Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I | Page 4

is one of those books which we do not half
appreciate. And among the world's benefactors Robert Paltock deserves
a place. An idle hour could not be spent in a much pleasanter way than
in watching Peter Wilkins go a-field with his gun or haul up the
beast-fish at the lonely creek. What can be more delightful than the
description how, wakened from dreams of home by the noise of strange
voices overhead, he sees fallen at his door the lovely winged woman
Youwarkee! Prudish people may be scandalised at the unreserved
frankness shown in the account of the consummation of Wilkins'
marriage with this fair creature; but the editor was unwilling to mutilate
the book in the interests of such refined readers. A man or a woman
who can find anything to shock his or her feelings in the description of
Youwarkee's bridal night deserves the commiseration of sensible
people. Very charming is the picture of the children sitting round the
fire on the long winter evenings listening wide-eyed to the ever-fresh

story of their father's marvellous adventures. The wholesome morality,
the charitableness and homely piety apparent throughout, give the
narrative a charm denied to many works of greater literary pretension.
When Peter Wilkins leaves his solitary home to live among the winged
people, the interest of the story, it must be confessed, is somewhat
diminished. The author's obligations to Swift in the latter part of the
book are considerable; and of course in describing how Peter Wilkins
ordered his life on the lonely island, he was largely indebted to Defoe.
But the creation of the winged beings is Paltock's own. It has been
suggested that he named his hero after John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester,
who, among other curious theories, had seriously discussed the
question whether men could acquire the art of flying. In the second part
of his "Mathematical Magick," the Bishop writes: "Those things that
seem very difficult and fearfull at the first may grow very facil after
frequent trial and exercise: And therefore he that would effect any thing
in this kind must be brought up to the constant practice of it from his
Youth; trying first only to use his wings in running on the ground, as an
Estrich or tame geese will do, touching the earth with his toes; and so
by degrees learn to rise higher till he shall attain unto skill and
confidence. I have heard it from credible testimony that one of our
nation hath proceeded so far in this experiment that he was able by the
help of wings to skip constantly ten yards at a time." Youwarkee spread
wide her graundee, and in an instant was lost in the clouds. Had the
author given her the motion of a goose, or even of an ostrich--bah! the
thought is too dreadful.
Judicious reader, the long winter evenings have come round, and you
have now abundance of leisure. Let the poets stand idle on the shelves
till the return of spring, unless perchance you would fain resume
acquaintance with the "Seasons," which you have not read since a boy,
or would divert yourself with Prior or be grave with Crabbe. Now is the
time to feel once more the charm of Lamb's peerless and unique essays;
now is the time to listen to the honied voice of Leigh Hunt discoursing
daintily of men and books. So you will pass from Charles Lamb and
Leigh Hunt to the books they loved to praise. Exult in the full-blooded,
bracing life which pulses in the pages of Fielding; and if Smollett's
mirth is occasionally too riotous and his taste too coarse, yet confess

that all faults must be pardoned to the author of "Humphry Clinker."
Many a long evening you will spend pleasantly with Defoe; and then,
perchance, after a fresh reading of the thrice and four times wonderful
adventures of Robinson Crusoe, you will turn to the romance of "Peter
Wilkins." So may rheums and catarrhs be far from you, and may your
hearth be crowned with content!
A. H. B.
5 Willow Road, Hampstead, November 1883.

LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
PETER WILKINS.
A Cornish Man:
Relating particularly,
His Shipwreck near the South Pole; his wonderful Passage thro' a
subterraneous Cavern into a kind of new World; his there meeting with
a Gawry or flying woman, whose Life he preserv'd, and afterwards
married her; his extraordinary Conveyance to the Country of Glums
and Gawrys, or Men and Women that fly. Likewise a Description of
this strange Country, with the Laws, Customs, and Manners of its
Inhabitants, and the Author's remarkable Transactions among them.
Taken from his own Mouth, in his Passage to England from off Cape
Horn in America, in the ship Hector,
With an INTRODUCTION, giving an Account of the surprizing
Manner