Title: The Life of Daniel De Foe
Author: George Chalmers
Release date: September 7, 2012 [eBook #40703]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Steven Gibbs, Stephen Blundell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
The ensuing Life was written for amusement, during a period of convalescence in 1785; and published anonymously by Stockdale, before The History of the Union, in 1786. As the Author fears no reproach for such amusement, during such a period, he made no strong objections to Stockdale's solicitations, that it might be annexed, with the author's name, to his splendid edition of Robinson Crusoe. The reader will now have the benefit of a few corrections, with some additions, and a List of De Foe's Writings.
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,[2] 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[3] 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[4] 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[5] 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[6] 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[7] 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[8] 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].[9] 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[10] 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.[11] 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[12] 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[13] 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[14] 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,[15] 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[17] 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[18] 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[19] 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[20] 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[21] 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[24] 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[25] 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[26] 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],[27] 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[28] 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.[29] 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,[30] 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[32] 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].[34] 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[35] 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[36] 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.[37] 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[38] 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[39] 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[41] 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[43] 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[44] 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,[46] 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,[47] which was intended to rescue Scotland from slander in opinion, Caledonia herself bade him dedicate to the duke of Queensbury. Besides other benefactions,[48] 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[50] 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[51] 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,[52] 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[53] 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[54] 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[56] 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[58] 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.[59] 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[60] 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[61] 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[62] 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[63] 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[64] 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,[65] "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[67] 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[68] 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[69] 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,[70] 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[71] 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.[72]
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[73] 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[74] 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[75] 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,[76] 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[77] 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[78] 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[79] 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[80] 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[81] 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[82] 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[83] 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.[84] 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[85] 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[87] 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[89] 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[90] 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.[91] 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[92]
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[93] 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[94] 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.
De Foe has not yet outlived his century, though he have outlived most of his contemporaries. Yet the time is come, when he must be acknowledged as one of the ablest, as he is one of the most captivating, writers, of which this island can boast. Before he can be admitted to this pre-eminence, he must be considered distinctly, as a poet, as a novelist, as a polemic, as a commercial writer, and as a grave historian.
As a poet, we must look to the end of his effusions rather than to his execution, ere we can allow him considerable praise. To mollify national animosities, or to vindicate national rights, are certainly noble objects, which merit the vigour and imagination of Milton, or the flow and precision of Pope; but our author's energy runs into harshness, and his sweetness[95] is to be tasted in his prose more than in his poesy. If we regard the Adventures of Crusoe, like The Adventures of Telemachus, as a poem, his moral, his incidents, and his language, must lift him high on the poet's scale. His professed poems, whether we contemplate the propriety of sentiment, or the suavity of numbers, may indeed, without much loss of pleasure or instruction, be resigned to those, who, in imitation of Pope, poach in the fields of obsolete poetry for brilliant thoughts, felicities of phrase, or for happy rhymes.
As a novelist, every one will place him in the foremost rank, who considers his originality, his performance, and his purpose. The Ship of Fools had indeed been launched in early times; but, who like De Foe, had ever carried his reader to sea, in order to mend the heart, and regulate the practice of life, by showing his readers the effect of adversity, or how they might equally be called to sustain his hero's trials, as they sailed round the world. But, without attractions, neither the originality, nor the end, can have any salutary consequence. This he had foreseen; and for this he has provided, by giving his adventures in a style so pleasing, because it is simple, and so interesting, because it is particular, that every one fancies he could write a similar language. It was, then, idle in Boyer formerly, or in Smollett lately, to speak of De Foe as a party writer, in little estimation. The writings of no author since have run through more numerous editions. And he whose works have pleased generally and pleased long, must be deemed a writer of no small estimation; the people's verdict being the proper test of what they are the proper judges.
As a polemic, I fear we must regard our author with less kindness, though it must be recollected, that he lived during a contentious period, when two[96] parties distracted the nation, and writers indulged in great asperities. But, in opposition to reproach, let it ever be remembered, that he defended freedom, without anarchy; that he supported toleration, without libertinism; that he pleaded for moderation even amidst violence. With acuteness of intellect, with keenness of wit, with archness of diction, and pertinacity of design; it must be allowed that nature had qualified, in a high degree, De Foe for a disputant. His polemical treatises, whatever might have been their attractions once, may now be delivered without reserve to those who delight in polemical reading. De Foe, it must be allowed, was a party writer: But, were not Swift and Prior, Steel and Addison, Halifax and Bolingbroke, party writers? De Foe, being a party writer upon settled principles, did not change with the change of parties: Addison and Steel, Prior and Swift, connected as they were with persons, changed their note as persons were elevated or depressed.
