ently enabled him to master the science of
navigation without a tutor. If to Mr. Shinglar's instruction was likewise
due his ability to write good, sound, clear English, we who read his
letters and published writings have cause to speak his schoolmaster's
name with respect.

During his school days another book besides those prescribed in the
curriculum came into his hands. He read Robinson Crusoe. It was to
Defoe's undying tale of the stranded mariner that he attributed the
awaking in his own mind of a passionate desire to sail in uncharted seas.
This anecdote happens to be better authenticated than are many of those
quoted to illustrate the youth of men of mark. Towards the end of
Flinders' life the editor of the Naval Chronicle sent to him a series of
questions, intending to found upon the answers a biographical sketch. One
question was: "Juvenile or miscellaneous anecdotes illustrative of
individual character?" The reply was: "Induced to go to sea against the
wishes of friends from reading Robinson Crusoe."

The case, interesting as it is, has an exact parallel in the life of a
famous French traveller, Rene Caille, who in 1828, after years of
extraordinary effort and endurance, crossed Senegal, penetrated Central
Africa, and was the first European to visit Timbuctoo. He also had read
Defoe's masterpiece as a lad, and attributed to it the awaking in his
breast of a yearning for adventure and discovery. "The reading of
Robinson Crusoe," says a French historian, "made upon him a profound
impression." "I burned to have adventures of my own," he wrote later; "I
felt as I read that there was born within my heart the ambition to
distinguish myself by some important discovery."* (* Gaffarel, La
Politique coloniale en France, 1908 page 34.)

Here were astonishing results to follow from the vivid fiction of a gouty
pamphleteer who wrote to catch the market and was hoisted into immortal
fame by the effort: that his book should, like a spark falling on straw,
fire the brains of a French shoemaker's apprentice and a Lincolnshire
schoolboy, impelling each to a career crowded with adventure, and crowned
with memorable achievements. There could hardly be better examples of the
vitalising efficacy of fine literature.

A love of Robinson Crusoe remained with Flinders to the end. Only a
fortnight before his death he wrote a note subscribing for a copy of a
new edition of the book, with notes, then announced for publication. It
must