ADVERTISEMENT.

The ensuing Life was written for amusement, during a period of

convalescence in 1785; and published anonymously by Stockdale, before

The History of the Union, in 1786. As the Author fears no reproach for

such amusement, during such a period, he made no strong objections to

Stockdale's solicitations, that it might be annexed, with the author's

name, to his splendid edition of Robinson Crusoe. The reader will now

have the benefit of a few corrections, with some additions, and a List

of De Foe's Writings.

THE LIFE OF DE FOE,

BY

GEORGE CHALMERS, ESQ.

It is lamented by those who labour the fields of British biography, that

after being entangled in briars they are often rewarded with the scanty

products of barrenness. The lives of literary men are generally passed

in the obscurities of the closet, which conceal even from friendly

inquiries the artifices of study, whereby each may have risen to

eminence. And during the same moment that the diligent biographer sets

out to ask for information, with regard to the origin, the modes of

life, or the various fortunes of writers who have amused or instructed

their country, the housekeeper, the daughter, or grandchild, that knew

connections and traditions, drop into the grave.

These reflections naturally arose from my inquiries about the life of

the author of The History of The Union of Great Britain; and of The

Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Whether he were born on the neighbouring

continent, or in this island; in London, or in the country; was equally

uncertain. And whether his name were Foe, or De Foe, was somewhat

doubtful. Like Swift, he had perhaps reasons for concealing what would

have added little to his consequence. It is at length known, with

sufficient certainty, that our author was the son of James Foe, of the

parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, London, citizen and butcher. The

concluding sentiment of The True-born Englishman, we now see, was then

as natural as it will ever be just:--

Then, let us boast of ancestors no more,

For, fame of families is all a cheat;

_'Tis personal virtue only makes us great_.

If we may credit the gazette, Daniel Foe, or De Foe, as he is said by

his enemies to have called himself, that he might not be thought an

Englishman, was born in London[1], about the year 1663. His family were

probably dissenters[2], among whom he received no unlettered education;

at least it is plain, from his various writings, that he was a zealous

defender of their principles, and a strenuous supporter of their

politics, before the liberality of our rulers in church and state had

freed this conduct from danger. He merits the praise which is due to

sincerity in manner of thinking, and to uniformity in habits of acting,

whatever obloquy may have been cast on his name, by attributing writings

to him, which, as they belonged to others, he was studious to disavow.

Our author was educated at a dissenting academy, which was kept at

Newington-green, by Charles Morton. He delights to praise that learned

gentleman[3], whose instructive lessons he probably enjoyed from 1675

to 1680, as a master who taught nothing either in politics, or science,

which was dangerous to monarchial government, or which was improper for

a diligent scholar to know. Being in 1705 accused by Tutchin of

illiterature, De Foe archly acknowledged, "I owe this justice to my

ancient father, who is yet living, and in whose behalf I freely testify,

that if I am a blockhead, it was nobody's fault but my own; he having

spared nothing that might qualify me to match the accurate Dr. B---- or

the learned Tutchin[4]."

De Foe was born a writer, as other men are born generals and statesmen;

and when he was not twenty-one, he published, in 1683, a pamphlet

against a very prevailing sentiment in favour of the Turks, as opposed

to the Austrians; very justly thinking, as he avows in his riper age,

that it was better the popish house of Austria should ruin the

protestants in Hungary, than the infidel house of Ottoman should ruin

both protestants and papists, by overrunning Germany[5]. De Foe was a

man who would fight as well as write for his principles; and before he

was three-and-twenty he appeared in arms for the duke of Monmouth, in

June 1685. Of this exploit he boasts[6] in his latter years, when it was

no longer dangerous to avow his participation in that imprudent

enterprise, with greater men of similar principles.

Having escaped from the dangers of battle, and from the fangs of

Jeffreys, De Foe found complete security in the more gainful pursuits of

peace. Yet he was prompted by his zeal to mingle in the controversies of

the reign of James II. whom he efficaciously opposed, by warning the

dissenters of the secret danger of the insidious tolerance which was

offered by the monarch's bigotry, or by the minister's artifice[7]. When

our author collected his writings, he did not think proper to republish

either his tract against the Turks, or his pamphlet against the king.

De Foe was admitted a liveryman of London on the 26th of January,

1687-8; when, being allowed his freedom by birth, he was received a

member of that eminent corporation. As he had endeavoured to promote the

revolution by his pen and his sword, he had the satisfaction of

partaking, ere long, in the pleasures and advantages of that great

event. During the hilarity of that moment, the lord mayor of London

asked king William to partake of the city feast on the 29th of October,

1689. Every honour was paid the sovereign of the people's choice. A

regiment of volunteers, composed of the chief citizens, and commanded by

the celebrated earl of Peterborough, attended the king and queen from

Whitehall to the Mansion-house. Among these troopers, gallantly mounted,

and richly accoutred, was Daniel De Foe, if we may believe Oldmixon[8].

While our author thus displayed his zeal, and courted notice, he is said

to have acted as a hosier in Freeman's Yard, Cornhill; but the

hosier[9] and the poet are very irreconcilable characters. With the

usual imprudence of superior genius, he was carried by his vivacity into

companies who were gratified by his wit. He spent those hours with a

small society for the cultivation of polite learning, which he ought to

have employed in the calculations of the counting-house; and being

obliged to abscond from his creditors, in 1692, he naturally attributed

those misfortunes to the war, which were probably owing to his own

misconduct[10]. An angry creditor took out a commission of bankruptcy,

which was soon superseded on the petition of those to whom he was most

indebted, who accepted a composition on his single bond. This he

punctually paid by the efforts of unwearied diligence. But some of those

creditors, who had been thus satisfied, falling afterwards into distress

themselves, De Foe voluntarily paid them their whole claims, being then

in rising circumstances from king William's favour[11]. This is such an

example of honesty as it would be unjust to De Foe and to the world to

conceal. Being reproached in 1705 by lord Haversham with mercenariness,

our author feelingly mentions; "How, with a numerous family, and no

helps but his own industry, he had forced his way with undiscouraged

diligence, through a sea of misfortunes, and reduced his debts,

exclusive of composition, from seventeen thousand to less than five

thousand pounds[12]." He continued to carry on the pantile works near

Tilbury-fort, though probably with no great success. It was afterwards

sarcastically said, that he did not, like the Egyptians, require bricks

without straw, but, like the Jews, required bricks without paying his

labourers[13]. He was born for other enterprises, which, if they did

not gain him opulence, have conferred a renown that will descend the

stream of time with the language wherein his works are written.

While he was yet under thirty, and had mortified no great man by his

satire, or offended any party by his pamphlets, he had acquired friends

by his powers of pleasing, who did not, with the usual instability of

friendships, desert him amidst his distresses. They offered to settle

him as a factor at Cadiz, where, as a trader, he had some previous

correspondence. In this situation he might have procured business by

his care, and accumulated wealth without a risk; but, as he assures us

in his old age, _Providence, which had other work for him to do, placed

a secret aversion in his mind to quitting England_[14]. He had

confidence enough in his own talents to think, that on this field he

could gather laurels, or at least gain a livelihood.

In a projecting age, as our author denominates king William's reign, he

was himself a projector. While he was yet young, De Foe was prompted by

a vigorous mind to think of many schemes, and to offer, what was most

pleasing to the ruling powers, ways and means for carrying on the war.

He wrote, as he says, many sheets about the coin; he proposed a register

for seamen, long before the act of parliament was thought of; he

projected county banks, and factories for goods; he mentioned a proposal

for a commission of inquiries into bankrupt's estates; he contrived a

pension-office for the relief of the poor[15]. At length, in January

1696-7, he published his Essay upon Projects; which he dedicated to

Dalby Thomas, not as a commissioner of glass duties, under whom he then

served, or as a friend to whom he acknowledges obligations, but as to

the most proper judge on the subject. It is always curious to trace a

thought, in order to see where it first originated, or how it was

afterwards expanded. Among other projects, which show a wide range of

knowledge, he suggests to king William the imitation of Lewis XIV., in

the establishment of a society "for encouraging polite learning, for

refining the English language, and for preventing barbarisms of

manners." Prior offered in 1700 the same project to king William, in his

_Carmen Seculare_; Swift mentioned in 1710 to lord Oxford a proposal for

improving the English tongue; and Tickell flatters himself in his

Prospect of Peace, that "our daring language, shall sport no more in

arbitrary sound." However his projects were taken, certain it is, that

when De Foe ceased to be a trader, he was, by the interposition of Dalby

Thomas probably, appointed, in 1695, accountant to the commissioners for

managing the duties on glass; who, with our author, ceased to act on the

1st of August, 1699, when the tax was suppressed by act of

parliament[16].

From projects of ways and means, De Foe's ardour soon carried him into

the thorny paths of satiric poetry; and his muse produced, in January,

1700-1, The True-born Englishman. Of the origin of this satire, which

was the cause of much good fortune, but of some disasters, he gives

himself the following account: During this time came out an abhorred

pamphlet, in very ill verse, written by one Mr. Tutchin, and called The

Foreigners; in which the author, who he was I then knew not, fell

personally upon the king, then upon the Dutch nation, and, after having

reproached his majesty with crimes that his worst enemies could not

think of without horror, he sums up all in the odious name of FOREIGNER.

This filled me with a kind of rage against the book, and gave birth to a

trifle which I never could hope should have met with so general an

acceptation. The sale was prodigious, and probably unexampled; as

Sacheverell's Trial had not then appeared[17]. The True-born Englishman

was answered, paragraph by paragraph, in February, 1700-1, by a writer

who brings haste to apologise for dulness. For this Defence of king

William and the Dutch, which was doubtless circulated by detraction and

by power, De Foe was amply rewarded. "How this poem was the occasion,"

says he, "of my being known to his majesty; how I was afterwards

received by him; how employed abroad; and how, above my capacity of

deserving, rewarded, is no part of the present case[18]." Of the

particulars, which the author thus declined to tell, nothing can now be

told. It is only certain that he was admitted to personal interviews

with the king, who was no reader of poetry; and that for the royal

favours De Foe was always grateful.

