written assistance, and we have only the assertion of his enemies to
prove that he had any verbal.

The great success of Robinson Crusoe induced its author to write a
number of other lives and adventures, some of which were popular in
their times, though at present nearly forgotten. One of his latest
publications was "A Tour through the Island of Great Britain," a
performance of very inferior merit; but De Foe was now the garrulous
old man, and his spirit (to use the words of an ingenious biographer)
"like a candle struggling in the socket, blazed and sunk, blazed and
sunk, till it disappeared at length in total darkness." His laborious
and unfortunate life was finished on the 26th of April, 1731, in' the
parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate.

Daniel De Foe possessed very extraordinary talents; as a commercial
writer, he is fairly entitled to stand in the foremost rank among his
contemporaries, whatever may be their performances or their fame. His
distinguishing characteristics are originality, spirit, and a profound
knowledge of his subject, and in these particulars he has seldom been
surpassed. As the author of Robinson Crusoe he has a claim, not only to
the admiration, but to the gratitude of his countrymen; and so long as
we have a regard for supereminent merit, and take an interest in the
welfare of the rising generation, that gratitude will not cease to
exist. But the opinion of the learned and ingenious Dr. Beattie will be
the best eulogium that can be pronounced on that celebrated romance:
"Robinson Crusoe," says the Doctor, "must be allowed, by the most rigid
moralist, to be one of those novels which one may read, riot only with
pleasure, but also with profit. It breathes throughout a spirit of
piety and benevolence; it sets in a very striking light the importance
of the mechanic arts, which they, who know not what it is to be without