As a commercial writer, De Foe is fairly entitled to stand in the foremost rank among his contemporaries, whatever may be their performances or their fame. Little would be his praise, to say of him, that he wrote on commercial legislation like Addison, who when he touches on trade, sinks into imbecility, without knowledge of fact, or power of argument[105]. The distinguishing characteristics of De Foe, as a commercial disquisitor, are originality and depth. He has many sentiments with regard to traffic, which are scattered through his Reviews, and which I never read in any other book. His Giving Alms no Charity, is a capital performance, with the[97] exception of one or two thoughts about the abridgment of labour by machinery, which are either half formed or half expressed. Were we to compare De Foe with D'Avenant, it would be found, that D'Avenant has more detail from official documents; that De Foe has more fact from wider inquiry. D'Avenant is more apt to consider laws in their particular application; De Foe more frequently investigates commercial legislation in its general effects. From the publications of D'Avenant it is sufficiently clear, that he was not very regardful of means, or very attentive to consequences; De Foe is more correct in his motives, and more salutary in his ends. But, as a commercial prophet, De Foe must yield the palm to Child; who foreseeing from experience that men's conduct must finally be directed by their principles, foretold the colonial revolt: De Foe, allowing his prejudices to obscure his sagacity, reprobated that suggestion, because he deemed interest a more strenuous prompter than enthusiasm. Were we however to form an opinion, not from special passages, but from whole performances, we must incline to De Foe, when compared with the ablest contemporary: we must allow him the preference, on recollection, that when he writes on commerce he seldom fails to insinuate some axiom of morals, or to inculcate some precept of religion.
As an historian, it will be found, that our author had few equals in the English language, when he wrote. His Memoirs of a Cavalier show how well he could execute the lighter narratives. His History of the Union evinces that he was equal to the higher department of historic composition. This is an account of a single event, difficult indeed in its execution, but beneficial certainly in its consequences. With extraordinary skill and information, our author relates, not only the event, but the transactions[98] which preceded, and the effects which followed. He is at once learned and intelligent. Considering the factiousness of the age, his candour is admirable. His moderation is exemplary. And if he spoke of James I. as a tyrant, he only exercised the prerogative, which our historians formerly enjoyed, of casting obloquy on an unfortunate race, in order to supply deficience of knowledge, of elegance, and of style. In this instance De Foe allowed his prejudice to overpower his philosophy. If the language of his narrative want the dignity of the great historians of the current times, it has greater facility; if it be not always grammatical, it is generally precise; and if it be thought defective in strength, it must be allowed to excel in sweetness.
Such then are the pretensions of De Foe to be acknowledged as one of the ablest and most useful writers of our island. He who still doubts may perhaps satisfy his greatest doubts, by perusing the chronological catalogue of our author's works, which I have compiled, in order to gratify the public curiosity; and which, for the greater distinctness, I have divided into two heads: 1st, Those writings that I think are certainly De Foe's; 2ndly, Those writings that are said to be his. As I do not pretend to perfect accuracy, it would be a favour to the world and to me, if any one, of more knowledge and leisure than I possess, would point out mistakes for the purpose of amendment. The zealous interposition of Mr. Lockyer Davis, and the liberal spirit of the Stationers' company, procured me the perusal of the register of books, which have been entered at Stationers'-hall. I was surprised and disappointed to find so few of De Foe's writings entered as property, and his name never mentioned as an author or a man.
In presenting to the public so complete an edition of the works of De Foe, the publishers feel that they are engaged in a truly national undertaking, interesting to all ranks of Englishmen, but peculiarly to the middle classes. De Foe was essentially a practical author, not only as regards his style, but his turn of mind, his choice of subjects, and his mode of handling them. He wrote voluminously, upon all kinds of subjects and for all ranks of men: and by some of his works he has continued from that time to this, to please all classes and ages of people in all the countries of Europe. For many years he took an active part in the political controversies of that troubled time, which were so much embittered by the factious excitement arising from the expulsion of the Stuart dynasty, and placing William III. on the throne; and during the long period of his life in which he engaged in political warfare, he consistently and constantly maintained the principles of the revolution. Many of his pamphlets being directed to passing topics have ceased to possess that general and enduring interest which attaches to his other works, but they are full of manly sentiments, expressed in a plain, racy, English style, and well deserve the attentive perusal of all who may wish thoroughly to understand that period of our history which elapsed between the accession of William III. and the death of queen Anne. His History of the Union is a standard work, and peculiarly valuable as the production of a man who took an active part in the great national event which it commemorates.
