nstrate mathematically that it must necessarily be, what it is, the
most fascinating boy's book ever written, and one which older critics
may study with delight. The most obvious advantage over the secondary
novels lies in the unique situation. Lamb, in the passage from which I
have quoted, gracefully evades this point. 'Are there no solitudes,' he
says, 'out of the cave and the desert? or cannot the heart, in the midst
of crowds, feel frightfully alone?' Singleton, he suggests, is alone
with pirates less merciful than the howling monsters, the devilish
serpents, and ill-gendered creatures of De Foe's deserts. Colonel Jack
is alone amidst the London thieves when he goes to bury his treasures in
the hollow tree. This is prettily said; but it suggests rather what
another writer might have made of De Foe's heroes, than what De Foe made
of them himself. Singleton, it is true, is alone amongst the pirates,
but he takes to them as naturally as a fish takes to the water, and,
indeed, finds them a good, honest, respectable, stupid sort of people.
They stick by him and he by them, and we are never made to feel the real
horrors of his position. Colonel Jack might, in other hands, have become
an Oliver Twist, less real perhaps than De Foe has made him, but
infinitely more pathetic. De Foe tells us of his unpleasant
sleeping-places; and his occasional fears of the gallows; but of the
supposed mental struggles, of the awful solitude of soul, we hear
nothing. How can we sympathise very deeply with a young gentleman whose
recollections run chiefly upon the exact numbers of shillings and pence
captured by himself and his pocket-picking 'pals'? Similarly Robinson
Crusoe dwells but little upon the horrors of his position, and when he
does is apt to get extremely prosy. We fancy that he could never have
been in want of a solid sermon on Sunday, however much he may have
missed the church-going bell. But in 'Robinson Crusoe,' as in the
'History of the Plague,' the story speaks for itself. To explain the
horrors of living among thieves, we must have some picture of internal
struggles, of a sense of honour opposed to temptation, and a pure mind
in danger of contamination. De Foe's extremely straightforward and
prosaic view of life prevents him from setting any such sentimental
trials before us; the lad avoids the gallows, and in time becomes the
honest master of a good plantation; and there's enough. But the horrors
of abandonment on a desert i