That Defoe used Selkirk's story is practically certain; but with his usual duplicity he claimed to have written Crusoe in 1708, a year before Selkirk's return.

The life and strange surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, mariner.

If we have anything to do with little children, we must face the fact that the child is, if not quite a Robinson Crusoe on his island, at least an explorer in a strange country, and a scientist in his laboratory.

It was the scene of Crusoe at the wreck, if I remember rightly, that so bewitched my blacksmith.

Saying that he would be back in a few minutes, he reloaded his rifle, and calling Crusoe to his side, walked quickly after the wounded bull, which was now hid from view in a hollow of the plain.

But perhaps nothing can more strongly illustrate the necessity for marking incident than to compare the living fame of Robinson Crusoe with the discredit of Clarissa Harlowe.

" Saying this he seized Crusoe by the neck, stuffed him comfortably into the bosom of his hunting-shirt, and walked rapidly away with the prize rifle on his shoulder.

"My boy, what do ye with the major's dog?" "Won her too, mother!" "Won her, my son?" "Ay, won her, and the pup too; see, here it is!" and he plucked Crusoe from his bosom.

It is somewhere recorded of a retired citizen, that he was in the habit of again and again perusing the incomparable story of Robinson Crusoe without a suspicion of its authenticity.

She must suggest to Methuselah that he could find, perhaps, a more suitable book-mark for Robinson Crusoe than his piece of bread and molasses, and intimate doubts as to the propriety of Nate's standing on the table-cloth and sitting on the toast-rack.

His horse never wearied; it seemed to delight in going at full speed; no other horse in the troop could come near Charlie, and Dick indulged him by appearing now at the front, now at the rear, anon in the centre, and frequently nowhere!having gone off with Crusoe like a flash of lightning after a buffalo or a deer.

This tried his nerves a good deal, and no wonder, for if he took Crusoe for a wolf, which no doubt he did, he must have thought him a very giant of the pack.

It is a study of the human will also,of patience, fortitude, and the indomitable Saxon spirit overcoming all obstacles; and it was this element which made Rousseau recommend Robinson Crusoe as a better treatise on education than anything which Aristotle or the moderns had ever written.