Essentially practical, as we have observed, in his mind, De Foe was ever anxious to give useful instructions to his countrymen, for the regulation of[100] their conduct in their homes and their pursuits in life, and embodied the results of an experienced and sagacious mind in the Family Instructor, the Religious Courtship, and the Complete English Tradesman. This last work is one which no young man entering into business should be without. It is an invaluable manual, full of the lessons of instructed prudence and good sense. Even his admirable romances, too, are written in the same spirit. They were not composed in his youth, in the heyday of his imagination, merely to gratify an idle curiosity in the reader, but in the evening of his life when his judgment was matured, and his experience at the full. Some of them were written to show the bitter fruits of a life of vice; and others to display in a vivid manner the importance of self-reliance, based on its proper foundation, a sincere and Christian trust in Providence, under all circumstances; with the inestimable value of a practical education, and a thorough acquaintance with the arts of life, and what too many persons are foolishly apt to despise as common things. That these were the paramount objects De Foe had in view is evident not only from a perusal of these valuable works, but from his own strongly asserted statements in his prefaces both to Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoe. In the former, he says, "as the whole relation is usefully garbled of all the levity and looseness that was in it, so it is applied with the utmost care to virtuous and religious uses. None can, without being guilty of manifest injustice, cast any reproach upon it, or upon our design in publishing it. The advocates of the stage have in all ages made this the great argument, to persuade people that their plays are useful, and that they ought to be allowed in the most civilized, and in the most religious government; namely, that they are applied to virtuous purposes, and that, by the most lively representations,[101] they fail not to recommend virtue and generous principles, and to discourage and expose all sorts of vice and corruption of manners; and were it true that they did so, and that they constantly adhered to that rule, as the test of their acting on the theatre, much might be said in their favour.
"Throughout the infinite variety of this book, this fundamental is most strictly adhered to; there is not a wicked action in any part of it, but it is first or last rendered unhappy or unfortunate; there is not a superlative villain brought upon the stage, but he is either brought to an unhappy end, or brought to be a penitent; there is not an ill thing mentioned but it is condemned, even in the relation; nor a virtuous just thing but it carries its praise along with it. What can more exactly answer the rule laid down, to recommend even those representations of things which have so many other just objections lying against them; namely, of example of bad company, obscene language, and the like." And in the preface to Robinson Crusoe he states his object to be "a religious application of events to the uses to which wise men always apply them, viz., to the instruction of others by this example, and to justify and honour the wisdom of Providence in all the variety of our circumstances, let them happen how they will."
The extreme popularity of this justly celebrated work proves the success with which De Foe's labours were crowned. It is a book essentially English, one of which an Englishman only would have conceived the design, and which probably only an Englishman would have been able to execute. The idea of an inhabitant of a solitary island, "far in the melancholy main," subsisting in comparative comfort, might be expected from one of that nautical people whose flag has not only 'braved a[102] thousand years the battle and the breeze,' but floated in triumph on every sea, and waved in the winds of every clime. From such a people the author might expect readers, and he has had them by thousands of every class and of every age. The interest, however, of the story has not confined the reputation and popularity of Robinson Crusoe to this country, but has made it the universal favourite of Europe. The great characteristics of this remarkable book are the vividness with which the imaginary scenes are depicted, so as to make it impossible for the reader to doubt their reality, and the just importance which is given to the knowledge of what a great man called "doing common things in a common way." For his power of imparting reality to his fictions De Foe indeed stands highly distinguished among authors. Dr. Johnson mistook the Life and Piracies of Captain Singleton, for a real history; and lord Chatham fell into a similar mistake about the Memoirs of a Cavalier during the civil wars in England. Dr. Mead quoted the History of the Plague as an authentic detail by an eyewitness. And this quality marks the different fictions, Moll Flanders, &c., which the publishers have collected and reprinted in the present edition. These remarkable tales, it is true, describe the career of loose and immoral characters, but only in a way to disgust and deter. There is never any impropriety in the descriptions of events, however degrading; the nature of De Foe was abhorrent from indecency: but the heroes and heroines, who tell their own stories, instead of dwelling with unction or satisfaction on their past lives, only narrate particular incidents to express their sincere disgust at them, and repentance for the future, and to warn others from a life so fruitful of bitter results. Whilst De Foe was so cruelly and unjustly imprisoned in Newgate for defending the Hanoverian succession![103] (strange perversion of party spirit!) he employed his active mind in acquiring information relative to its unhappy and guilty inmates; and deeply convinced that mankind would be benefited by an exposure of the sorrow and distresses that invariably accompany and follow a life of crime, he embodied the results of his experience in fictions which we agree with him in thinking to be as useful as they are vivid. Mr. Alexander Chalmers, in his sketch of De Foe[106], says, "these lives are too gross for improvement"; we cannot agree with this opinion of the learned biographer. We hold, that novels, written like De Foe's, not on the base principle of making a market by pandering to the worst passions of the multitude, but where all indecency of expression or even of suggestion, is carefully avoided, and vice is only described as entailing misery, are instructive and beneficial to the people.