When the pen and ink war was raised against a standing army, subsequent

to the peace of Ryswick, our author published An Argument, to prove that

a standing army, with consent of parliament, is not inconsistent with a

free government[19]. "Liberty and property," says he, "are the glorious

attributes of the English nation; and the dearer they are to us, the

less danger we are in of losing them; but I could never yet see it

proved, that the danger of losing them by a small army was such, as we

should expose ourselves to all the world for it. It is not the king of

England alone, but the sword of England in the hand of the king, that

gives laws of peace and war now to Europe; and those who would thus

wrest the sword out of his hand in time of peace, bid the fairest of all

men in the world to renew the war." He who is desirous of reading this

treatise on an interesting topic, will meet with strength of argument,

conveyed in elegant language[20].

When the nation flamed with faction, the grand jury of Kent presented

to the commons, on the 8th of May, 1701, a petition, which desired them,

"to mind the public business more, and their private heats less;" and

which contained a sentiment, that there was a design, as Burnet tells,

other counties and the city of London should equally adopt. Messrs.

Culpeppers, Polhill, Hamilton, and Champneys, who avowed this intrepid

paper, were committed to the Gatehouse, amid the applauses of their

countrymen. It was on this occasion that De Foe's genius dictated a

Remonstrance, which was signed Legion, and which has been recorded in

history for its bold truths and seditious petulance. De Foe's zeal

induced him to assume a woman's dress, while he delivered this factious

paper to Harley, the speaker, as he entered the house of commons[21].

It was then also that our author, who was transported by an equal

attachment to the country and the court, published The Original Power of

the collective Body of the People of England examined and asserted[22].

This timeful treatise he dedicated to king William, in a dignified

strain of nervous eloquence. "It is not the least of the extraordinaries

of your majesty's character," says he, "that, as you are king of your

people, so you are the people's king; a title, which, as it is the most

glorious, so it is the most indisputable." To the lords and commons he

addresses himself in a similar tone: The vindication of the original

right of all men to the government of themselves, he tells them, is so

far from being a derogation from, that it is a confirmation of their

legal authority. Every lover of liberty must be pleased with the perusal

of a treatise, which vies with Mr. Locke's famous tract in powers of

reasoning, and is superior to it in the graces of style.

At a time when "union and charity, the one relating to our civil, and

the other to our religious concerns, were strangers in the land," De Foe

published The Freeholder's Plea against Stock-jobbing Elections of

Parliament men[23]. "It is very rational to suppose," says our author,

"that they who will buy will sell; or, what seems more rational, they

who have bought must sell." This is certainly a persuasive performance,

though we may suppose, that many voters were influenced then by

arguments still more persuasive. And he concludes with a sentiment,

which has not been too often repeated, That nothing can make us

formidable to our neighbours, and maintain the reputation of our nation,

but union among ourselves.

How much soever king William may have been pleased with The True-born

Englishman, or with other services, he was little gratified probably by

our author's Reasons against a War with France. This argument, showing

that the French king's owning the prince of Wales as king of England, is

no sufficient ground of a war, is one of the finest, because it is one

of the most useful, tracts in the English language[24]. After remarking

the universal cry of the people for war, our author declares he is not

against war with France, provided it be on justifiable grounds; but, he

hopes, England will never be so inconsiderable a nation, as to make use

of dishonest pretences to bring to pass any of her designs; and he

wishes that he who desires we should end the war honourably, ought to

desire also that we begin it fairly. "But if we must have a war," our

author hoped, "it might be wholly on the defensive, in Flanders, in

order to carry on hostilities in remote places, where the damage may be

greater, by wounding the Spaniard in some weaker part; so as upon a

peace he shall be glad to quit Flanders for an equivalent." Who at

present does not wish that De Foe's argument had been more studiously

read, and more efficaciously admitted?

A scene of sorrow soon after opened, which probably embittered our

author's future life. The death of king William deprived him of a

protector, who, he says, trusted, esteemed, and much more valued him

than he deserved: and who, as he flattered himself amidst his later

distresses, would never have suffered him to be treated as he had been

in the world. Of that monarch's memory, he says, that he never patiently

heard it abused, nor ever could do so; and in this gratitude to a royal

benefactor there is surely much to praise, but nothing to blame[25].

In the midst of that furious contest of party, civil and religious,

which ensued on the accession of queen Anne, our author was no

unconcerned spectator. He reprinted his Inquiry into the Occasional

Conformity of Dissenters[26], which had been published in 1697, with a

dedication to sir Humphrey Edwin, a lord mayor, who having carried the

regalia to a conventicle, gave rise to some wit in The Tale of a Tub,

and occasioned some clauses in an act of parliament. De Foe now

dedicated his Inquiry to John How, a dissenting minister, of whom

Anthony Wood speaks well. Mr. How did not much care, says Calamy[27],

to enter upon an argument of that nature with one of so warm a temper as

the author of that Inquiry, and contented himself with publishing some

Considerations on the Preface of an Inquiry concerning the Occasional

Conformity of Dissenters. De Foe's pertinacity soon produced a

reply[28]. He outlaughs and outtalks Mr. How, who had provoked his

antagonist's wrath by personal sarcasms, and who now thought it hard

that the old should be shoved off the stage by the young. De Foe

reprobates, with the unforbearance of the times, "this fast and loose

game of religion;" for which he had never met with any considerable

excuse but this, "that this is no conformity in point of religion, but

done as a civil action." He soon after published another Inquiry, in

order to show, that the dissenters are no ways concerned in occasional

conformity. The controversy, which in those days occasioned such

vehement contests between the two houses of parliament, is probably

silenced for ever.

"During the first fury of high-flying," says he, "I fell a sacrifice for

writing against the madness of that high party, and in the service of

the dissenters." He alludes here to The Shortest Way; which he published

towards the end of the year 1702; and which is a piece of exquisite

irony, though there are certainly passages in it that might have shown

considerate men how much the author had been in jest. He complains how

hard it was, that this should not have been perceived by all the town,

and that not one man can see it, either churchman or dissenter. This is

one of the strongest proofs how much the minds of men were inflamed

against each other, and how little the virtues of mutual forbearance

and personal kindness existed amid the clamour of contradiction, which

then shook the kingdom, and gave rise to some of the most remarkable

events in our annals[29]. The commons showed their zeal, however they

may have studied their dignity, by prosecuting[30] several libellists.

During the previous twenty years of his life, De Foe had busied himself

unconsciously in charging a mine, which now blew himself and his family

into the air. He had fought for Monmouth; he had opposed king James; he

had vindicated the Revolution; he had panegyrised king William; he had

defended the rights of the collective body of the people; he had

displeased the treasurer and the general, by objecting to the Flanders'

war; he had bantered sir Edward Seymour, and sir Christopher Musgrave,

the tory leaders of the commons; he had just ridiculed all the

high-fliers in the kingdom; and he was at length obliged to seek for

shelter from the indignation of persons and parties, thus overpowering

and resistless.

A proclamation was issued in January, 1702-3[31], offering a reward of

fifty pounds for discovering his retreat. De Foe was described by the

gazette, "as a middle-sized spare man, about forty years old, of a brown

complexion, and dark brown hair, though he wears a wig, having a hook

nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes, and a large mole near his mouth."

He soon published An Explanation; though he "wonders to find there

should be any occasion for it." "But since ignorance," says he, "has led

most men to a censure of the book, and some people are like to come

under the displeasure of the government for it; in justice to those who

are in danger to suffer by it; in submission to the parliament and

council, who may be offended at it; and courtesy to all mistaken people,

who, it seems, have not penetrated into the real design, the author

presents the world with the genuine meaning of the paper, which he hopes

may allay the anger of government, or at least satisfy the minds of such

as imagine a design to inflame and divide us[32]". Neither his

submissiveness to the ruling powers, nor his generosity to his printers,

was a sufficient shield from the resentment of his enemies. He was found

guilty of a libel, sentenced to the pillory, and adjudged to be fined

and imprisoned[33]. Thus, as he acknowledges, was he a second time

ruined; and by this affair, as he asserts, he lost above £3,500

sterling, which consisted probably in his brick works, and in the more

abundant product of his pen.

When by these means, immured in Newgate, our author consoled himself

with the animating reflection, that, having meant well, he unjustly

suffered. He had a mind too active to be idle in the solitude of a

prison, which is seldom invaded by visitors. And he wrote a hymn to the

pillory, that--

Hieroglyphic state machine,

Contrived to punish fancy in.

In this ode the reader will find satire, pointed by his sufferings;

generous sentiments, arising from his situation; and an unexpected flow

of easy verse. For example:

The first intent of laws

Was to correct the effect, and check the cause.

And all the ends of punishment

Were only future mischiefs to prevent:

But justice is inverted, when

Those engines of the law,

Instead of pinching vicious men,

Keep honest ones in awe[34].

He employed this involuntary leisure in correcting for the press a

collection of his writings, which, with several things he had no hand

in, had been already published by a piratical printer. He thought it a

most unaccountable boldness in him to print that particular book called

The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, while he lay under the public

resentment for the same fact. In this collection of 1703, there are

one-and-twenty treatises in poetry and prose, beginning with The

True-born Englishman, and ending with The Shortest Way to Peace and

Union. To this volume there was prefixed the first print of De Foe; to

which was afterwards added, the apt inscription: _Laudatur et

alget_[35].

In the solitariness of a gaol, the energy of De Foe projected the

Review. This is a periodical paper in 4to., which was first published on

the 19th of February, 1703-4; and which was intended to treat of news,

foreign and domestic; of politics, British and European; of trade,

particular and universal. But our author foresaw, from the natural

aversion of the age to any tedious affair, that however profitable, the

world would never read, if it were not diverting. With this design, both

instructive and amusing, he skilfully institutes a Scandal Club, which

discusses questions in divinity, morals, war, trade, language, poetry,

love, marriage, drunkenness, and gaming. Thus, it is easy to see, that

the Review pointed the way to the Tatlers, Spectators, and Guardians,

which may be allowed, however, to have treated those interesting topics

with more delicacy of humour, more terseness of style, and greater depth

of learning; yet has De Foe many passages, both of prose and poetry,

which, for refinement of wit, neatness of expression, and efficacy of

moral, would do honour to Steele or to Addison. Of all this was Johnson

unconscious, when he speaks of the Tatlers and Spectators as the first

English writers who had undertaken to reform either the savageness of

neglect, or the impertinence of civility; to show when to speak, or to

be silent; how to refuse, or how to comply[36].

