e did not try to create
heroines more virtuous than Moll Flanders and Roxana.

It is not only in drawing his characters that Defoe, in _The Fortunate
Mistress_, comes nearer than usual to producing a novel. This narrative
of his is less loosely constructed than any others except _Robinson
Crusoe_ and the _Journal of the Plague Year_, which it was easier to
give structure to. In both of them--the story of a solitary on a desert
island and the story of the visitation of a pestilence--the nature of
the subject made the author's course tolerably plain; in _The Fortunate
Mistress_, the proper course was by no means so well marked. The more
credit is due Defoe, therefore, that the book is so far from being
entirely inorganised that, had he taken sufficient pains with the
ending, it would have had as much structure as many good novels. There
is no strongly defined plot, it is true; but in general, if a character
is introduced, he is heard from again; a scene that impresses itself on
the mind of the heroine is likely to be important in the sequel. The
story seems to be working itself out to a logical conclusion, when
unexpectedly it comes to an end. Defoe apparently grew tired of it for
some reason, and wound it up abruptly, with only the meagre information
as to the fate of Roxana and Amy that they "fell into a dreadful course
of calamities."

G.H. MAYNADIER.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Memoirs of a Cavalier

[2] _An Essay upon Projects, An Academy for Women._

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

The history of this beautiful lady is to speak for itself; if it is not
as beautiful as the lady herself is reported to be; if it is not as
diverting as the reader can desire, and much more than he can reasonably
expect; and if all the most diverting parts of it are not adapted to the
instruction and improvement of the reader, the relator says it must be
from the defect of his performance; dressing up the story in worse
clothes than the lady whose words he speaks, prepared for the world.

He takes the liberty to say that this story differs from most of the
modern performances of this kind, though some of them have met with a
very good reception in the world. I say, it differs from them in this
great and essential article, namely, that the foundation of this is laid
in truth of fact; and so the work is not a story, but a history.

The scene is laid so near the place where the main part of it was
transacted that it was necessary to conc