The style of De Foe is plain and homely, but expressive, direct, and manly. It may be described as thoroughly English. It reflected the character of his mind, and bespoke the man of firm resolve, and unshaken integrity.
His principles were those of a sincere dissenter, of the whig school. He joined most heartily in the Revolution of 1688, and continued a steadfast friend to its principles and its hero. To William III. De Foe was devotedly attached; and after the death of that great king, vindicated his memory from the poisonous shafts of malice and slander. He was the champion of civil and religious liberty, which he evidently valued as the most precious of earthly things. Of that cause he continued the unflinching advocate, and may be regarded as the most efficient of that day which the press could boast. Through[104] good report and evil report, under the smiles of sovereigns or incarcerated in Newgate, in prosperity or poverty, stung by the malevolence of faction, or by filial ingratitude, in health or in sickness, in gladness or in sorrow, De Foe held by the same sheet anchor of principle, remained incorruptible in his love of liberty, and died as he had lived throughout a long and eventful career, what he so justly felt himself, a "True-born Englishman," and to use his own admirable expression in Robinson Crusoe, a "broadhearted man." Honoured be his memory!
The first attempt to do justice to the merits of De Foe, and to rescue the main events of his useful and laborious life from oblivion, was made by the late Mr. George Chalmers, of the Board of Trade, whose biography the present publishers now reprint. Since that period, gentlemen of learning and ability have followed his steps. Dr. Towers, in the Biographia Britannica, has sketched the life of De Foe, and Mr. Alexander Chalmers, in the Biographical Dictionary, has also done justice to his memory. Sir Walter Scott gave the aid of his great name to the same object, by publishing an edition of De Foe. Mr. Walter Wilson, of the Middle Temple, has published lately a long and detailed Life of De Foe, which is by far the most complete yet compiled, and should be consulted by every student desirous of becoming thoroughly acquainted with the events of his chequered career. The present edition of his works will supply a desideratum in English literature, and enable his countrymen to possess, at a small cost, the various productions of his versatile genius, and be instructed by one of the most deservedly popular and really useful authors that has ever adorned the country.
We subjoin the able critiques on De Foe, by the late Charles Lamb, a man exactly qualified to appreciate[105] him, by a writer in the Retrospective Review, and by sir Walter Scott. For the first, the world is indebted to Mr. Wilson[107]. "It has happened not seldom that one work of some author has so transcendently surpassed in execution the rest of his compositions, that the world has agreed to pass a sentence of dismissal upon the latter, and to consign them to total neglect and oblivion. It has done wisely in this, not to suffer the contemplation of excellences of a lower standard to abate or stand in the way of the pleasure it has agreed to receive from the masterpiece.
"Again, it has happened, that from no inferior merit of execution in the rest, but from superior good fortune in the choice of its subject, some single work shall have been suffered to eclipse and cast into shade the deserts of its less fortunate brethren. This has been done with more or less injustice in the case of the popular allegory of Bunyan, in which the beautiful and scriptural image of a pilgrim or wayfarer (we are all such upon earth!) addressing itself intelligibly and feelingly to the bosoms of all, has silenced and made almost to be forgotten, the more awful and scarcely less tender beauties of the Holy War made by Shaddai upon Diabolus, of the same author, a romance less happy in its subject, but surely well worthy of a secondary immortality. But in no instance has this excluding partiality been exerted with more unfairness than against what may be termed the secondary novels or romances of De Foe.
