Jan.] ALEXANDER SELKIRK. 129 



" I am monarch of all 1 survey, 



My right there is none to dispute," 



the subsequent sentiment was doubtless more frequently present to 

 his mind : 



" O solitude, where are the charms 

 Which sages have seen in thy face? 

 Better dwell in the midst of alarms, 

 Than reign in this horrible place." 



For some time after the departure of the ship, he found the solitude 

 of his situation scarcely supportable ; and so depressing did his melan- 

 choly become, that he frequently determined to put a period to his ex- 

 istence. According to his own account, it was full eighteen months 

 before he became completely reconciled to his singular lot ; when he 

 gradually became calm and resigned, and finally happy. He now 

 employed his time in building and decorating his huts, exploring the 

 island, catching wild goats and taming them, with other amusements 

 and avocations, so accurately detailed in the romance that no one 

 could doubt the source from whence the facts were derived. When 

 his garments were worn out, he made others of the skins of such goats 

 as he killed for food. 



During Selkirk's residence on this island he caught about one thou- 

 sand goats, half of which he let go at large again, having first marked 

 them with a slit in the ear. Thirty years afterward, when Commo- 

 dore Anson visited this island, he or some of his people shot one of 

 these very goats ; which I should suppose must have been rather tough 

 eating. After living in this manner four years and four months, Sel- 

 kirk was at length taken off by an English privateer from Bristol, which 

 touched at the island, with her consort, in the month of February, 1709 ; 

 but did not arrive in England until October, 1711. 



Having been absent eight years, and supposed by his friends to have 

 perished, his unexpected return produced considerable sensation among 

 them. It soon became noised abroad that more than half the period 

 of his absence had been passed on an uninhabited island of the 

 Pacific Ocean, when the curiosity of the public became so much ex- 

 cited, that he reasonably conjectured that he might turn his adventures 

 to some account ; and as he was much in want of pecuniary assistance 

 he resolved to try. 



He was referred to Daniel De Foe, a young man just then rising into 

 literary celebrity, into whose hands he put his journal for examination ; 

 proposing to give him a liberal share of the profits if he would prepare 

 it for the press. After some time, De Foe returned the manuscript, with 

 a discouraging answer, and Selkirk relinquished every hope from this 

 quarter. In a few years afterward appeared a new romance, entitled 

 " Robinson Crusoe," which at once electrified all the juvenile portion 

 of the British nation. With unexampled rapidity this work ran through 

 many successive editions, and was translated into almost every language 

 of Europe. Abridgments, alterations, and bungling imitations soon 

 succeeded ; De Foe became rich in fame and wealth,while poor Selkirk, 

 the journal of whose sufferings had furnished him with every important 



I 