In the midst of these labours our author published, in July, 1704, The

Storm; or, a Collection of the most remarkable Casualties, which

happened in the tempest, on the 23rd of November, 1703[37]. In

explaining the natural causes of winds De Foe shows more science, and in

delivering the opinions of the ancients that this island was more

subject to storms than other parts of the world, he displays more

literature than he has been generally supposed to possess. Our author is

moreover entitled to yet higher praise. He seized that awful occasion to

inculcate the fundamental truths of religion; the being of a God, the

superintendency of Providence, the certainty of heaven and hell, the one

to reward, the other to punish.

While, as he tells himself, he lay friendless in the prison of Newgate,

his family ruined, and himself without hopes of deliverance, a message

was brought him from a person of honour, whom till that time he had not

the least knowledge of. This was no less a person than sir Robert

Harley, the speaker of the house of commons. Harley approved probably of

the principles and conduct of De Foe, and doubtless foresaw, that,

during a factious age, such a genius could be converted to many uses.

And he sent a verbal message to the prisoner, desiring to know what he

could do for him. Our author readily wrote the story of the blind man in

the gospel; concluding--_Lord, that I may receive my sight_.

When the high-fliers were driven from the station which enabled them to

inflame rather than conciliate, Harley became secretary of state, in

April, 1704. He had now frequent opportunities of representing the

unmerited sufferings of De Foe to the queen and to the treasurer; yet

our author continued four months longer in gaol. The queen, however,

inquired into his circumstances; and lord Godolphin sent, as he

thankfully acknowledges, a considerable sum to his wife, and to him

money to pay his fine and the expense of his discharge. Here is the

foundation, says he, on which he built his first sense of duty to the

queen, and the indelible bond of gratitude to his first benefactor. "Let

any one say, then," he asks, "what I could have done, less or more than

I have done for such a queen and such a benefactor?" All this he

manfully avowed to the world[38], when queen Anne lay lifeless and cold

as king William, his first patron; and when Oxford, in the vicissitude

of party, had been persecuted by faction, and overpowered, though not

conquered, by violence.

Such was the high interposition by which De Foe was relieved from

Newgate, in August, 1704. In order to avoid the town-talk, he retired

immediately to St. Edmund's Bury: but his retreat did not prevent

persecution. Dyer, the newswriter, propagated that De Foe had fled from

justice. Fox, the bookseller, published that he had deserted his

security. Stephen, a state-messenger, everywhere said, that he had a

warrant for seizing him. This I suppose was wit, during the witty age of

Anne. In our duller days of law, such outrages would be referred to the

judgment of a jury. De Foe informed the secretary of state where he was,

and when he would appear; but he was told not to fear, as he had not

transgressed. Notwithstanding this vexation, our author's muse

produced, on the 29th of August, 1704, A Hymn to Victory, when the

successful skill of Marlborough furnished our poets with many occasions

to publish Gazettes in Rhyme[39].

De Foe opened the year 1704-5 with his Double Welcome to the duke of

Marlborough; disclaiming any expectation of place or pension. His

encomiastic strains, I fear, were not heard while he wrote like an

honest Englishman, against the continuance of the war; a war indeed of

personal glory, of national celebration, but of fruitless expense. De

Foe's activity, or his needs, produced in March, 1705, The Consolidator;

or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions, from the World in the Moon. It was

one of De Foe's felicities to catch the 'living manners as they rose,'

or one of his resources, to 'shoot folly as it flew.' In the lunar

language he applies his satiric file to the prominences of every

character: of the poets, from Dryden to Durfy; of the wits, from Addison

to Prior; of the metaphysicians, from Malbranche to Hobbes; of the

freethinkers, from Asgyl to the Tale of a Tub. Our author continually

complains of the ill usage of the world; but with all his acuteness he

did not advert, that he who attacks the world, will be by the world

attacked. He makes the lunar politicians debate the policy of Charles

XII. in pursuing the Saxons and Poles, while the Muscovites ravaged his

own people. I doubt whether it were on this occasion that the Swedish

ambassador was so ill-advised as to complain against De Foe, for merited

ridicule of a futile warfare[40]. They had not then discovered, that the

best defence against the shafts of satire is to let them fly. Our

author's sentiment was expanded by Johnson, in those energetic lines,

which thus conclude the character of the Swedish Charles:

"Who left the name, at which the world grew pale,

To point a moral, or adorn a tale."

De Foe was so little disturbed by the appearance of The Moon Calf[41],

or accurate Reflections on the Consolidator, that he plunged into a

controversy with sir Humphrey Mackworth about his bill for employing the

poor. This had been passed by the commons with great applause, but

received by the peers with suitable caution. De Foe, considering this

plausible project as an indigested chaos, represented it, through

several reviews, as a plan which would ruin the industrious, and thereby

augment the poor. Sir Humphrey endeavoured to support his workhouses, in

every parish, with a parochial capital for carrying on parochial

manufacture. This drew from De Foe his admirable treatise, which he

entitled, Giving Alms no Charity. As an English freeholder he claimed it

as a right to address his performance to the house of commons, having a

particular interest in the common good; but considering the persons

before whom he appeared, he laid down his archness, and assumed his

dignity. He maintained, with wonderful knowledge of fact and power of

argument, the following positions: 1st, That there is in England more

labour than hands to perform it; and consequently a want of people, not

of employment: 2ndly, No man in England, of sound limbs and senses, can

be poor merely for want of work: 3rdly, All workhouses for employing the

poor, as now they are employed, serve to the ruin of families and the

increase of the poor: 4thly, It is a regulation of the poor that is

wanted, not a setting them to work. Longer experience shows this to be a

difficult subject, which increases in difficulty with the effluxion of

time[42].

De Foe had scarcely dismissed sir Humphrey, when he introduced lord

Haversham, a peer, who is famous in our story, as a maker and publisher

of speeches. His lordship published his speech on the state of the

nation, in 1705, which was cried about the town with unusual

earnestness. Our author's prudence induced him to give no answer to the

speech; but a pamphlet, which was hawked about the streets and sold for

a penny, our author's shrewdness considered as a challenge to every

reader. He laughed and talked so much, through several Reviews, about

this factious effusion, as to provoke a defence of topics, which his

lordship ought neither to have printed nor spoken. De Foe now published

a Reply to Lord Haversham's Vindication of his Speech. During such

battles the town never fails to cheer the smaller combatant. Our author,

with an allusion to the biography of both, says sarcastically: "But

fate, that makes footballs of men, kicks some up stairs, and some down;

some are advanced without honour, others suppressed without infamy; some

are raised without merit, some are crushed without a crime; and no man

knows by the beginning of things, whether his course shall issue in a

peerage or a pillory[43]."

In the midst of these disputes, either grave or ludicrous, De Foe

published Advice to all Parties. He strenuously recommends that

moderation and forbearance, which his opponents often remarked he was

not so prone to practise as to preach. While he thus gave advice to all

parties, he conveyed many salutary lessons to the dissenters, whom he

was zealous to defend. In the Review, dated the 25th of December, 1705,

he conjures them for God's sake, if not for their own sake, to be

content. "Are there a few things more you could wish were done for you?

resolve these wishes into two conclusions: 1st, Wait till Providence, if

it shall be for your good, shall bring them to pass; 2ndly, Compare the

present with the past circumstances, and you cannot repine without the

highest ingratitude both to God and man."

De Foe found leisure, notwithstanding all those labours, perhaps a

necessity, to publish in 1705, A Second Volume of the Writings of the

Author of the True-born Englishman. The same reasons which formerly

induced him to collect some loose pieces; held good, says he, for

proceeding to a second volume, "that if I do not, somebody else will do

it for me." He laments the scandalous liberty of the press; whereby

piratic printers deprive an author of the native product of his own

thought, and the purity of his own style. It is said, though perhaps

without authority, that the vigorous remonstrances of De Foe procured

the Act[44] for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the copies of

printed books in the authors or their assigns. The vanity of an

administration, which affected to patronise the learned, concurring,

with the mutual interest of bookmakers and booksellers, produced this

salutary law, that our author alone had called for without success. De

Foe's writings, thus collected into volumes, were soon a third time

printed, with the addition of a key. The satire being now pointed by the

specification of characters, and obscurities being illuminated by the

annexation of circumstances, a numerous class of readers were induced,

by their zeal of party, or desire of scandal, to look for gratification

from our author's treatises. He is studious to complain, "that his

writings had been most neglected of them, who at the same time have

owned them useful." The second volume of 1705, containing eighteen

treatises in prose and rhyme, begins with A New Discovery of an old

Intrigue, and ends with Royal Religion[45].

The year 1705 was a year of disquiet to De Foe, not so much from the

oppressions of state as from the persecutions of party. When his

business, of whatever nature, led him to Exeter, and other western

towns, in August, September, and October, 1705, a project was formed to

send him as a soldier to the army, at a time when footmen were taken

from the coaches as recruits; but conscious of his being a freeholder of

England, and a liveryman of London, he knew that such characters could

not be violated, in this nation, with impunity. When some of the western

justices, of more zeal of party than sense of duty, heard from his

opponents of De Foe's journey, they determined to apprehend him as a

vagabond: but our author, who, among other qualities, had personal

courage in a high degree, reflected, that to face danger is most

effectually to prevent it. In his absence, real suits were commenced

against him for fictitious debts: but De Foe advertised, that genuine

claims he would fairly satisfy. If all these uncommon circumstances had

not been published in the Review, we should not have seen this striking

picture of savage manners. So much more free are we at present, that the

editor of a newspaper, however obnoxious to any party, may travel

peaceably about his affairs over England, without fear of interruption.