"While all ages and descriptions of people hang delighted over the Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, and shall continue to do so, we trust, while the world lasts, how few, comparatively, will bear to be told[106] that there exist other fictitious narratives by the same author, four of them at least of no inferior interest, except what results from a less felicitous choice of situation. Roxana, Singleton, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack—are all genuine offspring of the same father. They bear the veritable impress of De Foe. An unpractised midwife that would not swear to the nose, lip, forehead, and age of every one of them! They are, in their way, as full of incident, and some of them are every bit as romantic; only they want the uninhabited island, and the charm that has bewitched the world, of the striking solitary situation.
"But are there no solitudes out of the cave and the desert? or cannot the heart in the midst of crowds feel frightfully alone? Singleton, on the world of waters, prowling about with pirates less merciful than the creatures of any prowling wilderness; is he not alone, with the faces of men about him, but without a guide that can conduct him through the mist of educational and habitual ignorance; or a fellow heart that can interpret to him the new-born yearnings and aspirations of unpractised penitence? or when the boy, Colonel Jack, in the loneliness of the heart, (the worst solitude,) goes to hide his ill-purchased treasure in the hollow tree by night, and miraculously loses, and miraculously finds it again; whom hath he there to sympathise with him? or of what sort are his associates?
"The narrative manner of De Foe has a naturalness about it, beyond that of any novel or romance writer. His fictions have all the air of true stories. It is impossible to believe while you are reading them, that a real person is not narrating to you everywhere nothing but what really happened to himself. To this, the extreme homeliness of their style mainly contributes. We use the word in its best and[107] heartiest sense,—that which comes home to the reader. The narrators everywhere are chosen from low life, or have had their origin in it; therefore they tell their own tales, (Mr. Coleridge has anticipated us in this remark,) as persons in their degree are observed to do, with infinite repetition, and an overacted exactness, lest the hearer should not have minded, or have forgotten some things that had been told before. Hence the emphatic sentences, marked in the good old (but deserted) Italic type; and hence, too, the frequent interposition of the reminding old colloquial parenthesis, 'I say,' 'mind,' and the like, when the story-teller repeats what to a practised reader might appear to have been sufficiently insisted upon before. What pirates, what thieves, and what harlots, are the thief, the harlot, and the pirate of De Foe? We would not hesitate to say, that in no other book of fiction, where the lives of such characters are described, is guilt and delinquency made less seductive, or the suffering made more closely to follow the commission, or the penitence more earnest or bleeding, or the intervening flashes of religious visitation, upon the rude and uninstructed soul, more meltingly or fearfully painted. They, in this, come near to the tenderness of Bunyan; while the lively pictures and incidents in them, as in Hogarth, or in Fielding, tend to diminish that fastidiousness to the concerns and pursuits of common life, which an unrestrained passion for the ideal and the sentimental is in danger of producing."
The writer in the Retrospective Review observes: "We avail ourselves with some satisfaction of an opportunity of introducing to our readers an old and valued acquaintance, as one whom they may have had the misfortune to lose sight of, amidst the perplexities of life and the competition of more obtrusive[108] candidates for their notice. For our own part, surrounded as we are by the bustle and cares of middle age, the mere mention of our author's name falls upon us as cool and refreshing as a drop of rain in the hot and parched midday; for it never fails to bring along with it the recollection of the morning of our life, those green and pleasant years, when the solitary inhabitant of the desert island was perpetually mingling with the day-dreams of our imagination.
