should form a valuable accompaniment to the Classical Essayists; to which, I trust, it will establish a claim, by condensing into a convenient compass, and with a suitable arrangement, the best essays of the best periodical papers which, independent of the standard works already mentioned, have been published in this country to the year 1797.* Hadleigh, Suffolk, Dec. 1810. * The Works from which the Essays, forming the Third and Fourth Volumes of the Gleaner, are taken, will be found enumerated in an Advertisement prefixed to Volume the Third. TO I. Selkirk, Alexander, an account of his living alone four years in a desolate island II. Critics, an essay on them and on criticism III. On superstition and its effects 8- VII. Descriptions in poetry, the reason why VIII. Alfarute, a tale.. IX. On the civilities and ceremonies of po- X. On the too partial administration of jus- ..... XI. On the marvellous and irrelevant in the XII. On the daily and ordinary course of pri- XIV. The same concluded XV. Theodosius and Eudocia, history of XVII. On the moralization of stories in conver- XX. On the tythe-bill: five arguments for pass- XXI. Psychostatics, or the imitation of the alle- XXII. The same concluded UNDER the title of this paper,* I do not think it foreign to my design, to speak of a man born in her majesty's dominions, and relate an adventure in his life, so uncommon, that its doubtful whether the like has happened to any other of the human race. The person I speak of is Alexander Selkirk, whose name is familiar to men of curiosity, from the fame of his having lived four years and four months alone in the island of Juan Fernandez. I had the pleasure frequently to converse with the *The Englishman. man soon after his arrival in England, in the year 1711. It was matter of great curiosity to hear him, as he is a man of good sense, give an account of the different revolutions in his own mind in that long solitude. When we consider how painful absence from company, for the space of but one evening, is to the generality of mankind, we may have a sense how painful this necessary and constant solitude was to a man bred a sailor, and ever accustomed to enjoy and suffer, eat, drink, and sleep, and perform all offices of life, in fellowship and company. He was put ashore from a leaky vessel, with the captain of which he had an irreconcilable difference; and he chose rather to take his fate in this place, than in a crazy vessel under a disagreeable commander. His portion were a sea-chest, his wearing-clothes and bedding, a firelock, a pound of gunpowder, a large quantity of bullets, a flint and steel, a few pounds of tobacco, an hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a bible and other books of devotion; together with pieces that concerned navigation, and his mathematical instruments. Resentment against his officer, who had ill used him, made him look forward on this change of life as the more eligible one, till the instant in which he saw the vessel put off; at which moment his heart |