Were a justice of peace, from whatever motive, to offer him any

obstruction, such a magistrate would be overwhelmed by the public

indignation, and punished by the higher guardians of our quiet and our

laws.[46]

De Foe began the year 1706 with A Hymn to Peace[47]; occasioned by the

two houses of parliament joining in one address to the queen. On the 4th

of May he published An Essay at removing National Prejudices against an

Union with Scotland. A few weeks after, he gave the world a second

essay, to soften rancour and defeat perversity. But the time was now

come when he was to perform what he had often promised: and his

fruitfulness produced, in July, 1736, _Jure Divino_, a satire against

Tyranny and Passive Obedience, which had been delayed for fear, as he

declares, of parliamentary censure. Of this poem, it cannot be said, as

of Thomson's Liberty, that it was written to prove what no man ever

denied. This satire, says the preface, had never been published, though

some of it has been a long time in being, had not the world seemed to be

going mad a second time with the error of passive obedience, and

non-resistance. "And because some men require," says he, "more explicit

answers, I declare my belief, that a monarchy, according to the present

constitution, limited by parliament, and dependent upon law, is not only

the best government in the world, but also the best for this nation in

particular, most suitable to the genius of the people, and the

circumstances of the whole body." Dryden had given an example, a few

years before, of argumentative poetry, in his Hind and Panther; by which

he endeavoured to defend the tenets of the church of Rome. Our author

now reasoned in rhyme, through twelve books, in defence of every man's

birthright by nature, when all sorts of liberty were run down and

opposed. His purpose is doubtless honester than Dryden's; and his

argument being in support of the better cause, is perhaps superior in

strength: but in the _Jure Divino_ we look in vain for

The varying verse, the full-resounding line,

The long majestic march, and energy divine.[48]

Our author was soon after engaged in more important, because much more

useful, business. Lord Godolphin, who knew how to discriminate

characters, determined to employ him on an errand, "which," as he says,

"was far from being unfit for a sovereign to direct, or an honest man to

perform." By his lordship he was carried to the queen, who said to him,

while he kissed her hand[49], "that she had such satisfaction in his

former services, that she had again appointed him for another affair,

which was something nice, but the treasurer would tell him the rest." In

three days he was sent to Scotland. His knowledge of commerce and

revenue, his powers of insinuation, and above all, his readiness of pen,

were deemed of no small utility in promoting the Union. He arrived at

Edinburgh, in October, 1706. And we shall find him no inconsiderable

actor in the performance of that greatest of all good works. He attended

the committees of parliament, for whose use he made several of the

calculations[50] on the subject of trade and taxes. He complains[51],

however, that when afterwards some clamour was raised upon the

inequality of the proportions, and the contrivers began to be blamed,

and a little threatened _a-la-mob_, then it was D. F.[52] made it all,

and he was to be stoned for it. He endeavoured to confute[53] all that

was published by Webster and Hodges, and the other writers in Scotland

against the Union: and he had his share of danger, since, as he says,

he was watched by the mob; had his chamber windows insulted; but by the

prudence of his friends, and God's providence, he escaped[54]. In the

midst of this great scene of business and tumult, he collected the

documents which he afterwards published for the instruction of

posterity, with regard to one of the most difficult, and, at the same

time, the most fortunate transactions in our annals.

During all those labours and risks, De Foe published, in December, 1706,

Caledonia, a poem, in honour of the Scots nation[55]. This poetic

essay, which was intended to rescue Scotland from slander in opinion,

Caledonia herself bade him dedicate to the duke of Queensbury. Besides

other benefactions, the commissioner gave the author, whom he calls

Daniel De Foe, esquire, an exclusive privilege to sell his encomiastic

strains for seven years, within the country of his celebration. Amidst

our author's busy occupations at Edinburgh, he was anxious to assure the

world, that wherever the writer may be, the Reviews are written with his

own hand; no person having, or ever had, any concern in writing them,

but the known author, D. F. On the 16th of January, the act of Union was

passed by the Scots parliament; and De Foe returned to London, in

February, 1706-7. While he thus acted importantly at Edinburgh, he

formed connections with considerable persons, who were proud of his

future correspondence, and profited from his political interests[56].

How our author was rewarded by the ministers who derived a benefit from

those services, and from that danger, as he does not tell, cannot now be

known. Before his departure for Scotland, indeed, lord Godolphin, as he

acknowledges[57], obtained for him the continuance of an appointment,

which her majesty, by the interposition of his first benefactor, had

been pleased to make him, in consideration of a former service, in a

foreign country, wherein he run as much risk as a grenadier on the

counterscarp. As he was too prudent to disclose his secret services,

they must at present remain undiscovered. Yet is there reason to think

that he had a pension rather than an office, since his name is not in

the red book of the queen; and he solemnly avers, in his Appeal, that he

had not interest enough with lord Oxford to procure him the arrears due

to him in the time of the former ministry. This appointment, whatever it

were, he is studious to tell, he originally owed to Harley; he, however,

thankfully acknowledges, that lord Godolphin continued his favour to him

after the unhappy breach that separated his first benefactor from the

minister, who continued in power till August, 1710.

The nation, which was filled with combustible matter, burst into flame

the moment of that memorable separation, in 1707. In the midst of this

conflagration our author was not inactive. He waited on Harley after he

had been driven from power, who generously advised him to continue his

services to the queen, which he supposed would have no relation to

personal differences among statesmen. Godolphin received him with equal

kindness, by saying, I always think a man honest till I find to the

contrary. And if we may credit De Foe's asseverations, in the presence

of those who could have convicted him of falsehood, he for three years

held no correspondence with his principal benefactor, which the great

man never took ill of him.

As early as February 1706-7, De Foe avowed his purpose to publish the

History of the Union, which he had ably assisted to accomplish. This

design he executed in 1709, though he was engaged in other lucubrations,

and gave the world a Review three times a week. His history seems to

have been little noticed when it first appeared; for, as the preface

states, it had many difficulties in the way; many factions to encounter,

and parties to please. Yet it was republished in 1712; and a third time

in 1786, when a similar union had become the topic of public debate and

private conversation[58]. The subject of this work is the completion of

a measure, which was carried into effect, notwithstanding obstructions

apparently insurmountable, and tumults approaching to rebellion, and

which has produced the ends designed, beyond expectation, whether we

consider its influence on the government, or its operation on the

governed. The minuteness with which he describes what he saw and heard

on the turbulent stage, where he acted a conspicuous part, is extremely

interesting to us, who wish to know what actually passed, however this

circumstantiality may have disgusted contemporaneous readers. History is

chiefly valuable as it transmits a faithful copy of the manners and

sentiments of every age. This narrative of De Foe is a drama, in which

he introduces the highest peers and the lowest peasants, speaking and

acting, according as they were each actuated by their characteristic

passions; and while the man of taste is amused by his manner, the man of

business may draw instruction from the documents, which are appended to

the end, and interspersed in every page. This publication had alone

preserved his name, had his Crusoe pleased us less.

De Foe published in 1709, what indeed required less effort of the

intellect or the hand, The History of Addresses; with no design, he

says, and as we may believe, to disturb the public peace, but to compare

the present tempers of men with the past, in order to discover who had

altered for the better, and who for the worse. He gave a second volume

of Addresses in 1711, with remarks serious and comical[59]. His purpose

plainly was to abate, by ridicule, the public fervour with regard to

Sacheverell, who, by I know not what fatality, or folly, gave rise to

eventful changes. De Foe evinces, by these timeful publications, that

amidst all that enthusiasm and tumult, he preserved his senses, and

adhered to his principles.

When, by such imprudence as the world had never seen before, Godolphin

was in his turn expelled, in August, 1710, our author waited on the

ex-minister; who obligingly said to him, That he had the same good-will,

but not the same power to assist him; and Godolphin told him, what was

of more real use--to receive the queen's commands from her confidential

servants, when he saw things settled. It naturally occurred to De Foe,

that it was his duty to go along with the ministers, while, as he says,

they did not break in on the constitution. And who can blame a very

subordinate officer, (if indeed he held an office,) who had a wife and

six children to maintain with very precarious means? He was thus, says

he, cast back providentially on his first benefactor, who laid his case

before her majesty, whereby he preserved his interest, without any

engagement. On that memorable change De Foe however somewhat changed

his tone. The method I shall take, says he[60], in talking of the public

affairs, shall for the future be, though with the same design to support

truth, yet with more caution of embroiling myself with a party who have

no mercy, and who have no sense of service.

De Foe now lived at Newington, in comfortable circumstances, publishing

the Reviews, and sending out such tracts, as either gratified his

prejudices, or supplied his needs. During that contentious period he

naturally gave and received many wounds; and he prudently entered into a

truce with Mr. J. Dyer, who was engaged in similar occupations, that,

however they might clash in party, they may write without personal

reflections, and thus differ still, and yet preserve the Christian and

the gentleman[61]. But between professed controvertists such a treaty

could only be persevered in with Punic faith.

While thus occupied, De Foe was not forgotten by the city of Edinburgh,

with the usual ingratitude of public bodies. On the first of February,

1710-11, that corporation, remembering his Caledonia, empowered him to

publish the Edinburgh Courant, in the room of Adam Booge[62], though I

suspect that he did not continue long to edify the Edinburgh citizens by

his weekly lucubrations. He had then much to think of, and much to do at

a distance: and he soon after gave some support to lord Oxford's

South-sea project, by publishing An Essay on the South-sea Trade, with

an inquiry into the reasons of the present complaint against the

settlement of the South-sea company[63]. In the same year he published

An Essay at a plain Exposition of that difficult phrase--A GOOD PEACE.

He obviously intended to abate the national ardour for war, and to

incite a national desire of quiet[64].

The ministers, by the course of events, were engaged ere long in one of

the hardest tasks which can be assigned to British statesmen--the

re-establishment of tranquillity after a glorious war. The treaty at

Utrecht furnishes a memorable example of this. The furious debates which

ensued within the walls of parliament and without, are sufficiently

remembered. About this time, says Boyer, in May, 1713, a paper,

entitled, Mercator, or Commerce Retrieved, was published on Tuesdays,

Thursdays, and Saturdays[65]. This was first fathered on Arthur Moore,

assisted by Dr. D'Avenant; but the latter solemnly denied it: and it

soon after appeared to be the production of Daniel De Foe, an

ambidextrous hireling, who for this dirty work received a large weekly

allowance from the treasury. That he wrote in the Mercator De Foe

admits; but he expressly denies "that he either was the author of it,

had the property of it, the printing of it, the profit of it, or had the

power to put anything into it, if he would." And, by his Appeal, he

affirms before God and the world, "that he never had any payment, or

reward, for writing any part of it." Yet, that he was ready to defend

those papers of the Mercator which were really his, if men would answer

with arguments, rather than abuse; though not those things which he had

never written, but for which he had received such usage. He adds, with

the noble spirit of a true-born Englishman, "The press was open to me as

well as to others: and how, or when I lost my English liberty of

speaking my mind, I know not: neither how my speaking my opinions,

without fee or reward, could authorise any one to call me villain,

rascal, traitor, and such opprobrious names."

