creditable to the father of the English novel.[C]

FOOTNOTES:

[A] "The Life of Daniel Defoe." By Thomas Wright, Principal of Cowper
School, Olney. London: Cassell & Co.

[B] _Romances and Narratives by Daniel Defoe_. Edited by George A.
Aitken. Vols. i., ii., and iii. Containing the Life and Adventures,
Farther Adventures, and Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe. With a
General Introduction by the Editor. London: J.M. Dent & Co.

[C] Upon this suggestion Mr. Aitken, in a postscript to his seventh
volume of the _Romances and Narratives_, has since remarked as
follows:--

"In a discussion in _The Speaker_ upon Defoe's supposed
period of 'silence,' published since the appearance of the
first volume of this edition, Mr. Quiller Couch, while
agreeing, for the reasons I have given (vol. i. p. lvii.),
that there is no mistake in the date of Robinson Crusoe's
departure from his island (December, 1686), has suggested
that perhaps the error in the chronology lies, not in the
length of time Crusoe is said to have lived on the island,
but in the date given for his landing (September, 1659). That
this suggestion is right appears from a passage which has
hitherto escaped notice. Crusoe was born in 1632, and Defoe
makes him say (vol. i. p. 147), 'The same day of the year I
was born on, viz. the 30th of September, that same day I had
my life so miraculously saved twenty-six years after, when I