word, we are told, was his bond; his hour was punctual; and his opinions were compressed and weighty; but, if he was true to his bond-word, it was only a part of the system to give facility to the carrying on of his trade, for he was not strict to his honour; the pride of victory, as well as the passion for acquisition, combined in the character of Audley, as in more tremendous conquerors. His partners dreaded the effects of his law-library, and usually relinquished a claim rather than stand a suit against a latent quibble. When one menaced him by showing some money-bags, which he had resolved to empty in law against him, Audley, then in office in the court of wards, with a sarcastic grin, asked 'Whether the bags had any bottom?' 'Aye!' replied the exulting possessor, striking them. In that case I care not,' retorted the cynical officer of the court of wards; for in this court I have a constant spring, and I cannot spend in other courts more than I gain in this.' He had at once the meanness which would evade the law, and the spirit which could resist it. The career of Audley's ambition closed with the extinction of the 'court of wards,' by which he incurred the loss of above 100,000l. On that occasion he observed that his ordinary losses were as the shavings of his beard, which only grew the faster by them; but the loss of this place was like the cutting off a member; which was irrecoverable.' The hoary usurer pined at the decline of his genius, discoursed on the vanity of the world, and hinted at retreat. A facetious friend told him a story of an old rat, who, having acquainted the young rats that he would at length retire to his hole, desiring none to come near him, their curiosity, after some days, led them to venture to look into the hole; and there they discovered the old rat sitting in the midst of a rich parmesan cheese. It is probable that the loss of the last 100,000/. disturbed his digestion, for he did not long survive his court of wards. ROBINSON CRUSOE. ROBINSON CRUSOE, the favourite of the learned and the unlearned, of the youth and the adult; the book that was to constitute the library of Rousseau's Emilius, owes its secret charm to its being a new representation of human nature, yet drawn from an existing state: this picture of self-education, self-inquiry, selfhappiness, is scarcely a fiction, although it includes all the magic of romance; and is not a mere narrative of truth, since it displays all the forcible genius of one of the most original minds our literature can boast. The history of the work is therefore interesting. It was treated in the author's time as a mere idle romance, for the philosophy was not discovered in the story; after his death it was considered to have been pillaged from the papers of Alexander Selkirk, confided to the author; and the honour, as well as the genius, of De Foe, were alike questioned. The entire history of this work of genius may now be traced, from the first hints to the mature state, to which only the genius of De Foe could have wrought it. Captain Burney, in the fourth volume of his " voyages and discoveries to the South Sea," has arranged the evidence in the clearest manner, and finally settled a point hitherto obscure and uncertain. I have little to add; but, as the origin of this universal book is not likely to be sought for in Captain Burney's valuable volumes of voyages, here it may not be out of its place. The adventures of Selkirk are well known; he was found on the desert island of Juan Fernandez, where he had formerly been left, by Woodes Rogers and Edward Cooke, who in 1712 published their voyages, and told the extraordinary history of Crusoe's prototype, with all those curious and minute particulars which Selkirk had freely communicated to them. This narrative of itself is extremely interesting; and has been given entire by Captain Burney; it may also be found in the Biographia Britan nica. In this artless narrative we may discover more than the embryo of Robinson Crusoe.-The first appearance of Selkirk, "a man clothed in goats' skins, who looked more wild than the first owners of them." The two huts he had built, the one to dress his victuals; the other to sleep in; his contrivance to get fire by rubbing two pieces of pimento wood together: his distress for the want of bread and salt till he came to relish his meat without either; his wearing out his shoes, till he grew so accustomed to be without them, that he could not for a long time afterwards, on his return home, use them without inconvenience; his bedstead of his own contriving, and his bead of goat-skins; when his gunpowder failed, his teaching himself by continual exercise to run as swiftly as the goats; his falling from a precipice in catching hold of a goat, stunned and bruised, till, coming to his senses, he found the goat dead under him; his taming kids to divert himself by dancing with them and his cats; his converting a nail into a needle; his sewing his goat-skins with little thongs of the same; and, when his knife was worn to the back, contriving to make blades out of some iron hoops. His solacing himself in this solitude by singing psalms, and preserving a social feeling in his fervent prayers And the habitation which Selkirk had raised, to reach which, they followed him," with difficulty climbing up and creeping down many rocks, till they came at last to a pleasant spot of ground, full of grass and of trees, where stood his two huts, and his numerous tame goats shewed his solitary retreat;" and, finally, his indifference to return to a world, from which his feelings had been so perfectly weaned. Such were the first rude materials of a new situation in human nature: an European in a primeval state, with the habits or mind of a savage. The year after this account was published, Selkirk and his adventures attracted the notice of Steele; who was not likely to pass unobserved a man and a story so strange and so new. In his paper of "the Englishman," Dec. 1713, he communicates further particulars of Selkirk. Steele became acquainted with him; he says, that "he could discern that he had been much separated from company, from his aspect and gesture. There was a strong but cheerful seriousness, in his looks, and a certain disregard to the ordinary things about him, as if he had been sunk in thought. The man frequently bewailed his return to the world, which could not, he said, with all its enjoyments, restore him to the tranquillity of his solitude." Steele adds another curious change in this wild man, which occurred some time after he had seen him. “ Though I had frequently conversed with him, after a few months absence, he met me in the street, and, though he spoke to me, I could not recollect that I had seen him. Familiar converse in this town had taken off the loneliness of his aspect, and quite altered the air of his face. De Foe could not fail of being struck by these interesting particulars of the character of Selkirk; but probably it was another observation of Steele, which threw the germ of Robinson Crusoe into the mind of De Foe. "It was matter of great curiosity to hear him, as he was a man of sense, give an account of the different revolutions in his own mind in