JOHN LAW 
inconvenience; his bedstead of his own contriving, and his bed of 
goat-skins; when his gunpowder failed, his teaching himself by con- 
tinual exercise to run as swiftly as the goats ; his falling from a pre- 
cipice in catching hold of a goat, stunned and bruised, till, coming 
to his senses, he found the goat dead under him ; his taming kids to 
divert himself, by dancing with them and his cats ; his converting a 
nail into a needle ; his sewing goat-skins with little thongs of the same, 
and when his knife was worn to the back, contriving to make blades 
out of some iron hoops ; his solacing himself in this solitude by 
singing psalms, and preserving a social feeling in his fervent prayers ; 
and the habitation which Selkirk had raised, to reach which, they fol- 
lowed him ^ with difficulty climbing up and creeping down many rocks, 
till they came at last to a pleasant spot of ground, full of grass and 
of trees, where stood his two huts, and his numerous tame goats 
shewed his solitary retreat ;’ and finally, his indifi'erence to return to 
world, from which his feelings had been so perfectly weaned : — such 
were the first rude materials of a new situation in human nature; an 
European in a primeval state, with the habits or mind of a savage. 
The year after this account was published, Selkirk and his adven- 
tures attracted the notice of Steele ; who was not likely to pass 
unobserved, a man and a story so strange and so new. In his paper 
of “ The Englishman,” Dec. 1713, he communicates further particu- 
lars of Selkirk. When Steele became acquainted with him, he says 
he could discern that he had been much separated from company from 
his aspect and gesture. There was a strong but cheerful seriousness 
in his looks, and a certain disregard to the ordinary things about him, 
as if he had been sunk in thought. The man frequently bewailed his 
return to the world, which could not, he said, with all its enjoyments, 
restore him to the tranquillity of his solitude.” Steele adds another 
curious change in this wild man, which occurred some time after he 
had seen him. ‘Though I had frequently conversed with him after 
a few months’ absence, he met me in the street, and though he spoke 
to me, 1 could not recollect that I had seen him. Familiar converse 
in this town had taken off the loneliness of his aspect, and quite altered 
the air of his face.’ De Foe could not fail of being struck by these 
interesting particulars of the character of Selkirk ; but probably it 
was another observation of Steele, which threw the germ of Robins®n 
Crusoe into the mind of De Foe. 
John Law. 
This person is usually known by the name of the Pro jector, and was 
the eldest son of a goldsmith, in Edinburgh, by Elizabeth Campbell, 
heiress of Laurieston, near that city, and born about 1681. He was 
bred to no business, but possessed great abilities, and a very fertile 
invention. He had the address, when but a very young man, to re- 
commend himself to the king’s ministers in Scotland, to arrange the 
revenue accounts, which were in great disorder at the time of settling 
the equivalent before the union. He also laid before the Scots par- 
liament a scheme for supplying the kingdom with money, by establish- 
ing a bank, which should issue paper to the value of the whole landed 
property in the kingdom; buthis plan being thought too wild was rejected. 
