racter of the warning, but Defoe gives the impression of not going beyond experience and reason, even where his opinions of what experience and reason teach are most peculiar to himself.

The historical and personal disturbing forces to be allowed for in reading Robinson Crusoe are few. There is hardly anything conventional in the structure of the story. The book is written to serve no turn-moral, political, or religious. It might probably be inferred, from the general character of the religious speculations contained in it, that it had been written by a man to whom the Act of Toleration was the announcement of a new era, and who thought and felt upon those subjects as a contemporary of Locke would naturally think and feel.

We have already remarked that the charm of Crusoe's adventures is owing to the circumstance that they are described by a man who had, as he says, 'undergone as great risk as a grenadier on a counterscarp,' through a great part of his life, and who was by nature pre-eminently qualified to run such risks; and that, described by a man more dependent on society-by Fielding, for example-they would have been a series of awful calamities and miseries.

Taken as a whole, there is probably no book in the range of novel literature which would form an addition to the experience of its readers so nearly equivalent to that which it would have formed if it had been literally true. In so far as a novel is a poem, or a satire, or a play, or a depository for beauties, Robinson Crusoe has been surpassed again and again; but if a novel is properly and primarily a fictitious biography, and if we have fairly stated its general objects and effects, it is not only unsurpassed, but we may almost say unsurpassable.

It may perhaps be regretted that novels should form so large a part of the reading of young men, though it is doubtful whether in any case they are an unmixed evil. Those who idle over novels would, in their absence, idle over something else; those who are unnaturally excited by them would find a vent for that habit of mind elsewhere. But be they good or bad, useless or necessary, they circulate over the land in every possible form, and enter more or less into the education of almost every one who can read. They hold in solution a great deal of experience. It would therefore surely be a most useful thing to provide rules by which the experience might be precipitated, and to ascertain the processes by means of which the precipitate might be made fit for use. We are not so vain as to suppose that we have done much towards the accomplishment of such a task. We have done our best to point out the limits and directions of the instructions which are wanted.

F. S.

FUTURE PROSPECTS OF THE BRITISH NAVY.

'Il ne faut être maître de la mer que six heures pour que l'Angleterre cesse d'exister.'

THIS

HIS was the opinion of Napoleon I.; so essential to England did he consider the possession of a safe and effectual preponderance at sea.

The event was in our favour, and men are accustomed to consider the issue of events the best test of measures.

In war, however, success is not always to be considered a sufficient proof of a real and sufficient superiority. The chances of weather and of fortuitous rencontres at sea,-the presence, on one side or the other of an officer possessing rare and commanding ability, with the numerous and incalculable circumstances which influence or neutralize combinations,-all these accidents contribute, ofttimes, in naval war, to bring about a success which men hasten to impute to the prowess of their own arms or the sagacity of their own precautions.

On the morning of the 19th of June, 1805, the Curieux brig met the fleet of Admiral Villeneuve in the middle of the Atlantic. The meeting was entirely accidental, for the brig was simply making the best of her way home with despatches, and this chance encounter in all probability saved England from invasion. The fortunate little cruiser hastened home with her important tidings. On the 22nd of July, Admiral Calder, having been reinforced, was enabled to give Villeneuve an effective check: before the end of August the army of Boulogne was on its way to Germany, and the expedition to England was indefinitely postponed.'

Such are the accidents upon which the issue of war, but especially of a naval war, may depend.

It is obviously unwise to conclude that such contingencies will always befriend us, and at this time no one will be inclined to assume that we shall always have a Nelson or a Collingwood to turn such chances to account.

We are, however, accustomed to suppose that in the last war our wooden walls proved themselves a sufficient bulwark for our island, and with this opinion we are not now inclined to quarrel. The great invasion question is one which, at this moment, we are not anxious to discuss, and in the general operations of war it is certain that the British navy had won the respect and admiration of the world.

In foreign works on naval matters, the usage of the British fleet is cited as the highest authority; officers of foreign navies have crowded into our service, eager to serve an apprenticeship under our flag; the most flattering history we possess of our naval exploits is from the pen of an able and patriotic French officer, and the proverb that an Englishman is born a sailor, as a Frenchman is born a soldier, has become trite in Europe.

The belief in the prowess of British sailors was unlimited. One unprecedented achievement succeeding another had taught the world to conclude that the British fleet was certain to effect all that was possible for men, and perhaps a little more. No enterprise was considered too hazardous for their daring, or too arduous for the endless resources and energy of British sailors. Wherever our flag appeared, our boldest enemies were cowed and daunted by the certainty of a prompt and resolute attack, and they commenced action with the disheartening prospect of inevitable defeat.

It was of a British naval officer that Napoleon spoke when he bitterly complained that he had marred his destiny. It was a British Admiral who checkmated the Indian expedition at Aboukir. It was the same officer who dared to quit the Mediterranean with ten ships in pursuit of eighteen, and crossing the Atlantic twice without a day's rest, chased the panic-struck squadron of Villeneuve before him, and bought with his own life that bloody victory which destroyed the last hope of invasion.