Of the imputed connection with his first benefactor, Harley, during that

memorable period, our author speaks with equal firmness, at a moment

when firmness was necessary. "I solemnly protest," says he, by his

Appeal, "in the presence of Him who shall judge us all, that I have

received no instructions, orders, or directions for writing anything, or

materials from lord Oxford, since lord Godolphin was treasurer, or that

I have ever shown to lord Oxford anything I had written or printed." He

challenges the world to prove the contrary; and he affirms, that he

always capitulated for liberty to speak according to his own judgment of

things. As to consideration, pension, or reward, he declares most

solemnly that he had none, except his old appointment made him long

before by lord Godolphin. What is extremely probable we may easily

credit, without such strong asseverations. However lord Oxford may have

been gratified by the voluntary writings of De Foe, he had doubtless

other persons who shared his confidence, and wrote his Examiners[66].

But De Foe published that which by no means promoted lord Oxford's

views, and which, therefore, gained little of his favour. Our author

wrote against the peace of Utrecht, because he approved of it as little

as he had done the treaty at Gertruydenburgh, under very different

influences a few years before. The peace _he_ was for, as he himself

says, was such as should neither have given the Spanish monarchy to the

house of Bourbon, nor to the house of Austria; but that this bone of

contention should have been so broken to pieces, as that it should not

have been dangerous to Europe; and that England and Holland should have

so strengthened themselves, by sharing its commerce, as should have made

them no more afraid of France, or the emperor; and that all that we

should conquer in the Spanish West Indies should be our own. But it is

equally true, he affirms, that when the peace was established, "I

thought our business was to make the best of it; and rather to inquire

what improvements could be made of it, than to be continually exclaiming

against those who procured it."

He manfully avowed his opinion in 1715, when it was both disgraceful and

dangerous, that the ninth article of the treaty of commerce[67] was

calculated for the advantage of our trade; "Let who will make it, that,"

says he, "is nothing to me. My reasons are, because it tied up the

French to open the door to our manufactures, at a certain duty of

importation there, and left the parliament of Britain at liberty to shut

theirs out, by as high duties as they pleased here, there being no

limitation upon us, as to duties on French goods, but that other nations

should pay the same. While the French were thus bound, and the British

free, I always thought we must be in a condition to trade to advantage,

or it must be our own fault: this was my opinion, and is so still; and I

would engage to maintain it against any man, on a public stage, before a

jury of fifty merchants, and venture my life upon the cause, if I were

assured of fair play in the dispute. But, that it was my opinion, we

might carry on a trade with France to our great advantage, and that we

ought for that reason to trade with them, appears in the third, fourth,

fifth, and sixth volumes of the Reviews, above nine years before The

Mercator was thought of." Experience has decided in favour of De Foe

against his opponents, with regard both to the theory and the practice

of commerce.

In May, 1713, our author relinquished the Review, after nine years'

continuance[68]: in Newgate it began, and in Newgate it ended. Whether

we consider the frequency of the publication, or the power of his

disquisitions, the pertinacity of his opponents, or the address of his

defences, amid other studies, without assistance, this must be allowed

to be such a work, as few of our writers have equalled. Yet, of this

great performance, said Gay, "The poor Review is quite exhausted, and

grown so very contemptible, that though he has provoked all his brothers

of the quill, none will enter into a controversy with him. The fellow,

who had excellent natural parts, but wanted a small foundation of

learning, is a lively instance of those wits, who, as an ingenious

author says, will endure but one skimming[69]." Poor Gay had learned

this cant in the Scriblerus Club, who thought themselves the wisest, the

wittiest, and virtuousest men that ever were, or ever would be. But of

all their works, which of them have been so often skimmed, or yielded

such cream, as Robinson Crusoe, The Family Instructor, or Religious

Courtship? Some of their writings may indeed be allowed to have uncommon

merit; yet, let them not arrogate exclusive excellence, or claim

appropriate praise.

When De Foe relinquished the Review, he began to write A General History

of Trade, which he proposed to publish in monthly numbers. The first

number appeared on the first of August, 1713. His great design was to

show the reader, "What the whole world is at this time employed in as to

trade." But his more immediate end was, to rectify the mistake we are

fallen into as to commerce, and to inform those who are willing to

inquire into the truth. In the execution of this arduous undertaking, he

avows his intention of speaking what reason dictates and fact justifies,

however he may clash with the popular opinions of some people in trade.

He could not however wholly abstract himself from the passing scene.

When his second number appeared, on the 15th of August, 1713, he gave a

discourse on the harbour of Dunkirk; wherein he insists, that the port

ought to be destroyed, if it must remain with France[70]; but, if it

were added to England, or made a free port, it would be for the good of

mankind to have a safe harbour in such dangerous seas. This History of

Trade, which exhibits the ingenuity, the strength, and the piety of De

Foe, extended only to two numbers. The agitations of the times carried

him to other literary pursuits; and the factiousness of the times

constrained him to attend to personal security.

"While I spoke of things thus," says our author, "I bore infinite

reproaches, as the defender of the peace, by pamphlets, which I had no

hand in." He appears to have been silenced by noise, obloquy, and

insult; and finding himself in this manner treated, he declined writing

at all, as he assures us; and for great part of a year never set pen to

paper, except in the Reviews. "After this," continues he, "I was a long

time absent in the north of England," though we may easily infer, for a

very different reason than that of the famous retirement of Swift, upon

the final breach between Oxford and Bolingbroke.

The place of his retreat is now known to have been Halifax, or the

borders of Lancashire[71]. And observing here, as he himself relates,

the insolence of the Jacobite party, and how they insinuated the

Pretender's rights into the common people. "I set pen to paper again, by

writing A Seasonable Caution; and, to open the eyes of the poor ignorant

country people, I gave away this all over the kingdom, as gain was not

intended." With the same laudable purpose he wrote three other

pamphlets; the first, What if the Pretender should come; the second,

Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover; the third, What

if the Queen should die? "Nothing could be more plain," says he, "than

that the titles of these were amusements[72], in order to put the books

into the hands of those people who had been deluded by the Jacobites."

These petty volumes were so much approved by the zealous friends of the

protestant succession, that they were diligent to disperse them through

the most distant counties. And De Foe protests, that had the elector of

Hanover given him a thousand pounds, he could not have served him more

effectually, than by writing these three treatises.

The reader will learn, with surprise and indignation, that for these

writings De Foe was arrested, obliged to give eight hundred pounds bail,

contrary to the Bill of Rights, and prosecuted by information, during

Trinity term, 1713. This groundless prosecution was instituted by the

absurd zeal of William Benson, who afterwards became ridiculously

famous for literary exploits, which justly raised him to the honours of

the Dunciad. Our author attributes this prosecution to the malice of his

enemies, who were numerous and powerful. No inconsiderable people were

heard to say, that they knew the books were against the Pretender, but

that De Foe had disobliged them in other things, and they resolved to

take this advantage to punish him. This story is the more credible, as

he had procured evidence to prove the fact, had the trial proceeded. He

was prompted by consciousness of innocence to defend himself in the

Review during the prosecution, which offended the judges, who, being

somewhat infected with the violent spirit of the times, committed him to

Newgate, in Easter term, 1713. He was, however, soon released, on making

a proper submission. But it was happy for De Foe that his first

benefactor was still in power, who procured him the queen's pardon, in

November[73], 1713. This act of liberal justice was produced by the

party-writers[74] of those black and bitter days, as an additional proof

of Lord Oxford's attachment to the abdicated family, while De Foe was

said to be convicted of absolute jacobitism, contrary to the tenor of

his life, and the purpose of his writings. He himself said sarcastically

that they might as well have made him a Mahometan. On his tombstone it

might have been engraved, that he was the only Englishman who had been

obliged to ask a royal pardon, for writing in favour of the Hanover

succession.

"By this time," says Boyer, in October, 1714, "the treasonable design

to bring in the pretender was manifested to the world by the agent of

one of the late managers, De Foe, in his History of the White Staff. The

Detection of the Secret History of the White Staff, which was soon

published, confidently tells, that it was written by De Foe; as is to be

seen by his abundance of words, his false thoughts, and his false

English[75]." We now know that there was at that epoch, no plot in

favour of the pretender, except in the assertions of those who wished to

promote their interest by exhibiting their zeal. And I have shown, that

De Foe had done more to keep out the pretender, than the political

tribe, who profited from his zeal, yet detracted from his fame[76].

"No sooner, was the queen dead," says he, "and the king, as right

required, proclaimed, but the rage of men increased upon me to that

degree, that their threats were such as I am unable to express. Though I

have written nothing since the queen's death; yet, a great many things

are called by my name, and I bear the answerers' insults. I have not

seen or spoken with the earl of Oxford," continues he, "since the king's

landing, but once; yet he bears the reproach of my writing for him, and

I the rage of men for doing it." De Foe appears indeed to have been, at

that noisy period, stunned by factious clamour, and overborne, though

not silenced, by unmerited obloquy. He probably lost his original

appointment, when his first benefactor was finally expelled. Instead of

meeting with reward for his zealous services in support of the

protestant succession, he was, on the accession of George I.,

discountenanced by those who had derived a benefit from his active

exertions. And of Addison, who was now exalted into office, and enjoyed

literary patronage, our author had said in his Double Welcome to the

Duke of Marlborough, with less poetry than truth:

Mæcenas has his modern fancy strung,

And fix'd his pension first, or he had never sung.

While thus insulted by enemies, and discountenanced by power, De Foe

published his Appeal to Honour and Justice, in 1715; being a true

Account of his Conduct in Public Affairs. As a motive for this intrepid

measure, he affectingly says, that "by the hints of mortality and the

infirmities of a life of sorrow and fatigue, I have reason to think,

that I am very near to the great ocean of eternity, and the time may not

be long ere I embark on the last voyage: wherefore I think I should even

accounts with this world before I go, that no slanders may lie against

my heirs, to disturb them in the peaceable possession of their father's

inheritance, his character." It is a circumstance perhaps unexampled in

the life of any other writer, that before he could finish his Appeal, he

was struck with apoplexy. After languishing more than six weeks, neither

able to go on, nor likely to recover, his friends thought fit to delay

the publication no longer. "It is the opinion of most who know him,"

says Baker, the publisher, "that the treatment which he here complains

of, and others of which he would have spoken, have been the cause of

this disaster." When the ardent mind of De Foe reflected on what he had

done, and what he had suffered, how he had been rewarded and persecuted,

his heart melted in despair. His spirit, like a candle struggling in the

socket, blazed and sunk, and blazed and sunk, till it disappeared in

darkness.

