Mr. Gladstone is the originator of the We can find it in our hearts to hope that scheme, but it may be hoped that even be- not even the great political interests which fore his anticipated return to power Parlia- just now press for adjustment will be sufment may initiate its adoption. A Bill is fered to interfere with the early passing already drafted for the purpose, and it is of this eagerly-expected measure. It is founded upon the inquiries of one of the not a matter calling for political confimost efficient of our public officers, Mr. dence, but for administrative energy, and Scudamore. This gentleman was author this will be forthcoming whenever the enof the details of the Post Office Savings' terprise is sanctioned by Government. Bank, and he has now once more under- As the proposed acquisition of the lines is taken some pioneering which is likely to not to be compulsory, there can hardly be precede a great advance in civilisation. even a discussion upon any point of princiThe telegraph system of this country is a ple; and we would fain believe that when disgrace to joint-stock enterprise. It is Mr. Hunt and Mr. Sclater-Booth dear, it is irregular, it is incomplete. Those ready, Parliament will be found perfectly who use it find it full of vexations and in-willing.

From The Cornhill Magazine.
DE FOE'S NOVELS.

enter the hole, or as we might rather say, the key refuses to enter the lock, and the gates of glory remain obstinately closed. Now it may be that the felicitous choice of situation to which Lamb refers gave just the turn which fitted the key to the lock; and it is little use to plead that Roxana, Colonel Jack, and others might have done the same trick if only they had received a little filing, or some slight change in shape: a shoemaker might as well argue that if you had only one toe less his shoes wouldn't pinch you.

ACCORDING to the high authority of Charles Lamb, it has sometimes happened "that from no inferior merit in the rest, but from some superior good fortune in the choice of a subject, some single work" (of a particular author's)" shall have been suffered to eclipse, and cast into the shade, the deserts of its less fortunate brethren." And after quoting the case of Bunyan's Holy War as compared with the Pilgrim's Prog To leave the unsatisfactory ground of ress, he adds that "in no instance has this metaphor, we may find out, on examination, excluding partiality been exerted with more that De Foe had discovered in Robinson unfairness than against what may be termed Crusoe precisely the field in which his talthe secondary novels or romances of De ents could be most effectually applied; and Foe." He proceeds to declare that there that a very slight alteration in the subjectare at least four other fictitious narratives matter might change the merit of his work by the same writer, Roxana, Singleton, to a disproportionate extent. The more Moll Flanders, and Colonel Jack, which special the idiosyncrasy upon which a man's possess an interest not inferior to Robinson literary success is founded, the greater, of Crusoe,"except what results from a less course, the probability that a small change felicitous choice of situation." Granting will disconcert him. A man who can only most unreservedly that the same hand is perform upon the drum will have to wait perceptible in the minor novels as in Robin- for certain combinations of other instruments son Crusoe, and that they bear at every before his special talent can be turned to acpage the most unequivocal symptoms of. De count. Now, the talent in which De Foe Foe's workmanship, we venture to doubt surpasses all other writers is just one of the "partiality" and the "unfairness" of those peculiar gifts which must wait for a fapreferring to them their more popular rival. vourable chance. When a gentleman, in a The instinctive judgment of the world is not fairy story, has a power of seeing a hundred really biassed by anything except the intrin- miles, or covering seven leagues at a stride, sic power exerted by a book over its sympa- we know that an opportunity will speedily thies; and as in the long run it has honoured occur for putting his faculties to use. Robinson Crusoe, in spite of the critics, and the gentleman with the seven-leagued boots has comparatively neglected Roxana and is useless when the occasion offers itself for the companion stories, there is probably telescopic vision, and the eyes are good for some good cause for the distinction. The nothing without the power of locomotion. apparent injustice to books resembles what To De Foe, if we may imitate the language we often see in the case of men. A. B. be- of the Arabian Nights, was given a tongue comes Lord Chancellor, whilst C. D. remains to which no one could listen without believfor years a briefless barrister; and yet for ing every word that he uttered a qualifithe life of us we cannot tell but that C. D. cation, by the way, which would serve its is the abler man of the two. Perhaps he owner far more effectually in this commonwas wanting in some one of the less conspic- place world than swords of sharpness or uous elements that are essential to a success-cloaks of darkness, or other fairy parapher ful career; he said, "Open, wheat?" nalia. In other words, he had the most marinstead of " Open, sesame!" and the barriers vellous power ever known of giving verisiremained unaffected by his magic. The or- militude to his fictions; or, in other words dinary metaphor about the round pegs and again, he had the most amazing talent on the square holes requires to be supplemented. record for telling lies. We have all read For a second-rate success it is enough to fix how the History of the Plague, the Memoirs a round peg, with more or less accuracy, of a Cavalier, and even, it is said, Robinson into a round hole of about the right size; but Crusoe, have succeeded in passing themfor one of those successes which make a man selves off for veritable narratives. A more famous at a blow, you have to find a queer- curious case is that of the Memoirs of Capshaped peg to match some strangely polygo- tain Carleton, which Dr. Johnson accepted nal hole to a nicety. If the least corner as genuine, but which has always passed for runs out at a wrong angle the peg refuses to De Foe's. Lord Stanhope, however, in a,

