penitent ex-pirates are shown us as hesitating in Venice for two years
before they durst venture to England for fear of the gallows.

"Captain Singleton" was published in 1720, a year after "Robinson Crusoe,"
when Defoe was fifty-nine. Twenty years before had seen "The True-Born
Englishman" and "The Shortest Way with the Dissenters"; and we are told
that from "June 1687 to almost the very week of his death in 1731 a stream
of controversial books and pamphlets poured from his pen commenting upon
and marking every important passing event." The fecundity of Defoe as a
journalist alone surpasses that of any great journalist we can name,
William Cobbett not excepted, and we may add that the style of "Captain
Singleton," like that of "Robinson Crusoe," is so perfect that there is not
a single ineffective passage, or indeed a weak sentence, to be found in the
book.

EDWARD GARNETT.




The following is a list of Defoe's works: "New Discovery of Old Intrigue"
(verse), 1691. "Character of Dr. Samuel Annesley" (verse), 1697. "The
Pacificator" (verse), 1700. "True-Born Englishman" (verse), 1701. "The Mock
Mourners" (verse), 1702. "Reformation of Manners" (verse), 1702. "New Test
of Church of England's Loyalty," 1702. "Shortest Way with the Dissenters,"
1702. "Ode to the Athenian Society," 1703. "Enquiry into Acgill's General
Translation," 1703. "More Reformation" (verse), 1703. "Hymn to the
Pillory," 1703. "The Storm" (Tale), 1704. "Layman's Sermon on the Late
Storm," 1704. "The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from
the World in the Moon," 1704. "Elegy on Author of 'True-Born Englishman,'"