XII., which Mr. Lee ascribes to him, was "written by a Scot's gentleman,
in the Swedish service." The short narrative of the life and death of
Count Patkul was "written by the Lutheran Minister who assisted him in
his last hours, and faithfully translated out of a High Dutch
manuscript." M. Mesnager's minutes of his negotiations were "written by
himself," and "done out of French." Defoe knew that the public would
read such narratives more eagerly if they believed them to be true, and
ascribed them to authors whose position entitled them to confidence.
There can be little doubt that he drew upon his imagination for more
than the title-pages. But why, when he had so many eminent and notorious
persons to serve as his subjects, with all the advantage of bearing
names about which the public were already curious, did he turn to the
adventures of new and fictitious heroes and heroines? One can only
suppose that he was attracted by the greater freedom of movement in pure
invention; he made the venture with _Robinson Crusoe_, it was
successful, and he repeated it. But after the success of _Robinson
Crusoe_, he by no means abandoned his old fields. It was after this that
he produced autobiographies and other _primâ facie_ authentic lives of
notorious thieves and pirates. With all his records of heroes, real or
fictitious, he practised the same devices for ensuring credibility. In
all alike he took for granted that the first question people would ask
about a story was whether it was true. The novel, it must be remembered,
was then in its infancy, and Defoe, as we shall presently see, imagined,
probably not without good reason, that his readers would disapprove of
story-telling for the mere pleasure of the thing, as an immorality.

In writing for the entertainment of his own time, Defoe took the surest
way of writing for the entertainment of all time. Yet if he had never
chanced to write _Robinson Crusoe_, he would now have a very obscure
place in English literature. His "natural infirmity of homely plain