"After a vain attempt to apply to De Foe those laws of criticism which hold in ordinary cases, we are compelled to regard him as a phenomenon, and to consider his genius as something rare and curious, which it is impossible to assign to any class whatever. Throughout the ample stores of fiction, in which our literature abounds more than that of any other people, there are no works which at all resemble his, either in the design or execution. Without any precursor in the strange and unwonted path he chose, and without a follower, he spun his web of coarse but original materials, which no mortal had ever thought of using before; and when he had done it, seems as though he had snapped the thread, and conveyed it beyond the reach of imitation. To have a numerous train of followers is usually considered as adding to the reputation of the writer; we deem it a circumstance of peculiar honour to De Foe that he had none; for, in general, they are the faults of a great author, the parts where he exaggerates truth, or deviates from propriety, that become the prey of the imitator. Whenever he has stolen a 'grace beyond the reach of art,' whenever the vigour and freshness of nature are apparent, there he is inaccessible to imitation. The fugitive charms which are thus imparted, the volatile and subtle spirit which gives life and animation to the work, baffle and elude the grasp of mere imitative genius. In the fictions of[109] De Foe we meet with nothing that is artificial, or that does not breathe the breath of life. The ingenuity which could counterfeit works of a more elaborate kind, and much more highly as well as curiously wrought, could make nothing of a simplicity so naked, and a manner so perfectly natural. The most consummate art was unable to follow where no vestiges of art were to be seen, for either none has been employed, or its traces are concealed as carefully as the Indian hides his footsteps from the observation of his pursuers; since to the critical eye, nothing is visible but the easy unconstraint of nature, and the fearlessness of truth. Besides, it must be allowed, that the temptation to imitate was as small as the difficulties were many and great; for whilst he transcribed from the volume of life with a fidelity and closeness that have never been equalled, with a singularly mortified taste, he chose the plainest and least inviting pages of the whole book. Those who would imitate De Foe must copy from nature herself; and instead of dressing her out to advantage, content themselves with delineating some of her simplest and homeliest features. His language is always that of the plain and unlettered person he professes himself; homely in phraseology, in expression rude and inartificial; yet like that of one who has received a distinct impression of objects which he has seen, it is often forcible, happy, and strongly descriptive. Generally speaking, in other fictitious narratives, a tendency to moralise out of reason or in a vein too elevated for the character assumed, or a continued effort to be uniformly wise, or elaborately witty, is almost sure to unmask the impostor, and expose the dreaming pedant at his desk; or, if these characteristic marks be wanting, either the narrative is inconsistent with itself, or it contradicts some known and established fact, or there is some[110] anachronism, or other overt act against truth is committed, which critical sagacity seldom fails to detect and punish. But our author is never caught tripping in this way; he moralises to be sure, as much or more than most writers, but then his reflections are always in the right vein; he never steps from behind the curtain to figure away himself upon the stage. Either a vigilance that was perpetually on the watch preserved him from error, or he went right by mere instinct; or he so identified himself with his imaginary hero that he became in fancy the very individual he was creating, and was therefore necessarily always in character. But whatever vigilance he used, he has always the art to appear perfectly unconcerned; there is none of the constraint that usually accompanies a painful effort to support imposture; his hero is not stiff and awkward like a puppet, which has no voluntary motion, but moves freely and carelessly along the stage; talks to us in an honest, open, confidential sort of way; lays his inmost thoughts and feelings open before us, as before a confessor, without caution and subterfuge; and by never asking our belief, never seeming conscious of a possibility of its being denied, fairly compels us to grant it.
"The grand secret of his art, however, if art it can be called, and were not rather an instinct, consists doubtless in the astonishing minuteness of the details, and the circumstantial particularity with which everything is laid before us. It is by this, perhaps more than anything else, that fictitious narratives are distinguishable from the genuine memoirs of those who have been eyewitnesses of what they relate. The parts in the one case may be as probable as in the other, the descriptions as vivid and striking, the style as natural and unconstrained; still there is an indefinable something which seems to be wanting to[111] the former, though we may not have remarked its presence in the latter. Some unimportant particular, some minute circumstances, which none but he who had seen it with his own eyes would have thought of remarking, will always serve, like the scarcely discernible lines on a genuine note, to distinguish between the true and the counterfeit. The eye of the imagination, however strong and piercing, cannot always pervade the whole scene, and see everything distinctly; the more prominent features, indeed, it may develope with the clearness and accuracy of an almost unclouded vision, but all besides is either obscured with mist, or lost in impenetrable shade; and he who paints from the ideal must consequently either leave these parts unfinished, or spread his colours at random. It is the singular merit of De Foe to have overcome this difficulty, and to have communicated to his fictitious narratives every characteristic mark by which we distinguish between real and pretended adventures. The whole scene lay expanded before him in the fulness of light and life, and, down to the minutest particular, everything is delineated with truth and accuracy. It is not necessary that we should have the light fall advantageously, or wink with our eyes, in order to make the delusion complete, by hiding the defects and softening down the harsh lines of the representation; the most penetrating gaze, aided by the strongest light, cannot detect the imposition, or distinguish between the shade and the substance. Writers of fiction may, in general, be said rather to shadow forth than fully to delineate their visions, either because they flit away too early, or are never seen with sufficient distinctness; like the first discoverers of countries, they trace out a few promontories on their chart, and give a faint outline of something indistinctly seen. In the solitude of his closet, De Foe[112] could travel round the world in idea, seeing everything with the distinctness of natural vision, and noting everything with the minuteness of the most accurate observer. His chart presents us not merely with the bold headland, shooting forth into the deep, or the clearly defined mountain that rises into middle air behind; we have the whole coast fully and fairly traced out, with the soundings of every bay, the direction of every current, and the quarter of every wind that blows."
