, theurgy, magic, ghost-seeing, witchcraft, and the occult sciences. De Foe dwells on such subjects with so much unction as to leave little doubt that he was to a certain point a believer in something resembling an immediate communication between the inhabitants of this world and of that which we shall in future inhabit. He is particularly strong on the subject of secret forebodings, mysterious impressions, bodements of good or evil, which arise in our own mind, but which yet seem impressed there by some external agent, and not to arise from the course of our natural reflections. * * * The general charm attached to the romances of De Foe is chiefly to be ascribed to the unequalled dexterity with which he has given an appearance of REALITY to the incidents which he narrates. Even De Foe's deficiencies in style, his homeliness of language, his rusticity of thought, expressive of what is called the Crassa Minerva, seem to claim credit for him as one who speaks the truth, the rather that we suppose he wants the skill to conceal or disguise it. It is greatly to be doubted whether De Foe could have changed his colloquial, circuitous, and periphrastic style for any other, more coarse or more elegant. We have little doubt it was connected with his nature, and the particular turn of his thoughts and ordinary expressions, and that he did not succeed so much by writing in an assumed manner, as by giving full scope to his own. The air of writing with all the plausibility of truth must, in almost every case, have its own peculiar value; as we admire the paintings of some Flemish artists, where though the subjects drawn are mean and disagreeable, and such as in nature we would not wish to study or look close upon, yet the skill with which they are represented by the painter gives an interest to the imitation upon canvass which the original entirely wants. But, on the other hand, when the power of exact and circumstantial delineation is applied to objects which we are anxiously desirous to see in their proper shape and colours, we have a double source of pleasure, both in the art of the painter, and in the interest which we take in the subject represented. Thus the style of probability with which De Foe invested his narrative was perhaps ill-bestowed, or rather wasted, upon some of the works which he thought proper to produce; but, on the other hand, the same talent throws an air of truth about the delightful history of Robinson Crusoe, which we never could have believed it possible to have united with so extraordinary a situation as is assigned to the hero. All the usual scaffolding and machinery employed in composing fictitious history are carefully discarded. The early incidents of the tale, which in ordinary works of invention are usually thrown out as pegs to hang the conclusion upon, are in this work only touched, and suffered to drop out of sight. Robinson, for example, never hears anything more of his elder brother, who enters Lockhart's dragoons in the beginning of the work, and who, in any common romance, would certainly have appeared before the conclusion. We lose sight at once and for ever of the interesting Xury; and the whole earlier adventures of our voyager vanish, not to be recalled to our recollection by the subsequent course of the story. His father, the good old merchant of Hull; all the other persons who have been originally active in the drama, vanish from the scene, and appear not again. This is not the case in the ordinary romance, where the author, however luxuriant his invention, does not willingly quit possession of the creatures of his imagination till they have rendered him some services upon the scene; whereas in common life it rarely happens that our early acquaintances exercise much influence upon the fortunes of our future life."
The popularity of De Foe as a writer, added to the circumstance that most of his writings appeared anonymously, have been the occasion of many works being attributed to him with which he had no concern; some in fact that are known as the works of other writers, and some that are altogether different, not only from his style of writing, but opposed to the principles which he advocated; and others which by no possibility he could have written, inasmuch as they relate to events and persons subsequent to his decease. In the following list care has been taken, so far as possible, to include such works only as are undoubtedly from his pen. It is proper to mention, however, that it does not include the whole of what might by a minute and careful investigation be satisfactorily identified to him, and that such examination would probably displace some of those here inserted, and add others not herein mentioned. In his Appeal to Honour and Justice, he alludes to some of his early works, without giving the exact titles by which they can be distinguished. The present list commences with the first work positively known to be his production.