en in most
people's hands, and with the contents of which even those who cannot read
are to a certain extent acquainted; a book from which the most luxuriant
and fertile of our modern prose writers have drunk inspiration; a book,
moreover, to which, from the hardy deeds which it narrates and the spirit
of strange and romantic enterprise which it tends to awaken, England owes
many of her astonishing discoveries both by sea and land, and no
inconsiderable part of her naval glory.

Hail to thee, spirit of De Foe! What does not my own poor self owe to
thee? England has better bards than either Greece or Rome, yet I could
spare them easier far than De Foe, "unabashed De Foe," as the hunchbacked
rhymer styled him.

The true chord had now been touched; a raging curiosity with respect to
the contents of the volume, whose engravings had fascinated my eye,
burned within me, and I never rested until I had fully satisfied it;
weeks succeeded weeks, months followed months, and the wondrous volume
was my only study and principal source of amusement. For hours together
I would sit poring over a page till I had become acquainted with the
import of every line. My progress, slow enough at first, became by
degrees more rapid, till at last, under "a shoulder of mutton sail," I
found myself cantering before a steady breeze over an ocean of
enchantment, so well pleased with my voyage that I cared not how long it
might be ere it reached its termination.

And it was in this manner that I first took to the paths of knowledge.

About this time I began to be somewhat impressed with religious feelings.
My parents were, to a certain extent, religious people; but, though they
had done their best to afford me instruction on religious points, I had
either paid no attention to what they endeavoured to communicate, or had
listened with an ear far too obtuse to derive any benefit. But my mind
had now become awakened from the drowsy torpor in which it had lain so
long, and the reasoning powers which I possessed were no longer inactive.
Hitherto I had entertained no conception whatever of the nature and
properties of God, and with the most perfect indifference had heard the
divine name proceeding from the mouths of people--frequently, alas! on
occasions when it ought not to be employed; but I now never heard it
without a tremor, for I now knew that God was an awful and inscrutable
being, the maker of all things; that we were His children, and that