448 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 266. 



Paleario's Treatise, and other books of a similar 

 class, were deposited there by Signore Antonio 

 Ferrari, a Neapolitan gentleman. Those persons 

 who may be fortunate enough to come into pos- 

 session of Mr. Babington's fac-simile reprints, 

 may naturally wish to know something about Sig. 

 Ferrari, whose care and foresight have preserved 

 these curious little volumes, as it were for them, 

 perhaps for the purpose that they might again be 

 brought to light by an editor who loved the 

 labour. B. B. W. 



I have looked into Hallbauer's Life of Paleario, 

 and am sorry to inform Mr. Babington that it 

 contains nothing which would assist him in ascer- 

 taining with more exactness the date of his quit- 

 ting the Siennese. In fact, the whole treatise is 

 remarkably destitute of dates, and almost all the 

 references for the events of his life are to his 

 works, and particularly to his third speech, or 

 that in his own defence. The following are Hall- 

 bauer's words, for which he makes two references 

 to that speech : 



" Interim quum Senis nihil sibi tutum videret, Romam 

 avolavit, ibique Bellantis monitu ob incredibilem sceles- 

 tissimorum contra se conspirationem, per aliquos menses 

 h«sit" 



'AKievs. 



Dublin. 



" ROBINSON CRUSOE. 



(Vol. X., p. 345.) 



I possess a book which I conjecture to be now 

 rather scarce, which, if Mr. Scott be not already 

 aware of it, might assist his investigations in Ro- 

 binson Crusoe. It is entitled, — 



" Providence Displayed, or the remarkable Adventures 

 of Alexander Selkirk, of Largo, in Scotland, who lived 

 four years and four months by himself in the Island of 

 Juan Fernandez, from whence he returned with Captain 

 Woodes Rogers, of Bristol, and on whose Adventures was 

 founded the celebrated novel of ' Robinson Crusoe,' &c., by 

 Isaac James. Bristol, printed by Biggs and Cottle, 1800. 

 8vo., pp. 194." 



" I began," says this author, " to collect materials for 

 Mr. Selkirk's histoiy, Sept. 3, 1792, and my success has 

 exceeded the expectation I then had ; nevertheless, if any 

 of my readers can communicate any additional informa- 

 tion, I shall feel myself much obliged to them for it," &c. 



After having given what he considers the whole 

 true narratives of Selkirk's foreign adventures, 

 and various accounts of him " soon after his ar- 

 rival in England in the year 1711," he mentions 

 at p. 152. : 



*' I shall now give the sentiments of a few authors upon 

 this subject (^Robinson Crusoe, publication of first volume 

 in April 1719, of second August following ; and in Au- 

 gust 1720, Serious Rejlections, §-c.), from M'hich it will 

 appear that even De Foe has not always been thought the 

 author of Crusoe." 



The authorities quoted are, — 



" 1. Entick, Naval History, 1757. 2. Biographia Bri- 

 tannica, 1766. S.Watson, Hist, of Halifax, 1775. 4. Dr. 

 Beattie, Dissertations, Moral and Critical, 1783. 5. Gen- 

 tleman's Magazine, March 1788, letter under sig. of 

 W. W. 6. Chalmers's Life of De Foe, 1790." 



Authority 5. is much of the same tenor as the 

 "Mem, July 10, 1774," in " IST. & Q.," and on 

 which letter Mr. James remarks : 



" It is certain the Earl (of Oxford) was in possession of 

 Selkirk's history, the pamphlet called Providence Dis- 

 played being preserved in the Harleian Miscellany." 



Mr. James does not appear to pass any judg- 

 ment as to the authorship of Crusoe. It seems to 

 me, after carefully reading all the different ex- 

 tracts produced, that the preponderance of evi- 

 dence would lie in favour of De Foe, and that 

 unless a new ray of light can be struck out from 

 some hidden corner, he must continue to wear the 

 honour. 



The author had taken some pains in 1794, 

 through the Rev. Mr. Spence Oliphant of Largo, 

 and the Rev. Greville Ewing (then Minister of 

 Lady Glenorchy's chapel in Edinburgh, and lat- 

 terly Independent Minister in Glasgow), to collect 

 particulars as to Selkirk when he last resided at 

 Largo *, from which he had made rather a clan- 

 destine elopement to avoid, at the instance of the 

 Kirk Session, appearing before the congregation 

 on the place of public penitence, for having un- 

 mercifully beaten a boy who broke two " earthen 

 vessels " fetching water to him. His friends then 

 living " understood he was much about Bristol 

 and Liverpool." A woman from England, sup- 

 posed to be his widow, subsequently appeared at 

 Largo to claim some of his patrimonial inherit- 

 ance. 



" John Selkirk, a weaver in Largo in 1794, was in pos- 

 session of the gun and chest which his great-uncle brought 

 from Juan Fernandez. They also had a drinking-cup of 

 cocoa-nut shell tipped with silver, which had been his 

 property ; but the silver is now gone, and the cup only 

 remains." 



The author concludes : 



"Thus unfortunately ends the history of Alexander 

 Selkirk, as far as I have been able to recover materials 

 strictly true. By his last adventure he verified the truth 

 of his own remark to Steele, ' That he was never so happy 

 as when he was not worth a farthing.'' " 



May I add a Query to the foregoing? Are 

 there any particulars known when and where 

 Selkirk died and was buried ? In making searches 

 it sliould be under the names of Selkirk, Selcrag, 

 or Selcraig. G. N. 



If Lord Oxford wrote the first part of Robinson 

 Crusoe, he must have been a diligent student and 

 successful imitator not only of De Foe's stjle, but 



[* Notices respecting Alexander Selkirk, from the 

 parish registers of Largo in Fife, will be found in Collet's 

 Relics of Literature, p. 841.] 