But

note to his War of the Succession in Spain, son who appeared to me in Canada!" declares his belief in its authenticity, principally, it seems, on the ground of a discovery that a Captain Carleton was really taken prisoner, as is related in the memoirs, at the siege of Denia, in Spain. It is still, however, possible, as the internal evidence would seem to suggest, that De Foe made use of the real Captain Carleton's papers as a foundation, or even as the substance of his narrative. In any case, it is as characteristic that a genuine narrative should be attributed to De Foe, as that De Foe's narrative should be taken as genuine. We may add an odd testimony to De Foe's powers as a liar (a word for which there is, unfortunately, no equivalent that does not imply some blame) of later occurrence. Mr. M'Queen, quoted in Captain Burton's Nile Basin, names Captain Singleton as a genuine account of travels in Central Africa, and seriously mentions De Foe's imaginary pirate as "a claimant for the honour of the discovery of the sources of the White Nile."

Many people are diverted from the weak part of the story by this ingenious confirmation, and, in their surprise at the coherence of the narrative, forget that the narrative itself rests upon entirely anonymous evidence. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link; but if you show how admirably the last few are united together, half the world will forget to test the security of the equally essential parts which are kept out of sight. De Foe generally repeats a similar trick in the prefaces of his fictions. ""Tis certain," he says, in the Memoirs of a Cavalier, "no man could have given a description of his retreat from Marston Moor to Rochdale, and thence over the moors to the North, in so apt and proper terms, unless he had really travelled over the ground he describes," which, indeed, is quite true, but by no means proves that the journey was made by a fugitive from that particular battle. He separates himself more ostentatiously from the supposititious author by Some of the literary artifices to which praising his admirable manner of relating De Foe owed his power of producing this the memoirs, and the "wonderful variety of illusion are sufficiently plain. Of all the incidents with which they are beautified ;” fictions which he succeeded in palming off and, with admirable impudence, assures us for truths, none is more instructive than that they are written in so soldierly a style, that admirable ghost, Mrs. Veal. It is, as that it "seems impossible any but the very it were, a hand-specimen, in which we may person who was present in every action study his modus operandi on a convenient here related was the relater of them." In scale. Like the sonnets of some great poets, the preface to Roxana, he acts, with equal it contains in a few lines all the essential spirit, the character of an impartial person, peculiarities of his art, and an admirable giving us the evidence on which he is himcommentary has been appended to it by self convinced of the truth of the story, as Sir Walter Scott. The first device which though he would, of all things, refrain from strikes us is his ingenious plan for manu- pushing us unfairly for our belief. The facturing corroborative evidence. The writer, he says, took the story from the ghost appears to Mrs. Bargrave. The story lady's own mouth; he was, of course, obliged of the apparition is told by a very sober to disguise names and places; but was himand understanding gentlewoman, who lives self "particularly acquainted with this within a few doors of Mrs. Bargrave; " lady's first husband, the brewer, an 1 with and the character of this sober gentlewoman his father, and also with his bad circumstanis supported by the testimony of a justice of ces, and knows that first part of the story.” peace at Maidstone, "a very intelligent The rest we must, of course, take upon the person." This elaborate chain of evidence lady's own evidence, but less unwillingly as is intended to divert our attention from the the first is thus corroborated. We cannot obvious circumstance that the whole story venture to suggest to so calm a witness that rests upon the authority of the anonymous he has invented both the lady and the writperson who tells us of the sober gentlewo- er of her history; and, in short, that when man, who supports Mrs. Bargrave, and is he says that A. says that B. says something, confirmed by the intelligent justice. Sim- it is, after all, merely the anonymous ple as the artifice appears, it is one which who is speaking. In giving us his authoriis constantly used in supernatural stories of ty for Moll Flanders, he ventures upon the the present day. One of the commonest of more refined art of throwing a little disthose improving legends tells how a ghost credit upon the narrator's veracity. She appeared to two officers in Canada, and professes to have abandoned her evil ways, how, subsequently, one of the officers met but, as he tel's us with a kind of aside, and the ghost's twin brother in London, and as it were cautioning us against over-increstraightway exclaimed, "You are the per-dulity, it seems" (a phrase itself suggest

