These reflections remind us of the self-communings of Bunyan in "Grace Abounding in the Chief of Sinners." They express the feelings of remorse and the longings for a better state arising in the mind of a rough but conscientious man. They are the promptings of a strong moral nature, and illustrate those national qualities which brought about the reforms which distinguish the latter half of the eighteenth century. Colonel Jack took advantage of every opportunity for improvement. When a vagabond in Scotland, he learned with infinite pains to read and write. When a planter in Virginia, he took for his schoolmaster a transported felon, who knew Latin. This spirit of self-advancement by patient labor, by invincible resolution, is the spirit of Defoe's writings; it is the English characteristic which has raised the nation to all its prosperity and greatness.
When "Robinson Crusoe" had attained celebrity, Defoe claimed that it was an allegory of his own life. A parallel might easily be drawn between the isolation of the solitary sailor on his island, and that of the persecuted author in the heart of a great city. All the world, and particularly his literary brethren, had been against Defoe. Pope had put him into the "Dunciad," Swift had spoken of him as "the fellow who was pilloried, I forget his name," He had known oppression and poverty, the pillory and the prison. He has left us his own view of the aim of "Robinson Crusoe."[160] "Here is invincible patience recommended under the worst of misery; indefatigable application and undaunted resolution under the greatest and most discouraging circumstances." And such is the moral of Defoe's own life.
Mrs. Heywood had written a number of stories[161] resembling, in the licentiousness of their character and the flimsiness of their construction, the novels of Mrs. Behn. Toward the end of her life she wrote "Miss Betsey Thoughtless," which is believed to have suggested to Miss Burney some of the incidents in "Evelina." This novel was exceedingly popular, and had some merit, considering the period of its composition. It is among the earliest specimens of a domestic novel; the plot has interest, and the characters are life-like. It illustrates, if any illustration were needed, the prevailing absence of any elevated view, either of love, or of the relations between men and women. The book is made up of easy seductions and licentious talk, and represents its youthful characters as very familiar with dissolute scenes and thoughts.