While his strength remained, he expostulated with his adversaries in the

following terms of great manliness, and instructive intelligence:--"It

has been the disaster of all parties in this nation, to be very hot in

their turn, and as often as they have been so, I have differed with them

all, and shall do so. I will repeat some of the occasions on the Whig

side, because from that quarter the accusation of my turning about

comes.

"The first time I had the misfortune to differ with my friends, was

about the year 1683, when the Turks were besieging Vienna, and the whigs

in England, generally speaking, were for the Turks' taking it; which I,

having read the history of the cruelty and perfidious dealings of the

Turks in their wars, and how they had rooted out the name of the

Christian religion in above three score and ten kingdoms, could by no

means agree with: and though then but a young man, and a younger

author, I opposed it, and wrote against it, which was taken very

unkindly indeed.

"The next time I differed with my friends, was when king James was

wheedling the dissenters to take off the penal laws and test, which I

could by no means come into. I told the dissenters, I had rather the

Church of England should pull our clothes off by fines and forfeitures,

than the papists should fall both upon the church and the dissenters,

and pull our skins off by fire and fagot.

"The next difference I had with good men, was about the scandalous

practice of occasional conformity, in which I had the misfortune to make

many honest men angry, rather because I had the better of the argument,

than because they disliked what I said.

"And now I have lived to see the dissenters themselves very quiet; if

not very well pleased with an act of parliament to prevent it. Their

friends indeed laid it on; they would be friends indeed, if they would

talk of taking it off again.

"Again, I had a breach with honest men for their maltreating king

William, of which I say nothing; because I think they are now opening

their eyes, and making what amends they can to his memory.

"The fifth difference I had with them was about the treaty of partition,

in which many honest men were mistaken, and in which I told them plainly

then, that they would at last end the war upon worse terms; and so it is

my opinion they would have done, though the treaty of Gertruydenburgh

had taken place.

"The sixth time I differed with them, was when the old whigs fell out

with the modern whigs; and when the duke of Marlborough and my lord

Godolphin were used by the Observator in a manner worse, I confess, for

the time it lasted, than ever they were used since; nay, though it were

by Abel and the Examiner. But the success failed. In this dispute my

lord Godolphin did me the honour to tell me I had served him and his

grace also, both faithfully and successfully. But his lordship is dead,

and I have now no testimony of it, but what is to be found in the

Observator, where I am plentifully abused for being an enemy to my

country, by acting in the interest of my lord Godolphin and the duke of

Marlborough. What weathercock can turn with such tempers as these?

"I am now in the seventh breach with them, and my crime now is, that I

will not believe and say the same things of the queen and the late

treasurer, which I could not believe before of my lord Godolphin and the

duke of Marlborough, and which in truth I cannot believe, and therefore

could not say it of either of them; and which, if I had believed, yet I

ought not to have been the man that should have said it, for the reasons

aforesaid.

"In such turns of tempers and times a man must have been tenfold a Vicar

of Bray, or it is impossible but he must one time or other be out with

everybody. This is my present condition; and for this I am reviled with

having abandoned my principles, turned jacobite, and what not: God judge

between me and these men! Would they come to any particulars with me,

what real guilt I may have, I would freely acknowledge; and if they

would produce any evidence of the bribes, the pensions, and the rewards

I have taken, I would declare honestly whether they were true or no. If

they would give a list of the books which they charge me with, and the

reasons why they lay them at my door, I would acknowledge any mistake,

own what I have done, and let them know what I have not done. But these

men neither show mercy, nor leave room for repentance; in which they act

not only unlike their Maker, but contrary to his express commands[77]."

With the same independence of spirit, but with greater modesty of

manner, our author openly disapproved of the intemperance which was

adopted by government in 1714, contrary to the original purpose of

George I. "It is and ever was my opinion," says De Foe in his Appeal,

"that moderation is the only virtue by which the tranquillity of this

nation can be preserved; and even the king himself, (I believe his

majesty will allow me that freedom,) can only be happy in the enjoyment

of the crown, by a moderate administration: if he should be obliged,

contrary to his known disposition, to join with intemperate councils, if

it does not lessen his security, I am persuaded it will lessen his

satisfaction. To attain at the happy calm, which is the consideration

that should move us all, (and he would merit to be called the nation's

physician, who could prescribe the specific for it,) I think I may be

allowed to say, a conquest of parties will never do it, a balance of

parties may." Such was the political testament of De Foe; which it had

been happy for Britain, had it been as faithfully executed as it was

wisely made!

The year 1715 may be regarded as the period of our author's political

life. Faction henceforth found other advocates, and parties procured

other writers to propagate their falsehoods. Yet when a cry was raised

against foreigners, on the accession of George I. The True-born

Englishman was revived, rather by Roberts, the bookseller, than by De

Foe the author[78]. But the persecutions of party did not cease when De

Foe ceased to be a party-writer. He was insulted by Boyer, in April,

1716, as the author of The Triennial Act impartially stated: "but

whatever was offered," says Boyer, "against the septennial bill, was

fully confuted by the ingenious and judicious Joseph Addison, esquire.

Whether De Foe wrote in defence of the people's rights, or in support of

the law's authority, he is to be censured: whether Addison defended the

septennial bill, or the peerage bill, he is to be praised. With the same

misconception of the fact, and malignity of spirit, Toland reviled[79]

De Foe for writing an answer to The State of Anatomy, in 1717. The time

however will at last come, when the world will judge of men from their

actions rather than pretensions."

The death of Anne, and the accession of George I. seem to have convinced

De Foe of the vanity of party-writing. And from this eventful epoch, he

appears to have studied how to meliorate rather than to harden the

heart; how to regulate, more than to vitiate, the practice of life.

Early in 1715 he published The Family Instructor, in three parts: 1st,

relating to fathers and children; 2nd, to masters and servants; 3rd, to

husbands and wives. He carefully concealed his authorship, lest the good

effects of his labour should be obstructed by the great imperfections of

the writer. The world was then too busy to look immediately into the

work. The bookseller soon procured a recommendatory letter from the Rev.

Samuel Wright, a well-known preacher in the Blackfriars. It was praised

from the pulpit and the press: and the utility of the end, with the

attractiveness of the execution, gave it, at length, a general

reception[80]. The author's first design was to write a dramatic poem;

but the subject was too solemn, and the text too copious, to admit of

restraint, or to allow excursions. His purpose was to divert and

instruct, at the same moment; and by giving it a dramatic form, it has

been called by some a religious play. De Foe at last says with his usual

archness: As to its being called a play, be it called so, if they

please: it must be confessed, some parts of it are too much acted in

many families among us. The author wishes, that either all our plays

were as useful for the improvement and entertainment of the world, or

that they were less encouraged. There is, I think, some mysticism in the

preface, which, it were to be desired, a judicious hand would expunge,

when The Family Instructor shall be again reprinted; for, reprinted it

will be, while our language endures; at least, while wise men shall

continue to consider the influences of religion and the practice of

morals as of the greatest use to society[81].

De Foe afterwards added a second volume, in two parts; 1st, relating to

Family Breaches; 2ndly, to the great Mistake of mixing the Passions in

the managing of Children. He considered it, indeed, as a bold adventure

to write a second volume of anything; there being a general opinion

among modern readers, that second parts never come up to the spirit of

the first. He quotes Mr. Milton, for differing from the world upon the

question, and for affirming with regard to his own great performances,

That the people had a general sense of the loss of Paradise, but not an

equal gust for regaining it. Of De Foe's second volume, it will be

easily allowed, that it is as instructive and pleasing as the first. His

Religious Courtship, which he published in 1722, may properly be

considered as a third volume: for the design is equally moral, the

manner is equally attractive, and it may in the same manner be called a

religious play[82].

But the time at length came, when De Foe was to deliver to the world the

most popular of all his performances. In April, 1719, he published the

well-known Life and surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe[83]. The

reception was immediate and universal; and Tayler, who purchased the

manuscript after every bookseller had refused it, is said to have gained

a thousand pounds. If it be inquired by what charm it is that these

surprising Adventures should have instantly pleased, and always pleased,

it will be found, that few books have ever so naturally mingled

amusement with instruction. The attention is fixed, either by the

simplicity of the narration, or by the variety of the incidents; the

heart is amended by a vindication of the ways of God to man: and the

understanding is informed by various examples, how much utility ought to

be preferred to ornament: the young are instructed, while the old are

amused.

Robinson Crusoe had scarcely drawn his canoe ashore, when he was

attacked by his old enemies, the savages. He was assailed first by The

Life and strange Adventures of Mr. D---- De F--, of London, Hosier, who

has lived above Fifty Years by himself in the Kingdoms of North and

South Britain. In a dull dialogue between De Foe, Crusoe, and his man

Friday, our author's life is lampooned, and his misfortunes ridiculed.

But he who had been struck by apoplexy, and who was now discountenanced

by power, was no fit object of an Englishman's satire. Our author

declares, when he was himself a writer of satiric poetry, "that he never

reproached any man for his private infirmities, for having his house

burnt, his ships cast away, or his family ruined; nor had he ever

lampooned any one, because he could not pay his debts, or differed in

judgment from him." Pope has been justly censured for pursuing a vein

of satire extremely dissimilar. And Pope placed De Foe with Tutchin, in

The Dunciad, when our author's infirmities were greater and his comfort

less. He was again assaulted in 1719, by An Epistle to D---- De F--, the

reputed Author of Robinson Crusoe. "Mr. Foe," says the letter-writer, "I

have perused your pleasant story of Robinson Crusoe; and if the faults

of it had extended no further than the frequent solecisms and

incorrectness of style, improbabilities, and sometimes impossibilities,

I had not given you the trouble of this epistle." "Yet," said Johnson to

Piozzi, "was there ever anything written by mere man that was wished

longer by its readers, except Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the

Pilgrim's Progress[84]?" This epistolary critic, who renewed his angry

attack when the second volume appeared, has all the dulness, without the

acumen, of Dennis, and all his malignity, without his purpose of

reformation. The Life of Crusoe has passed through innumerable editions,

and has been translated into foreign languages, while the criticism sunk

into oblivion.

