Robinson Crusoe.—But none of these things, nor all combined, would have given to Defoe that immortality which is his as the author of Robinson Crusoe. Of the groundwork of the story not much need be said.
Alexander Selkirk, the sailing-master of an English privateer, was set ashore, in 1704, at his own request, on the uninhabited island Juan Fernandez, which lies several hundred miles from the coast of Chili, in the Pacific Ocean. He was supplied with clothing and arms, and remained there alone for four years and four months. It is supposed that his adventures suggested the work. It is also likely that Defoe had read the journal of Peter Serrano, who, in the sixteenth century, had been marooned in like manner on a desolate island lying off the mouth of the Oroonoque (Orinoco). The latter locality was adopted by Defoe. But it is not the fact or the adventures which give power to Robinson Crusoe. It is the manner of treating what might occur to any fancy, even the dullest. The charm consists in the simplicity and the verisimilitude of the narrative, the rare adaptation of the common man to his circumstances, his projects and failures, the birth of religion in his soul, his conflicting hopes and fears, his occasional despair. We see in him a brother, and a suffering one. We live his life on the island; we share his terrible fear at the discovery of the footprint, his courage in destroying the cannibal savages and rescuing the victim. Where is there in fiction another man Friday? From the beginning of his misfortunes until he is again sailing for England, after nearly thirty years of captivity, he holds us spellbound by the reality, the simplicity, and the pathos of his narrative; but, far beyond the temporary illusion of the modern novel, everything remains real: the shipwrecked mariner spins his yarns in sailor fashion, and we believe and feel every word he says. The book, although wonderfully good throughout, is unequal: the prime interest only lasts until he is rescued, and ends with his embarkation for England. The remainder of his travels becomes, as a narrative, comparatively tiresome and tame; and we feel, besides, that, after his unrivalled experience, he should have remained in England, "the observed of all observers." Yet it must be said that we are indebted to his later journey in Spain and France, his adventures in the Eastern Seas, his caravan ride overland from China to Europe, for much which illustrates the manners and customs of navigation and travel in that day.
Robinson Crusoe stands alone among English books, a perennial fountain of instruction and pleasure. It aids in educating each new generation: children read it for its incident; men to renew their youth; literary scholars to discover what it teaches of its time and of its author's genius. Its influence continues unabated; it incites boys to maritime adventure, and shows them how to use in emergency whatever they find at hand. It does more: it tends to reclaim the erring by its simple homilies; it illustrates the ruder navigation of its day; shows us the habits and morals of the merchant marine, and the need and means of reforming what was so very bad.
Defoe's style is clear, simple, and natural. He wrote several other works, of which few are now read. Among these are the Account of the Plague, The Life and Piracies of Captain Singleton, and The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders. He died on the 24th of April, 1731.
Richardson.—Samuel Richardson, who, notwithstanding the peculiar merits of Defoe, must be called the Father of Modern Prose Fiction, was born in Derbyshire, in 1689. The personal events of his life are few and uninteresting. A carpenter's son, he had but little schooling, and owed everything to his own exertions. Apprenticed to a printer in London, at the age of fifteen, he labored assiduously at his trade, and it rewarded him with fortune: he became, in turn, printer of the Journals of the House of Commons, Master of the Stationers' Company, and Printer to the King. While young, he had been the confidant of three young women, and had written or corrected their love-letters for them. He seems to have had great fluency in letter-writing; and being solicited by a publisher to write a series of familiar letters on the principal concerns of life, which might be used as models,—a sort of "Easy Letter-Writer,"—he began the task, but, changing his plan, he wrote a story in a series of letters. The first volume was published in 1741, and was no less a work than Pamela. The author was then fifty years old; and he presents in this work a matured judgment concerning the people and customs of the day,—the printer's notions of the social condition of England,—shrewd, clever, and defective.
Wearied as the world had been by what Sir Walter Scott calls the "huge folios of inanity" which had preceded him, the work was hailed with delight. There was a little affectation; but the sentiment was moral and natural. Ladies carried Pamela about in their rides and walks. Pope, near his end, said it was a better moral teacher than sermons: Sherlock recommended it from the pulpit.
Pamela, and Other Novels.—Pamela is represented as a poor servant-maid, but beautiful and chaste, whose honor resists the attack of her dissolute master, and whose modesty and virtue overcome his evil nature. Subdued and reclaimed by her chastity and her charms, he reforms, and marries her. Some pictures which are rather warmly colored and indelicate in our day were quite in keeping with the taste of that time, and gave greater effect to the moral lesson assigned to be taught.
In his next work, Clarissa Harlowe, which appeared in 1749, he has drawn the picture of a perfect woman preserving her purity amid seductive gayeties, and suffering sorrows to which those of the Virgin Martyr are light. We have, too, an excellent portraiture of a bold and wicked, but clever and gifted man—Lovelace.
His third and last novel, Sir Charles Grandison, appeared in 1753. The hero, Sir Charles, is the model of a Christian gentleman; but is, perhaps, too faultless for popular appreciation.
In his delineations of humbler natures,—country girls like Pamela,—Richardson is happiest: in his descriptions of high life he has failed from ignorance. He was not acquainted with the best society, and all his grandees are stilted, artificial, and affected; but even in this fault he is of value, for he shows us how men of his class at that time regarded the society of those above them.