DECEPTIONS. 



DECEPTIONS. 



DE FOE AND THE GHOST THAT MADE 

 THE BOOK SELL. 



An adventurous bookseller had 

 ventured to print a considerable 

 edition of Drelineourt's Book of 

 Consolation against the Fears of 

 Death, translated by M. D' Assigny. 

 But, however certain the prospect 

 of death, it is not so agreeable (un- 

 fortunately) as to invite the eager 

 contemplation of the public, and the 

 book, being neglected, lay a dead 

 stock on the hands of the publisher. 

 In this emergency he applied to De 

 Foe to assist him in rescuing the 

 unfortunate book from the liter- 

 ary death to which general neglect 

 seemed about to consign it. De 

 Foe's genius and audacity devised 

 a plan, which, for assurance and in- 

 genuity, defied even the powers of 

 Mr. Puff in the Critic; for who but 

 himself would have thought of sum- 

 moning up a ghost from the grave 

 to bear witness in favour of a halting 

 body of divinity ? Thereisamat- 

 ter-of fact, business like style in the 

 whole account of the transaction, 

 which bespeaks ineffable powers of 

 self-possession. The apparition of 

 Mrs. Veal is represented as appear- 

 ing to a Mrs. Bargrave, her intimate 

 friend, as she sat in her own house 

 in deep contemplation of certain 

 distresses of her own. After the 

 ghostly visitor had announced her- 

 self as prepared for a distant jour- 

 ney, her friend and she began to 

 talk in the homely style of middle- 

 aged ladies, and Mrs. Veal proses 

 concerning the conversations they 

 had formerly held, and tho books 

 they had read together. Her very 

 recent experience probably led Mrs. 

 Veal to talk of death and the books 

 written on the subject, and she pro- 

 nounced, ex cathedra, as a dead per- 

 son was best entitled to do, that 

 " Drelineourt's book on death was 

 the best book on the subject ever 



written." She also mentioned Dr. 

 Sherlock, two Dutch books which 

 had been translated, and several 

 others ; but Drelincourt, she said, 

 had the clearest notions of death 

 and the future state of any who had 

 handled that subject. She then 

 asked for the work, and lectured 

 on it with great eloquence and af- 

 fection. Dr. Kenrick's Ascetick was 

 also mentioned with approbation by 

 this critical spectre (the Doctor's 

 work was no doubt a tenant of the 

 shelf in some favourite publisher's 

 shop), and Mr. Norris' poem on 

 Friendship, a work which, I doubt, 

 though honoured with the ghost's 

 approbation, we may now seek for 

 as vainly as Corelli tormented his 

 memory to recover the sonata which 

 the devil played to him in a dream. 

 The whole account is so distinctly 

 circumstantial, that, were it not for 

 the impossibility, or extreme im- 

 probability at least, of such an oc- 

 currence, the evidence could not 

 but support the story. 



The effect was most wonderful. 

 Drelincourt upon Death, attested 

 by one who could speak from ex- 

 perience, took an unequalled run. 

 The copies had hung on the book- 

 seller's hands as heavy as a pile of 

 bullets. They now traversed the 

 town in every direction, like the 

 same balls discharged from a field- 

 piece. In short, the object of Mrs. 

 V eal's apparition was perfectly at- 

 tained. (Scott's Memoir of De Foe.) 



EDWARD WOBTLET MONTAGU. 



Mr. Foster had, in the early 

 part of his life, been selected by old 

 Edward Wortley Montagu (hus- 

 band of the celebrated Lady Mary), 

 to superintend the education of that 

 very eccentric character, the late 

 Edward Wortley Montagu. Young 

 Montagu, after thrice running away 

 from his tutor, and being discovered 