De Foe set the critics at defiance while he had the people on his side.

As a commercial legislator he knew, that it is rapid sale that is the

great incentive: and, in August, 1719, he published a second volume of

Surprising Adventures, with similar success[85]. In hope of profit and

of praise, he produced in August, 1720, Serious Reflections during the

Life of Robinson Crusoe, with his Vision of the Angelic World. He

acknowledges that the present work is not merely the product of the two

first volumes, but the two first may rather be called the product of

this: the fable is always made for the moral, not the moral for the

fable. He, however, did not advert, that instruction must be insinuated

rather than enforced. That this third volume has more morality than

fable, is the cause I fear, that it has never been read with the same

avidity as the former two, or spoken of with the same approbation. We

all prefer amusement to instruction; and he who would inculcate useful

truths, must study to amuse, or he will offer his lessons to an

auditory, neither numerous, nor attentive.

The tongue of detraction is seldom at rest. It has often been repeated

that De Foe had surreptitiously appropriated the papers of Alexander

Selkirk, a Scotch mariner, who having lived solitary on the isle of

Juan Fernandez, four years and four months, was relieved on the 2nd of

February, 1708-9, by captain Woodes Rogers, in his cruising voyage round

the world. But let no one draw inferences till the fact be first

ascertained. The adventures of Selkirk had been thrown into the air, in

1712, for literary hawks to devour[86]; and De Foe may have catched a

common prey, which he converted to the uses of his intellect, and

distributed for the purposes of his interest[87]. Thus he may have

fairly acquired the fundamental incident of Crusoe's life; but, he did

not borrow the various events, the useful moralities, or the engaging

style. Few men could write such a poem; and few Selkirks could imitate

so pathetic an original. It was the happiness of De Foe, that as many

writers have succeeded in relating enterprises by land, he excelled in

narrating adventures by sea, with such felicities of language, such

attractive varieties, such insinuative instruction, as have seldom been

equalled, but never surpassed[88].

While De Foe in this manner busied himself in writing adventures which

have charmed every reader, a rhyming fit returned on him. He published

in 1720, The complete Art of Painting, which he did into English from

the French of Du Fresnoy. Dryden had given, in 1695, a translation of Du

Fresnoy's poem, which has been esteemed for its knowledge of the sister

arts. What could tempt De Foe to this undertaking it is not easy to

discover, unless we may suppose that he hoped to gain a few guineas,

without much labour of the head or hand. Dryden has been justly praised

for relinquishing vicious habits of composition, and adopting better

models for his muse. De Foe, after he had seen the correctness, and

heard the music of Pope, remained unambitious of accurate rhymes, and

regardless of sweeter numbers. His politics and his poetry, for which he

was long famous among biographers, would not have preserved his name

beyond the fleeting day; yet I suspect that, in imitation of Milton, he

would have preferred his Jure Divino to his Robinson Crusoe.

De Foe lived not then, however, in pecuniary distress; for his genius

and his industry were to him the mines of Potosi: and in 1722, he

obtained from the corporation of Colchester, though my inquiries have

not discovered by what interposition, a ninety-nine years' lease of

Kingswood-heath, at a yearly rent of a hundred and twenty pounds, with a

fine of five hundred pounds[89]. This transaction seems to evince a

degree of wealth much above want, though the assignment of his lease not

long after to Walter Bernard equally proves, that he could not easily

hold what he had thus obtained. Kingswood-heath is now worth 300_l._ a

year, and is advertised for sale by Bennet, the present possessor.

Whatever may have been his opulence, our author did not waste his

subsequent life in unprofitable idleness. No one can be idly employed

who endeavours to make his fellow subjects better citizens and wiser

men. This will sufficiently appear if we consider his future labours,

under the distinct heads of voyages; fictitious biography; moralities,

either grave or ludicrous; domestic travels; and tracts on trade.

The success of Crusoe induced De Foe to publish, in 1720, The Life and

Piracies of Captain Singleton, though not with similar success; the plan

is narrower, and the performance is less amusing. In 1725, he gave A

New Voyage Round the World, by a Course never sailed before. Most

voyagers have had this misfortune, that whatever success they had in the

adventure, they had very little in the narration; they are indeed full

of the incidents of sailing, but they have nothing of story for the use

of readers who never intend to brave the dangers of the sea. These

faults De Foe is studious to avoid in his new voyage. He spreads before

his readers such adventures as no writer of a real voyage can hope to

imitate, if we except the teller of Anson's tale. In the life of Crusoe

we are gratified by continually imagining that the fiction is a fact; in

the Voyage Round the World we are pleased by constantly perceiving that

the fact is a fiction, which, by uncommon skill, is made more

interesting than a genuine voyage.

Of fictitious biography it is equally true, that by matchless art it may

be made more instructive than a real life. Few of our writers have

excelled De Foe in this kind of biographical narration, the great

qualities of which are, to attract by the diversity of circumstances,

and to instruct by the usefulness of examples.

He published, in 1720, The History of Duncan Campbell. Of a person who

was born deaf and dumb, but who himself taught the deaf and dumb to

understand, it is easy to see that the life would be extraordinary. It

will be found, that the author has intermixed some disquisitions of

learning, and has contrived that the merriest passages shall end with

some edifying moral[90]. The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders

were made to gratify the world, in 1721. De Foe was aware, that in

relating a vicious life, it was necessary to make the best use of a bad

story; and he artfully endeavours, that the reader shall be more pleased

with the moral than the fable; with the application than the relation;

with the end of the writer than the adventures of the person. There was

published in 1721, a work of a similar tendency, The Life of Colonel

Jack, who was born a gentleman but was bred a pickpocket. Our author is

studious to convert his various adventures into a delightful field,

where the reader might gather herbs, wholesome and medicinal, without

the incommodation of plants, poisonous or noxious. In 1724 appeared The

Life of Roxana. Scenes of crimes can scarcely be represented in such a

manner, says De Foe, but some make a criminal use of them; but when vice

is painted in its low-prized colours, it is not to make people love what

from the frightfulness of the figures they ought necessarily to hate.

Yet, I am not convinced, that the world has been made much wiser, or

better, by the perusal of these lives; they may have diverted the lower

orders, but I doubt if they have much improved them; if however they

have not made them better, they have not left them worse. But they do

not exhibit many scenes which are welcome to cultivated minds. Of a very

different quality are the Memoirs of a Cavalier, during the civil wars

in England, which seem to have been published without a date. This is a

romance the likest to truth that ever was written[91]. It is a narrative

of great events, which is drawn with such simplicity, and enlivened

with such reflections, as to inform the ignorant and entertain the wise.

The moralities of De Foe, whether published in single volumes, or

interspersed through many passages, must at last give him a superiority

over the crowd of his contemporaries[92]. The approbation which has been

long given to his Family Instructor, and his Religious Courtship, seem

to contain the favourable decision of his countrymen[93]. But there are

still other performances of this nature, which are now to be mentioned,

of not inferior merit.

De Foe published, in 1722, A Journal of the Plague in 1665. The author's

artifice consists in fixing the reader's attention by the deep distress

of fellow-men; and, by recalling the reader's recollection to striking

examples of mortality, he endeavours to inculcate the uncertainty of

life, and the usefulness of reformation. In 1724, De Foe published The

great Law of Subordination. This is an admirable commentary on the

Unsufferable Behaviour of Servants. Yet, though he interest by his mode,

inform by his facts, and convince by his argument, he fails at last, by

expecting from law what must proceed from manners[94]. Our author gave

The Political History of the Devil, in 1726. The matter and the mode

conjoin to make this a charming performance. He engages poetry and

prose, reasoning and wit, persuasion and ridicule, on the side of

religion and morals, with wonderful efficacy. De Foe wrote A System of

Magic in 1726[95]. This may be properly regarded as a supplement to the

History of the Devil. His end and his execution are exactly the same.

He could see no great harm in the present pretenders to magic, if the

poor people would but keep their money in their pockets; and that they

should have their pockets picked by such an unperforming, unmeaning,

ignorant crew as these are, is the only magic De Foe could see in the

whole science. But the reader will discover in our author's system,

extensive erudition, salutary remark, and useful satire. De Foe

published in 1727, his Treatise on the Use and Abuse of the

Marriage-Bed. The author had begun this performance thirty years before;

he delayed the publication, though it had been long finished, in hopes

of reformation. But being now grown old, and out of the reach of

scandal, and despairing of amendment from a vicious age, he thought

proper to close his days with this satire. He appealed to that judge,

before whom he expected soon to appear, that as he had done it with an

upright intention, so he had used his utmost endeavour to perform it in

a manner which was the least liable to reflection, and the most

answerable to the end of it--the reformation of the guilty. After such

an appeal, and such asseverations, I will only remark, that this is an

excellent book with an improper title-page.

We are now to consider our author's Tours. He published his Travels

through England, in 1724 and 1725; and through Scotland, in 1727. De Foe

was not one of those travellers who seldom quit the banks of the Thames.

He had made wide excursions over all those countries, with observant

eyes and a vigorous intellect. The great artifice of these volumes

consists in the frequent mention of such men and things, as are always

welcome to the reader's mind[96].

De Foe's Commercial Tracts are to be reviewed lastly. Whether his fancy

gradually failed, as age hastily advanced, I am unable to tell. He

certainly began, in 1726, to employ his pen more frequently on the real

business of common life. He published, in 1727, The Complete English

Tradesman; directing him in the several parts of trade. A second volume

soon after followed, which was addressed chiefly to the more experienced

and more opulent traders. In these treatises the tradesman found many

directions of business, and many lessons of prudence[97]. De Foe was not

one of those writers, who consider private vices as public benefits: God

forbid, he exclaims, that I should be understood to prompt the vices of

the age, in order to promote any practice of traffic: trade need not be

destroyed though vice were mortally wounded. With this salutary spirit

he published, in 1728, A Plan of the English Commerce[98]. This seems to

be the conclusion of what he had begun in 1713. In 1728, Gee printed

his Trade and Navigation considered. De Foe insisted, that our industry,

our commerce, our opulence, and our people, had increased and were

increasing. Gee represented that our manufactures had received mortal

stabs; that our poor were destitute, and our country miserable. De Foe

maintained the truth, which experience has taught to unwilling auditors.

