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:—

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—

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:

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:

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

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:

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 300l. 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

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:

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,

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.