Crusoe" was a great favorite with Lamb, and his criticism of "Colonel
Jack," "Moll Flanders," etc., was written _con amore_, and is, perhaps,
the very best thing ever said about those remarkable works. Those who
have read Lamb's letter to Wilson, dated December, 1822, and therefore
know how admirably he could write of the author of the best and most
popular book for boys ever written, will be right glad to read his

* * * * *

ESTIMATE OF DE FOE'S SECONDARY NOVELS.

"It has happened not seldom that one work of some author has so
transcendently surpassed in execution the rest of his compositions, that
the world has agreed to pass a sentence of dismissal upon the latter,
and to consign them to total neglect and oblivion. It has done wisely in
this, not to suffer the contemplation of excellencies of a lower
standard to abate or stand in the way of the pleasure it has agreed to
receive from the master-piece.

"Again, it has happened, that, from no inferior merit of execution in
the rest, but from superior good fortune in the choice of its subject,
some single work shall have been suffered to eclipse and cast into shade
the deserts of its less fortunate brethren. This has been done with more
or less injustice in the case of the popular allegory of Bunyan, in
which the beautiful and Scriptural image of a pilgrim or wayfarer, (we
are all such upon earth,) addressing itself intelligibly and feelingly
to the bosoms of all, has silenced, and made almost to be forgotten, the
more awful and scarcely less tender beauties of the 'Holy War made by
Shaddai upon Diabolus,' of the same author,--a romance less happy in its
subject, but surely well worthy of a secondary immortality. But in no