novelists. Unluckily, a girl turns up at this
moment who shows great curiosity about Roxana's history. It soon becomes
evident that she is, in fact, Roxana's daughter by a former and long
since deserted husband; but she cannot be acknowledged without a
revelation of her mother's subsequently most disreputable conduct. Now,
Roxana has a devoted maid, who threatens to get rid, by fair means or
foul, of this importunate daughter. Once she fails in her design, but
confesses to her mistress that, if necessary, she will commit the
murder. Roxana professes to be terribly shocked, but yet has a desire to
be relieved at almost any price from her tormentor. The maid thereupon
disappears again; soon afterwards the daughter disappears too; and
Roxana is left in terrible doubt, tormented by the opposing anxieties
that her maid may have murdered her daughter, or that her daughter may
have escaped and revealed the mother's true character. Here is a telling
situation for a sensation novelist; and the minuteness with which the
story is worked out, whilst we are kept in suspense, supplies the place
of the ordinary rant; to say nothing of the increased effect due to
apparent veracity, in which certainly few sensation novelists can even
venture a distant competition. The end of the story differs still more
widely from modern art. Roxana has to go abroad with her husband, still
in a state of doubt. Her maid after a time joins her, but gives no
intimation as to the fate of the daughter; and the story concludes by a
simple statement that Roxana afterwards fell into well-deserved misery.
The mystery is certainly impressive; and Roxana is heartily afraid of
the devil and the gallows, to say nothing of the chance of losing her
fortune. Whether, as Lamb maintained, the conclusion in which the
mystery is cleared up is a mere forgery, or was added by De Foe to
satisfy the ill-judged curiosity of his readers, I do not profess to
decide. Certainly it rather spoils the story; but in this, as in some
other cases, one is often left in doubt as to the degree in which De Foe
was conscious of his own merits.

Another instance on a smaller scale of the effective employment of
judicious silence, is an incident in 'Captain Singleton.' The Quaker of
our acquaintance meets with a Japanese priest who speaks a few words of
English, and explains that he has learnt it from thirteen Englishmen,
the only remnant of thirty-two who had been wrecked on the coast of
Japa