Gee asserted the falsehood, without knowing the fact: yet Gee is quoted,

while De Foe with all his knowledge of the subject, as a commercial

writer, is almost forgotten. The reason may be found perhaps in the

characteristic remark with which he opens his plan: Trade, like

religion, is what everybody talks of, but few understand.

When curiosity has contemplated such copiousness, such variety, and such

excellence, it naturally inquires which was the last of De Foe's

performances? Were we to determine from the date of the title page, the

Plan of Commerce must be admitted to be his last. But if we must judge

from his prefatory declaration, in The Abuse of the Marriage-Bed, where

he talks of closing his days with this satire, which he was so far from

seeing cause of being ashamed of, that he hoped he should not be ashamed

of it where he was going to account for it, we must finally decide, that

our author closed his career "with this upright intention for the good

of mankind[99]."

De Foe, after those innumerable labours, which I have thus endeavoured

to recall to the public recollection, died in April, 1731, within the

parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, London, at an age, if he were born

in 1663, when it was time to prepare for his last voyage. He left a

widow, Susannah, who did not long survive him, and six sons and

daughters, whom he boasts of having educated as well as his

circumstances would admit. His son Daniel is said to have emigrated to

Carolina; of Benjamin, his second son, no account can be given[100].

His youngest daughter Sophia, married Mr. Henry Baker, a person more

respectable as a philosopher than a poet, who died in 1774, at the age

of seventy. His daughter Maria married one Langley; but Hannah and

Henrietta probably remained unmarried, since they were heiresses only of

a name, which did not recommend them. With regard to

Norton, from Daniel and Ostræa sprung[101],

Bless'd with his father's front, and mother's tongue,

it is only said that he was a wretched writer in the Flying Post, and

the author of Alderman Barber's Life. De Foe probably died insolvent;

for letters of administration on his goods and chattels were granted to

Mary Brooke, widow, a creditrix, in September, 1733, after summoning in

official form the next of kin to appear[102]. John Dunton[103], who

personally knew our author, describes him, in 1705, as a man of good

parts and clear sense; of a conversation, ingenious and brisk; of a

spirit, enterprising and bold, but of little prudence; with good nature

and real honesty. Of his petty habits, little now can be told, more than

he has thus confessed himself[104]: "God, I thank thee, I am not a

drunkard, or a swearer, or a whoremaster, or a busybody, or idle, or

revengeful; and though this be true, and I challenge all the world to

prove the contrary, yet, I must own, I see small satisfaction in all the

negatives of common virtues; for though I have not been guilty of any of

these vices, nor of many more, I have nothing to infer from thence, but

_Te Deum laudamus_." He says himself:

Confession will anticipate reproach,

He that reviles us then, reviles too much;

All satire ceases when the men repent,

'Tis cruelty to lash the penitent.

When De Foe had arrived at sixty-five, while he was encumbered with a

family, and, I fear, pinched with penury, Pope, endeavoured, by repeated

strokes, to bring his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. This he did

without propriety, and, as far as appears, without provocation; for our

author is not in the black list of scribblers, who by attempting to

lessen the poet's fame, incited the satirist's indignation. The offence

and the fate of Bentley and De Foe were nearly alike. Bentley would not

allow the translation to be Homer: De Foe had endeavoured to bring

Milton into vogue seven years ere the Paradise Lost and Chevy Chase had

been criticised in the Spectators by Addison. Our author had said in

More Reformation,

Let this describe the nation's character,

One man reads Milton, forty ----.

The case is plain, the temper of the time,

One wrote the lewd, the other the sublime.

An enraged poet alone could have thrust into the Dunciad, Bentley, a

profound scholar, Cibber, a brilliant wit, and De Foe, a happy genius.

This was the consequence of exalting satire as the test of truth; while

truth ought to have been enthroned the test of satire. Yet, it ought not

to be forgotten, that De Foe has some sarcasm, in his System of Magic,

on the _sylphs_ and _gnomes_, which Pope may have deemed a daring

invasion of his Rosicrucian territories.

De Foe has not yet outlived his century, though he have outlived most of

his contemporaries. Yet the time is come, when he must be acknowledged

as one of the ablest, as he is one of the most captivating, writers, of

which this island can boast. Before he can be admitted to this

pre-eminence, he must be considered distinctly, as a poet, as a

novelist, as a polemic, as a commercial writer, and as a grave

historian.

As a poet, we must look to the end of his effusions rather than to his

execution, ere we can allow him considerable praise. To mollify national

animosities, or to vindicate national rights, are certainly noble

objects, which merit the vigour and imagination of Milton, or the flow

and precision of Pope; but our author's energy runs into harshness, and

his sweetness is to be tasted in his prose more than in his poesy. If

we regard the Adventures of Crusoe, like The Adventures of Telemachus,

as a poem, his moral, his incidents, and his language, must lift him

high on the poet's scale. His professed poems, whether we contemplate

the propriety of sentiment, or the suavity of numbers, may indeed,

without much loss of pleasure or instruction, be resigned to those, who,

in imitation of Pope, poach in the fields of obsolete poetry for

brilliant thoughts, felicities of phrase, or for happy rhymes.

As a novelist, every one will place him in the foremost rank, who

considers his originality, his performance, and his purpose. The Ship of

Fools had indeed been launched in early times; but, who like De Foe, had

ever carried his reader to sea, in order to mend the heart, and regulate

the practice of life, by showing his readers the effect of adversity, or

how they might equally be called to sustain his hero's trials, as they

sailed round the world. But, without attractions, neither the

originality, nor the end, can have any salutary consequence. This he had

foreseen; and for this he has provided, by giving his adventures in a

style so pleasing, because it is simple, and so interesting, because it

is particular, that every one fancies he could write a similar language.

It was, then, idle in Boyer formerly, or in Smollett lately, to speak of

De Foe as a party writer, in little estimation. The writings of no

author since have run through more numerous editions. And he whose works

have pleased generally and pleased long, must be deemed a writer of no

small estimation; the people's verdict being the proper test of what

they are the proper judges.

As a polemic, I fear we must regard our author with less kindness,

though it must be recollected, that he lived during a contentious

period, when two parties distracted the nation, and writers indulged in

great asperities. But, in opposition to reproach, let it ever be

remembered, that he defended freedom, without anarchy; that he supported

toleration, without libertinism; that he pleaded for moderation even

amidst violence. With acuteness of intellect, with keenness of wit, with

archness of diction, and pertinacity of design; it must be allowed that

nature had qualified, in a high degree, De Foe for a disputant. His

polemical treatises, whatever might have been their attractions once,

may now be delivered without reserve to those who delight in polemical

reading. De Foe, it must be allowed, was a party writer: But, were not

Swift and Prior, Steel and Addison, Halifax and Bolingbroke, party

writers? De Foe, being a party writer upon settled principles, did not

change with the change of parties: Addison and Steel, Prior and Swift,

connected as they were with persons, changed their note as persons were

elevated or depressed.

As a commercial writer, De Foe is fairly entitled to stand in the

foremost rank among his contemporaries, whatever may be their

performances or their fame. Little would be his praise, to say of him,

that he wrote on commercial legislation like Addison, who when he

touches on trade, sinks into imbecility, without knowledge of fact, or

power of argument[105]. The distinguishing characteristics of De Foe, as

a commercial disquisitor, are originality and depth. He has many

sentiments with regard to traffic, which are scattered through his

Reviews, and which I never read in any other book. His Giving Alms no

Charity, is a capital performance, with the exception of one or two

thoughts about the abridgment of labour by machinery, which are either

half formed or half expressed. Were we to compare De Foe with D'Avenant,

it would be found, that D'Avenant has more detail from official

documents; that De Foe has more fact from wider inquiry. D'Avenant is

more apt to consider laws in their particular application; De Foe more

frequently investigates commercial legislation in its general effects.

From the publications of D'Avenant it is sufficiently clear, that he was

not very regardful of means, or very attentive to consequences; De Foe

is more correct in his motives, and more salutary in his ends. But, as a

commercial prophet, De Foe must yield the palm to Child; who foreseeing

from experience that men's conduct must finally be directed by their

principles, foretold the colonial revolt: De Foe, allowing his

prejudices to obscure his sagacity, reprobated that suggestion, because

he deemed interest a more strenuous prompter than enthusiasm. Were we

however to form an opinion, not from special passages, but from whole

performances, we must incline to De Foe, when compared with the ablest

contemporary: we must allow him the preference, on recollection, that

when he writes on commerce he seldom fails to insinuate some axiom of

morals, or to inculcate some precept of religion.

As an historian, it will be found, that our author had few equals in the

English language, when he wrote. His Memoirs of a Cavalier show how well

he could execute the lighter narratives. His History of the Union

evinces that he was equal to the higher department of historic

composition. This is an account of a single event, difficult indeed in

its execution, but beneficial certainly in its consequences. With

extraordinary skill and information, our author relates, not only the

event, but the transactions which preceded, and the effects which

followed. He is at once learned and intelligent. Considering the

factiousness of the age, his candour is admirable. His moderation is

exemplary. And if he spoke of James I. as a tyrant, he only exercised

the prerogative, which our historians formerly enjoyed, of casting

obloquy on an unfortunate race, in order to supply deficience of

knowledge, of elegance, and of style. In this instance De Foe allowed

his prejudice to overpower his philosophy. If the language of his

narrative want the dignity of the great historians of the current times,

it has greater facility; if it be not always grammatical, it is

generally precise; and if it be thought defective in strength, it must

be allowed to excel in sweetness.

Such then are the pretensions of De Foe to be acknowledged as one of the

ablest and most useful writers of our island. He who still doubts may

perhaps satisfy his greatest doubts, by perusing the chronological

catalogue of our author's works, which I have compiled, in order to

gratify the public curiosity; and which, for the greater distinctness, I

have divided into two heads: 1st, Those writings that I think are

certainly De Foe's; 2ndly, Those writings that are said to be his. As I

do not pretend to perfect accuracy, it would be a favour to the world

and to me, if any one, of more knowledge and leisure than I possess,

would point out mistakes for the purpose of amendment. The zealous

interposition of Mr. Lockyer Davis, and the liberal spirit of the

Stationers' company, procured me the perusal of the register of books,

which have been entered at Stationers'-hall. I was surprised and

disappointed to find so few of De Foe's writings entered as property,

and his name never mentioned as an author or a man.