66

66

"be"

story, who could have had no conceivable motive for inventing such a fiction. The argument is finally clenched by a decisive coincidence. The ghost wears a silk dress. In the course of a long conversation, she incidentally mentioned to Mrs. Bargrave that this was a scoured silk, newly made up. When Mrs. Bargrave reported this remark

ing the impartial looker-on) that in her old age "she was not so extraordinary a penitent as she was at first; it seems only" (for, after all, you mustn't make too much of my insinuations)" that indeed she always spoke with abhorrence of her former life." So we are left in a qualified state of confidence, as if we had been talking about one of his patients with the wary director of a reform-able circumstance to a certain Mrs. Wilson,

atory.

"You have certainly seen her," exclaimed that lady, "for none knew but Mrs. Veal and myself that the gown had been scoured." To this crushing piece of evidence, it seems that neither Mr. Veal nor the notorious liar could invent any sufficient reply.

This last touch, which is one of De Foe's favourite expedients, is most fully exemplified in the story of Mrs. Veal. The author affects to take us into his confidence, to make us privy to the pros and cons in regard to the veracity of his own characters, till we are quite disarmed. The sober gentle One can almost fancy De Foe chuckling woman vouches for Mrs. Bargrave; but as he concocted the refinements of this most Mrs. Bargrave is by no means allowed to marvellous narrative. The whole artifice, have it all her own way. One of the ghost's so far as we have traced it hitherto, is, communications related to the disposal of a indeed, of a simple kind. Lord Sundercertain sum of 10l. a year, of which Mrs. land, according to Macaulay, once ingeniBargrave, according to her own account, ously defended himself against a charge of could have known nothing, except, by this treachery, by asking whether it was possisupernatural intervention. Mrs. Veal's ble that any man should be so base as to do friends, however, tried to throw doubt upon that which he was, in fact, in the constant the story of her appearance, considering habit of doing. De Foe asks us in subthat it was in some way disreputable for a stance, Is it conceivable that any man should decent woman to go abroad after her death. tell stories so elaborate, so complex, with One of them, therefore, declared that Mrs. so many unnecessary details, with so many Bargrave was a liar, and that she had, in inclinations of evidence this way and that, fact, known of the 10l. beforehand. On the unless the stories are true? We instincother hand, the person who thus attacked tively answer, that it is, in fact, inconceivaMrs. Bargrave had himself the "reputation ble; and, even apart from any such refineof a notorious liar." Mr. Veal, the ghost's ments as we have noticed, the circumstanbrother, was too much of a gentleman to tiality of the stories is quite sufficient to make such gross imputations. He confined catch an unwary critic. It is, indeed, perhimself to the more moderate assertion that fectly easy to tell a story which shall be Mrs. Bargrave had been crazed by a bad mistaken for a bona fide narrative, if only husband. He maintained that the story we are indifferent to such considerations must be a mistake, because, just before her as making it interesting or artistically satisdeath, his sister had declared that she had factory. We may pledge our words that nothing to dispose of. This statement, the following narrative is false from beginhowever, may be reconciled with the ghost's ning to end; and yet, if any of our readers remarks about the 10l., because she obvi- read it in a newspaper, or heard it told ously mentioned such a trifle merely by viva voce, they would probably receive it way of a token of the reality of her appear- without hesitation: "On the 8th of Januance. Mr. Veal, indeed, makes rather aary last we were walking down the Strand. better point by stating that a certain purse Just before us was an old woman, in a red of gold mentioned by the ghost was found, shawl, and with a large umbrella. We had not in the cabinet where she told Mrs. Bar- not time to remark the other details of her grave that she had placed it, but in a comb-dress. Just as she stepped upon the crossbox. Yet, again, Mr. Veal's statement is ing where Craven Street joins the Strand, here rather suspicious, for it is known that a hansom cab, driven by a man with large Mrs. Veal was very particular about her cabinet, and would not have let her gold out of it. We are left in some doubts by this conflict of evidence, although the obvious desire of Mr. Veal to throw discredit on the story of his sister's appearance rather inclines us to believe in Mrs. Bargrave's