Sir Walter Scott says, "The fertility of De Foe was astonishing. He wrote on all occasions and on all subjects, and seemingly had little time for preparation on the subject in hand, but treated it from the stores which his memory retained of early reading, and such hints as he caught up in society, not one of which seems to have been lost upon him. His language is genuine English, often simple, even unto vulgarity, but always so distinctly impressive, that its very vulgarity has an efficacy in giving an air of truth or probability to the facts or sentiments it conveys. Exclusive of politics, De Foe's studies led chiefly to those popular narratives which are the amusement of children and the lower classes; those accounts of travellers who have visited remote countries; of voyagers who have made discoveries of new lands and strange nations; of pirates and buccaneers who have acquired great wealth by their desperate adventures on the ocean. There is reason to believe, from a passage in his Review, that he was acquainted with Dampier, a mariner, whose scientific skill in his profession, and power of literary composition were at that time rarely found in that profession, especially among those rough sons of the ocean who acknowledged no peace beyond the line, and had as natural an enmity to a South American Spaniard as a greyhound to[113] a hare, and who, though distinguished by the somewhat milder term of buccaneer, were little better than absolute pirates. The English government, it is well known, were not, however, very active in destroying this class of adventurers, while they confined their depredations to the Dutch and Spaniards, and indeed seldom disturbed them if they returned from the roving life and sat down to enjoy their ill-gotten gains. The courage of these men, the wonderful risks they incurred, their hairbreadth escapes, the romantic countries through which they travelled, seemed to have had infinite charms for De Foe. All his works on this topic are entertaining in the highest degree, and remarkable for the accuracy with which he personates the character of a buccaneering adventurer. De Foe's general acquaintance with nautical affairs has not been doubted, as he is said never to misapply the various sea phrases, or display an ignorance unbecoming the character under which he wrote. He appears also to have been familiar with foreign countries, their produce, their manners, and government, and whatever rendered it easy or difficult to enter into trade with them. We may therefore conclude that Purchas's Pilgrims, Hakluyt's Voyages, and the other ancient authorities, had been curiously examined by him, as well as those of his friend Dampier, of Wafer, and others, who had been in the South Seas, whether as privateers, or, as it was then called, 'upon the account.'
"Shylock observes, that there are land thieves and water thieves; and as De Foe was familiar with the latter, so he was not without some knowledge of the practices and devices of the former. We are afraid we must impute to his long imprisonment the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the secrets of thieves and mendicants, their acts of plunder,[114] concealment, and escape. But whatever way he acquired his knowledge of low life, De Foe certainly possessed it in the most extensive sense, and applied it in the composition of several works of fiction in the style termed by the Spaniards Gusto Picaresco, of which no man was ever a greater master. This class of fictitious narration may be termed the Romance of Roguery, the subjects being the adventures of thieves, rogues, vagabonds, swindlers, viragoes, and courtezans. The strange and blackguard scenes which De Foe describes, are fit to be compared to the Gipsy Boys of Murillo, which are so justly admired as being, in truth of conception and spirit of execution, the very chef-d'œuvre of art, however low and loathsome the originals from which they were taken.
"A third species of composition, to which the author's active and vigorous genius was peculiarly adapted, was the account of great national convulsions, whether by war, or by the pestilence, or the tempest. These are tales which are sure when even moderately well told, to arrest the attention, and which, narrated with that impression of reality which De Foe knew so well how to convey, make the hair bristle and the skin creep. In this manner he has written the Memoirs of a Cavalier, which have been often read and quoted as the real production of a real personage. Born himself almost immediately after the Restoration, De Foe must have known many of those who had been engaged in the civil turmoils of 1642-6, to which the period of these memoirs refers. He must have lived among them at the age when boys, such as we conceive De Foe must necessarily have been, cling to the knees of those who can tell them of the darings, the dangers of their youth, at a period when their own passions and views of pressing forward[115] in life have not begun to operate upon their minds, and while they are still pleased to listen to the adventures which others have encountered on that stage which they themselves have not yet entered upon. The Memoirs of a Cavalier have certainly been enriched by some such anecdotes as were likely to fire De Foe's active and powerful imagination, and hint to him in what colours the subject ought to be treated. The contrast, for instance, between the soldiers of the celebrated Tilly and those of the illustrious Gustavus Adolphus, almost seems too minutely drawn to have been executed from anything short of oracular testimony. But De Foe's genius has shown, in this and other instances, how completely he could assume the character he describes.