In all his most prodigious designs Napoleon found himself arrested by the insurmountable obstacle which a superior navy, and fleets more daring and more ably managed than his own presented; and thus it was that the government which disposed absolutely of Spain and Holland, which held the Continent in mute obedience, extending its dominions from the Rhine to the Adriatic-that government, paralysed by the disorganization of its fleets, was destined to continue powerless to the last against the only enemy who still stood unconquered before it.*

*La Graviere, translated by Captain Plunket, pp. 3, 4.

Naval Review at Spithead.

195

Such are the opinions of La Graviere, and such was the prestige won for us by our old sailing ships and by our old fighting captains, who learned their trade at sea in the school of Jervis, and Collingwood, and Nelson.

It is difficult to estimate the practical value of such a prestige as this, to calculate what weight it gave to our counsels in negotiation, what influence it had in the formation and dislocation of alliances, or how far our commercial prosperity has been promoted by the ascendency of our military marine.

Never, perhaps, did our own confidence in our naval resources stand higher than at the commencement of the present war. The naval service was in high favour,-experimental squadrons and naval displays had kept alive the national interest in maritime matters. The qualities of ships, the claims of rival marine architects, and other professional topics were discussed with eagerness in society and in the press, and the narratives of our naval exploits in China and Borneo were amongst the most popular volumes of the day.

The great naval review at Spithead was fresh in the memory of all. Thousands had thronged from far and near to see the wooden walls of Old England in their splendour. Throughout the towns of Ryde and Portsmouth every dwelling was crowded. On the expected day every hill, every spot of projecting land was thronged with country people who had walked through the night to witness the show. All shops were closed, all business postponed. A week's wages were paid for a place in a wherry, or a footing on a pier. Two Prussian frigates contributed by their presence and the roar of their guns to the magnificence of the display. The sea presented such a spectacle as only England could show. From Southsea Common to the Owers' Sand the wide sea shone with sails. More than three hundred yachts spread their white wings and followed in the wake of their sovereign, and every available boat, barge, or skiff,-the most unwieldy collier and the tiniest shrimping craft,-were pressed into service for the occasion.-So popular was the navy, so proud were we of our noble ships, the very names of which suggested glorious memories, and had become historical in the annals of Europe.

On the approach of war, whatever misgivings we may have had on other subjects, in our fleet, at all events, our confidence was unbounded. 'I believe in the wooden walls of Old England,' was one of the unwritten articles in the creed of every Englishman, and we anticipated with eagerness the repetition of such deeds of naval daring as our grandfathers

were wont to tell us by the fireside in the old Christmas evenings at home.

Every circumstance contributed to raise this expectation to the utmost. The great and difficult question of steam power, as applied to war, was solved by the invention of the screw. And now we saw with wonder a huge line-of-battle ship, complete in her batteries, perfect in her masts and rigging, wending her way among the shipping and shoals of Portsmouth harbour with all the ease and address, and thrice the speed of a waterman's skiff.

The reports which reached us of the perfect harmony which reigned between the allied squadrons in Besica Bay, served also to encourage the brightest hopes. What would prove too arduous for the generous rivalry of French and English to undertake, or for so powerful a combination to achieve?

But it was on the departure of the Baltic fleet that our hopes were raised to the highest pitch. An admiral was appointed to the command whose very name was ominous of prompt and decisive measures, an officer who, though, perhaps, not altogether appreciated in the service, had contrived to command no common share of popular favour and attention. Bold and eccentric in demeanour, and a fearless denouncer of abuses, he was looked upon as one who would fight prudently and judiciously, if possible, but who, at all events, would fight.

As regards the crews, also, the forebodings of the alarmists. were not verified; sailors had come forward with alacrity,not, perhaps, exactly such sailors as we could wish, but still they were British mariners,' and they would improve; while the ships were the very élite of our navy,-the unrivalled Duke of Wellington, the dashing St. Jean d'Acre, the brilliant Princess Royal, the Nile, the Arrogant, and her sister frigates, more than a match for a line-of-battle ship of olden times,these noble ships, excellent under steam, unrivalled under sail, and armed with the heaviest and most destructive ordnance, excited wherever they appeared the wonder and admiration of every seaman. Danes, Swedes, and Germans crowded to gaze at the magnificent vessels as they lay in Kiöge Bay and the roadstead at Elfsnabben. What could not be done with a force so tremendous and yet so active-so manageable? We who had done so much with our old clumsy sailing ships, what could we not do with such ships and such officers? For never were there such spirited and uncompromising admirals. Burn, sink, and destroy,' was the motto in the Euxine; 'Lads, sharpen your cutlasses,' the signal in the Baltic.

Two years have passed, and it must be confessed that our