even years
which separate Crusoe's experiences from Defoe's, and we come to
September 30th, 1685. What was happening in England at the close of
September, 1685? Why, Jeffreys was carrying through his Bloody Assize.

"Like many other Dissenters," says Mr. Wright on p. 21, "Defoe
sympathised with Monmouth; and, to his misfortune, took part in the
rising." His comrades perished in it, and he himself, in Mr. Wright's
words, "probably had to lie low." There is no doubt that the Monmouth
affair was the beginning of Defoe's troubles: and I suggest that
certain passages in the story of Crusoe's voyage (_e.g._ the "secret
proposal" of the three merchants who came to Crusoe) have a peculiar
significance if read in this connection. I also think it possible
there may be a particular meaning in the several waves, so carefully
described, through which Crusoe made his way to dry land; and in the
simile of the reprieved malefactor (p. 50 in Mr. Aitken's delightful
edition); and in the several visits to the wreck.

I am no specialist in Defoe, but put this suggestion forward with the
utmost diffidence. And yet, right or wrong, I feel it has more
plausibility than Mr. Wright's. Defoe undoubtedly took part in the
Monmouth rising, and was a survivor of that wreck "on the south side
of the island": and undoubtedly it formed the turning-point of his
career. If we could discover how he escaped Kirke and Jeffreys, I am
inclined to believe we should have a key to the whole story of the
shipwreck. I should not be sorry to find this hypothesis upset; for
the story of Robinson Crusoe is quite good enough for me as it stands,
and without any sub-intention. But whatever be the true explanation
of the parable, if time shall discover it, I confess I expect it will
be a trifle less recondite than Mr. Wright's, and a trifle more
creditable to the father of the English novel.[C]

FOOTNOTES:

[A] "The Life of Daniel Defoe." By Thomas Wright, Principal of Cowper
School, Olney. London: Cassell & Co.

[B] _Romances and Narratives by Daniel Defoe_. Edited by George A.
Aitken. Vols. i., ii., and iii. Containing the Life and Adventures,
Farther Adventures, and Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe. With a
General Introduction by the Editor. London: J.M. Dent & Co.

[C] Upon this suggestion Mr. Aitken, in a postscript to his seventh
volume of the _Romances and Narratives_, has since remarked as
follows:--

"In a discussion in _The Speaker_ upon Def