l to look back on, and it gave me a kind of fit,
a convulsion or nervous disorder, that was very uneasy to me.

These reflections remind us of the self-communings of Bunyan in "Grace
Abounding in the Chief of Sinners." They express the feelings of
remorse and the longings for a better state arising in the mind of a
rough but conscientious man. They are the promptings of a strong moral
nature, and illustrate those national qualities which brought about the
reforms which distinguish the latter half of the eighteenth century.
Colonel Jack took advantage of every opportunity for improvement. When
a vagabond in Scotland, he learned with infinite pains to read and
write. When a planter in Virginia, he took for his schoolmaster a
transported felon, who knew Latin. This spirit of self-advancement by
patient labor, by invincible resolution, is the spirit of Defoe's
writings; it is the English characteristic which has raised the nation
to all its prosperity and greatness.

When "Robinson Crusoe" had attained celebrity, Defoe claimed that it
was an allegory of his own life. A parallel might easily be drawn
between the isolation of the solitary sailor on his island, and that
of the persecuted author in the heart of a great city. All the world,
and particularly his literary brethren, had been against Defoe. Pope
had put him into the "Dunciad," Swift had spoken of him as "the fellow
who was pilloried, I forget his name," He had known oppression and
poverty, the pillory and the prison. He has left us his own view of the
aim of "Robinson Crusoe."[160] "Here is invincible patience recommended
under the worst of misery; indefatigable application and undaunted
resolution under the greatest and most discouraging circumstances." And
such is the moral of Defoe's own life.

Mrs. Heywood had written a number of stories[161] resembling, in the
licentiousness of their character and the flimsiness of their
construction, the novels of Mrs. Behn. Toward the end of her life she
wrote "Miss Betsey Thoughtless," which is believed to have suggested to
Miss Burney some of the incidents in "Evelina." This novel was
exceedingly popular, and had some merit, considering the period of its
composition. It is among the earliest specimens of a domestic novel;
the plot has interest, and the characters are life-like. It
illustrates, if any illustration were needed, the prevailing absence of
any elevated view, either of love, or of the relations between men