that long solitude." The work of De Foe, however, was no sudden ebullition; long engaged in political warfare, condemned to suffer imprisonment, and at length struck by a fit of apoplexy, this unhappy and unprosperous man of genius on his recovery was reduced to a comparative state of solitude. To his injured feelings and lonely contemplations, Selkirk in his desert isle, and Steele's vivifying hint, often occurred; and to all these we perhaps owe the instructive and delightful tale, which shews man what he can do for himself, and what the fortitude of piety does for man. Even the personage of Friday is not a mere coinage of his brain: a Mosquito-Indian described by Dampier was the prototype. Robinson Crusoe was not given to the world till 1719; seven years after the publication of Selkirk's Adventures. Selkirk could have no claims on De Foe; for he had only supplied the man of genius with that which lies open to all; and which no one had, or perhaps could have, converted into the wonderful story we possess but De Foe himself. Had De Foe not written Robinson Crusoe, the name and story of Selkirk had been passed over like others of the same sort; yet Selkirk has the merit of having detailed his own history, in a manner so interesting, as to have attracted the notice of Steele, and to have inspired the genius of De Foe. After this, the originality of Robinson Crusoe will no longer be suspected; and the idle tale which Dr. Beattie has repeated of Selkirk having supplied the materials of his story to De Foe, from which our author borrowed his work, and published for his own profit, will be finally put to rest. This is due to the injured honour and the genius of De Foe. ART. XI.-Report of the National Schools The following account of the progress of education at Hayti is extremely interesting, because it promises to communicate by degrees, useful instruction to a part of the human species, whose inferiority of intellect has more generally been taken for granted than proved. We have not the least doubt, but mental degeneracy may be propagated as well as bodily defect: and that a series of generations wherein education and instruction have been neglected, will produce a much inferior, being at the last term of the series, than the first. For like in Hayti, founded and maintained by the king. reason, where mental improvement has been seduously attended to for several generations, the capacity of the individuals will by this means be gradually improved, and the last offspring will rank higher in the scale of being, than the first member of the family. Heartily wishing success to every means of improving the black as well as the white portion of the human race, we present the following short but interesting account to our readers. EDIT. A school room is building at Sans Souci, designed for the reception Quarterly reports of the state and progress of the National Schools will be hereafter officially published in the Haytian Gazettes. 423 ART. XII.-Notoria; or Miscellaneous Articles of Philosophy, Literature and Politics. From the Gentleman's Magazine. Mr. URBAN,-You have doubtless heard of Waterloo Waltzes, Waterloo Bonnets, Waterloo Shoes, &c. but not yet perhaps of Waterloo Literature. By this term, is meant a narratory style, which resembles the pell-mell of the Battle, and consists in bulls, erroneous dates, and writing history, without collation of the incidents, or examination of opposing authorities. Its general principle is, to give exparte evidence a grand display, that the reader may have the pleasure of finding it contradicted as he proceeds. The intention of this essay being a jeu d'esprit, the names of the authors will not ill-naturedly be given: but the reader may be assured that the passages really exist. The Battle commenced by the famous attack upon the villa called here Hougomont. The Literature also begins with a misoner: for it is allowed upon all sides that Goumont is the true appellation. A Paddy, who was an eye-witness of this gallant affair, after an elegant pleonasm, informing us that the inhabitants fled to the forest of Soignes for security, "and in the hopes of saving their lives," says, that "our troops retiring into the garden did not yield one inch of their ground." The same writer speaking of the fruitless efforts of the enemy, uses these words, "at no period, during the day, notwithstanding the heavy masses of infantry and cavalry which were advanced against our centre, time after time, he was never able to force our position." I proceed from hence to a concentrated account by an author, who with peculiar felicity distinguishes the ExEmperor by the elegant appellation of the Corsican. The first thing I shall notice is an anarchy of dates and incidents, very similar to the bull before quoted. It is a letter of the Marquis of Anglesea, in exculpation of his regiment, the 7th Hussars. This letter is dated Brussels, June 2, 1815, above a fortnight before the battle alluded to: and, notwithstanding, speaks of the 17th and 18th of that month; as well as bears the signature of Anglesea, not of Uxbridge. Now as every body knows that the battles of Quartre-bras and Waterloo were fought upon the 16th and 18th of June, we are, I presume, to consider this letter as sent before it was written, or some such extraordinary event, far beyond the common course of things. We are next told that Bonaparte ascended the Observatory, though it is plain that there were no means of so doing, and that the report of his guide disproves the fact. Napoleon put himself at the head of his guard, consisting of fifteen hundred men: to which the enemy, greatly diminished in numbers, could offer no effectual resistance. As the guards amounted to fifteen thousand, the Cumpiler proves also to be a dealer in diminuation of numbers, and in a large way. In defiance of the guide's account, Bonaparte is made to escape in his carriage, which is described as "a complete office, bedchamber, dressing-room eating-room, and kitchen." This Iliad in a nutshell is thus converted into an impossibility. Though Fielding says that stage-coachmen consider human beings only as baggage, whom, without regard to variations of size, by squeezing, they compress into the most portable form, to avoid waste of room; yet they would scratch their ingenious heads for a resolution of this wonderful convenience. The fact is, it only contained packages for various services, which were taken out and in, wherever Bonaparte stopped, as they were wanted; and were very ingeniously stowed in the carriage, like a dressing-case. In a French account of the battle, mention is made of the ricochet shots of the English artillery. Ricochet shots mean those which bound along the ground like the duck and drake sport of boys upon ponds. The learned Compiler has converted ricochet into rocket, as the correct reading, and accordingly made quite a different material of the implement of war intended by the French writer. The following anecdote will illustrate the ingenuity of this conversion. It is usual at the Universities, upon matriculation of a student, to put down the father's profession. A great lawyer, upon bis entrance, was required to state the calling of his fa |