"The grand secret of his art, however, if art it can be called, and were not rather an instinct, consists doubtless in the astonishing minuteness of the details, and the circumstantial particularity with which everything is laid before us. It is by this, perhaps more than anything else, that fictitious narratives are distinguishable from the genuine memoirs of those who have been eyewitnesses of what they relate. The parts in the one case may be as probable as in the other, the descriptions as vivid and striking, the style as natural and unconstrained; still there is an indefinable something which seems to be wanting to the former, though we may not have remarked its presence in the latter. Some unimportant particular, some minute circumstances, which none but he who had seen it with his own eyes would have thought of remarking, will always serve, like the scarcely discernible lines on a genuine note, to distinguish between the true and the counterfeit. The eye of the imagination, however strong and piercing, cannot always pervade the whole scene, and see everything distinctly; the more prominent features, indeed, it may develope with the clearness and accuracy of an almost unclouded vision, but all besides is either obscured with mist, or lost in impenetrable shade; and he who paints from the ideal must consequently either leave these parts unfinished, or spread his colours at random. It is the singular merit of De Foe to have overcome this difficulty, and to have communicated to his fictitious narratives every characteristic mark by which we distinguish between real and pretended adventures. The whole scene lay expanded before him in the fulness of light and life, and, down to the minutest particular, everything is delineated with truth and accuracy. It is not necessary that we should have the light fall advantageously, or wink with our eyes, in order to make the delusion complete, by hiding the defects and softening down the harsh lines of the representation; the most penetrating gaze, aided by the strongest light, cannot detect the imposition, or distinguish between the shade and the substance. Writers of fiction may, in general, be said rather to shadow forth than fully to delineate their visions, either because they flit away too early, or are never seen with sufficient distinctness; like the first discoverers of countries, they trace out a few promontories on their chart, and give a faint outline of something indistinctly seen. In the solitude of his closet, De Foe could travel round the world in idea, seeing everything with the distinctness of natural vision, and noting everything with the minuteness of the most accurate observer. His chart presents us not merely with the bold headland, shooting forth into the deep, or the clearly defined mountain that rises into middle air behind; we have the whole coast fully and fairly traced out, with the soundings of every bay, the direction of every current, and the quarter of every wind that blows."