From my and your old compound. 24 Feb. '23.
[With this letter compare the letter on September 9, 1801, to Godwin, and the letter on December 16, 1822, to Wilson.
Defoe's _Roxana_, first edition, does not, as a matter of fact, contain the episode of the daughter which Lamb so much admired. Later editions have it. Godwin says in his Preface to "Faulkener," 1807, the play to which Lamb wrote a prologue in praise of Defoe (see Vol. IV.), that the only accessible edition of _Roxana_ in which the story of Susannah is fully told is that of 1745.
Richard Savage was considered to be the natural son of the Countess of Macclesfield and Earl Rivers. His mother at first disowned him, but afterwards, when this became impossible, repulsed him. Johnson says in his "Life of Savage," that it was his hero's "practice to walk in the dark evenings for several hours before her door in hopes of seeing her as she might come by accident to the window or cross her apartment with a candle in her hand."
Swift and Defoe were steady enemies, although I do not find that either mentions the other by name. But Swift in _The Examiner_ often had Defoe in mind, and Defoe in one of his political writings refers to Swift, _apropos_ Wood's halfpence, as "the copper farthing author."
Pope referred to Defoe twice in the _Dunciad_: once as standing high, fearless and unabashed in the pillory, and once, libellously, as the father of Norton, of the _Flying Post_.
_Philip Quarll_ was the first imitation of _Robinson Crusoe_. It was published in 1727, purporting to be the narrative of one Dorrington, a merchant, and Quarll's discoverer. The title begins, _The Hermit; or, The Unparalleled Sufferings and Surprising Adventures of Mr. Philip Quarll, an Englishman_ ... Lamb says in his essay on Christ's Hospital that the Blue-Coat boys used to read the book. The authorship of the book is still unknown.
Steele's account of Selkirk is in _The Englishman_, No. 26, Dec. 1, 1713. Wilson quoted it.
Defoe's fictitious _Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton_ was published in 1728.
I cannot explain Puzzelli or Donald M'Leod. Later Lamb sent Wilson, who seems to have asked for some verse about Defoe, the "Ode to the Treadmill," but Wilson did not use it.