that any man should be so base as to do that which he was, in
fact, in the constant habit of doing. De Foe asks us in substance, Is it
conceivable that any man should tell stories so elaborate, so complex,
with so many unnecessary details, with so many inclinations of evidence
this way and that, unless the stories were true? We instinctively
answer, that it is, in fact, inconceivable; and, even apart from any
such refinements as those noticed, the circumstantiality of the stories
is quite sufficient to catch an unworthy critic. It is, indeed,
perfectly easy to tell a story which shall be mistaken for a _bona fide_
narrative, if only we are indifferent to such considerations as making
it interesting or artistically satisfactory.

The praise which has been lavished upon De Foe for the verisimilitude of
his novels seems to be rather extravagant. The trick would be easy
enough, if it were worth performing. The story-teller cannot be
cross-examined; and if he is content to keep to the ordinary level of
commonplace facts, there is not the least difficulty in producing
conviction. We recognise the fictitious character of an ordinary novel,
because it makes a certain attempt at artistic unity, or because the
facts are such as could obviously not be known to, or would not be told
by, a real narrator, or possibly because they are inconsistent with
other established facts. If a man chooses to avoid such obvious
confessions of unreality, he can easily be as life-like as De Foe. I do
not suppose that foreign correspondence of a newspaper is often composed
in the Strand; but it is only because I believe that the honesty of
writers in the press is far too great to allow them to commit a crime
which must be speedily detected by independent evidence. Lying is, after
all, the easiest of all things, if the liar be not too ambitious. A
little clever circumstantiality will lull any incipient suspicion; and
it must be added that De Foe, in adopting the tone of a _bona fide_
narrator, not unfrequently overreaches himself. He forgets his dramatic
position in his anxiety to be minute. 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 7_s._ 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 charmi