black whiskers, whose number began with
the figures 118, came up Craven Street at
a rate of eight miles an hour, and not ob
serving the old woman
but it is un-
necessary to continue the narrative. It is
a curious and interesting experiment, from
which, on moral grounds, we must, of

mystification. In the latest instance, it is seen, the pamphlet called What if the Pretender Comes? was written in such obvious irony, that the mistake of his intentions must have been wilful. The other, and better known performance, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, seems really to have imposed upon his readers. The case is much as if Mr. Bright should have been prosecuted, first, for having assumed the character of a follower of Dr. Pusey, and secondly, for having assumed that of a supporter of Lord Derby; and we must suppose that he had, in the first case at least, put on the mask so successfully that the genuine High Churchmen were fairly taken

course, dissuade our readers, to try what that which he afterwards practised in may be called the force of conviction which fiction. On both occasions he was punished belongs to bare assertion. Tell a large for assuming a character for purposes of company that the Emperor Napoleon has landed with 100,000 men at Dover; or that a heavy dining-room table has risen into the air without being touched, and rapped out a lively tune against the chandelier, and the odds are that half of them will believe you. Indeed, so simple are mankind, in spite of many newspapers, that most people will take a thing as gospel truth, simply on the score of having read it in print. We cannot, then, take the mere fact of producing a truthful narrative as, of itself, very remarkable; if the story is not too obviously moulded so as to produce a given result, or is enforced with a sufficient number of irrelevant details, the feat, such as it is, may be pretty certainly per-in, and were only roused from their deluformed. Sometimes, indeed, De Foe seems to overreach himself. Colonel Jack, at the end of a long career, tells us how one of his boyish companions stole certain articles at a fair, and gives us the list, of which this is a part:"5thly, a silver box, with 7s. in small silver; 6, a pocket-handkerchief; 7, another; 8, a jointed baby, and a little looking-glass." The affectation of extreme precision, especially in the charming item "another," destroys the perspective of the story. We are listening to a contemporary, not to an old man giving us his fading recollections of a disreputable childhood.

sion by discovering the fearful scrape into which their false guide had led them. It is difficult in these days of toleration to imagine that any one can have taken the violent suggestions of the Shortest Way as put forward seriously. To those who might say that persecuting the Dissenters was cruel, says De Foe, "I answer, 'tis cruelty to kill a snake or a toad in cold blood, but the poison of their nature makes it a charity to our neighbours to destroy those creatures, not for any personal injury received, but for prevention: Serpents, toads, and vipers, &c., are noxious to the body, and poison the sensiThe peculiar merit, then, of De Foe must tive life: these poison the soul, corrupt our be sought in something more than the cir- posterity, ensnare our children, destroy the cumstantial nature of his lying, or even vital of our happiness, our future felicity, the ingenious artifices by which he con- and contaminate the whole mass." And he trives to corroborate his own narrative. concludes, "Alas, the Church of England! These, indeed, show the pleasure which he What with popery on the one hand, and took in simulating truth; and he may schismatics on the other, how has she been very probably have attached undue im- crucified between two thieves! Now let us portance to this talent in the intancy of crucify the thieves! Let her foundations be novel-writing, as in the infancy of painting established upon the destruction of her it was held for the greatest of triumphs enemies: the doors of mercy being always when birds came and pecked at the grapes open to the returning part of the deluded in a picture. That this power rested upon people; let the obstinate be ruled with a something more than a bit of literary trick-rod of iron!" It gives a pleasant impres ery, may be inferred from De Foe's fate in another department of authorship. Of his remarkable political writings, this is not the place to speak, although it might be interesting to trace in them some of the same qualities, especially the strong vernacular style, running at times into diffuseness and over-asseveration, which is so conspicuous in his novels. It seems, however, to be a more special indication of his peculiar cast of talent, that he twice got into trouble for a device exactly analogous to

sion of the spirit of the times, to remember that this could be taken for a genuine utterance of orthodoxy: that De Foe was imprisoned and pilloried, and had write a serious protestation that it was only a joke, and that he meant to expose the nonjuring party by putting their secret wishes into plain English. 'Tis hard," he says, " that this should not be perceived by all the town; that not one man can see it, either Churchman or Dissenter." It cer tainly was very hard; but a perusal of the