He was a diligent student of the texts of the voyagers, and himself edited out of Hakluyt and Purchas the best collection of them current in his day.

The purely literary influence of the age of discovery persisted down to _Robinson Crusoe_; in that book by a refinement of satire a return to travel itself (it must be remembered Defoe posed not as a novelist but as an actual traveller) is used to make play with the deductions founded on it.

Crusoe's conversation with the man Friday will be found to be a satire of Locke's famous controversy with the Bishop of Worcester.

With _Robinson Crusoe_ the influence of the age of discovery finally perishes.

An inspiration hardens into the mere subject matter of books of adventure.