Note 2 — THE LIFE OF DE FOE, BY GEORGE CHALMERS, ESQ.

In his preface to More Reformation, De Foe complains, that some dissenters had reproached him, as if he had said, "that the gallows and the galleys ought to be the penalty of going to the conventicle; forgetting, that I must design to have my father, my wife, six innocent children, and myself, put into the same condition. To such dissenters I can only regret," says he, "that when I had drawn the picture, I did not, like the Dutchman with his man and bear, write under them, This is the man; and this is the bear." De Foe expressly admits that he was a dissenter, though no independent-fifth-monarchy man, or leveller. [De Foe, Works, edit. 1703. p. 326-448.] His grandfather, however, seems to have been of different feelings, as he kept a pack of hounds. From this fact it is inferred by his learned and laborious biographer Mr. Walter Wilson, that he was of the royal party, as the puritans did not indulge in that amusement; and also that he moved in a respectable station of life. De Foe himself thus alludes to his grandfather [Review, vol. vii. preface], "I remember my grandfather had a huntsman that used the same familiarity with his dogs, and he had his Roundhead and his Cavalier, his Goring and his Waller, and all the generals of both armies were hounds in his pack, till the times turning, the old gentleman was fain to scatter the pack and make them up of more doglike surnames." It seems also probable, that the property to which De Foe alludes as possessed by himself, was inherited from this grandfather. "I have both a native and an acquired right of election in more than one place in Britain, and as such am a part of the body that honourable house (of commons) represents, and from hence I believe may claim a right in due manner to represent, complain, address, or petition them." [Review, vol. vi. p. 477.] Mr. Wilson corrects the mistake of Mr. Chalmers and other biographers, as to the date of De Foe's birth, which really took place in 1661, and not as stated by them in 1663.—Ed.