Note 33 — Chapter III

So savage a critic as Joseph Ritson seems to have entertained a much higher opinion of Captain Hodgson's literary qualities than the "seer of Chelsea." In his preface to the memoir he says—"Without meaning to dispute the merit of Defoe, in his peculiarly happy manner of telling a story, or, in other words, in the art of book-making, it will probably be found, that, truth or falsehood being out of the question, in point of importance, interest, and even pleasantry, Captain Hodgson's narrative is infinitely superior to the 'Memoirs of a Cavalier.'"