"Another species of composition, for which this multifarious author showed a strong predilection, was that upon, theurgy, magic, ghost-seeing, witchcraft, and the occult sciences. De Foe dwells on such subjects with so much unction as to leave little doubt that he was to a certain point a believer in something resembling an immediate communication between the inhabitants of this world and of that which we shall in future inhabit. He is particularly strong on the subject of secret forebodings, mysterious impressions, bodements of good or evil, which arise in our own mind, but which yet seem impressed there by some external agent, and not to arise from the course of our natural reflections. * * * The general charm attached to the romances of De Foe is chiefly to be ascribed to the unequalled dexterity with which he has given an appearance of REALITY to the incidents which he narrates. Even De Foe's deficiencies in style, his homeliness of language, his rusticity of thought, expressive of what is called the Crassa Minerva, seem to claim credit[116] for him as one who speaks the truth, the rather that we suppose he wants the skill to conceal or disguise it. It is greatly to be doubted whether De Foe could have changed his colloquial, circuitous, and periphrastic style for any other, more coarse or more elegant. We have little doubt it was connected with his nature, and the particular turn of his thoughts and ordinary expressions, and that he did not succeed so much by writing in an assumed manner, as by giving full scope to his own. The air of writing with all the plausibility of truth must, in almost every case, have its own peculiar value; as we admire the paintings of some Flemish artists, where though the subjects drawn are mean and disagreeable, and such as in nature we would not wish to study or look close upon, yet the skill with which they are represented by the painter gives an interest to the imitation upon canvass which the original entirely wants. But, on the other hand, when the power of exact and circumstantial delineation is applied to objects which we are anxiously desirous to see in their proper shape and colours, we have a double source of pleasure, both in the art of the painter, and in the interest which we take in the subject represented. Thus the style of probability with which De Foe invested his narrative was perhaps ill-bestowed, or rather wasted, upon some of the works which he thought proper to produce; but, on the other hand, the same talent throws an air of truth about the delightful history of Robinson Crusoe, which we never could have believed it possible to have united with so extraordinary a situation as is assigned to the hero. All the usual scaffolding and machinery employed in composing fictitious history are carefully discarded. The early incidents of the tale, which in ordinary works of invention[117] are usually thrown out as pegs to hang the conclusion upon, are in this work only touched, and suffered to drop out of sight. Robinson, for example, never hears anything more of his elder brother, who enters Lockhart's dragoons in the beginning of the work, and who, in any common romance, would certainly have appeared before the conclusion. We lose sight at once and for ever of the interesting Xury; and the whole earlier adventures of our voyager vanish, not to be recalled to our recollection by the subsequent course of the story. His father, the good old merchant of Hull; all the other persons who have been originally active in the drama, vanish from the scene, and appear not again. This is not the case in the ordinary romance, where the author, however luxuriant his invention, does not willingly quit possession of the creatures of his imagination till they have rendered him some services upon the scene; whereas in common life it rarely happens that our early acquaintances exercise much influence upon the fortunes of our future life."
The popularity of De Foe as a writer, added to the circumstance that most of his writings appeared anonymously, have been the occasion of many works being attributed to him with which he had no concern; some in fact that are known as the works of other writers, and some that are altogether different, not only from his style of writing, but opposed to the principles which he advocated; and others which by no possibility he could have written, inasmuch as they relate to events and persons subsequent to his decease. In the following list care[118] has been taken, so far as possible, to include such works only as are undoubtedly from his pen. It is proper to mention, however, that it does not include the whole of what might by a minute and careful investigation be satisfactorily identified to him, and that such examination would probably displace some of those here inserted, and add others not herein mentioned. In his Appeal to Honour and Justice, he alludes to some of his early works, without giving the exact titles by which they can be distinguished. The present list commences with the first work positively known to be his production.
1. An Essay upon Projects. London: printed by R. R., for Thomas Cockeril, at the corner of Warwick-lane, near Paternoster-row. 1697. 8vo. pp. 350.
2. An Enquiry into the occasional Conformity of Dissenters in Cases of Preferment: with a Preface to the Lord Mayor, occasioned by his carrying the Sword to a Conventicle. London: printed An. Dom. 1697. 4to. pp. 28.
3. Some Reflections on a Pamphlet lately published, entituled 'An Argument, showing that a Standing Army is inconsistent with a free Government, and absolutely destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy. London: published for E. Whitlock, near Stationers'-hall. 1697. 4to. pp. 28.
4. An Argument, showing that a Standing Army, with Consent of Parliament, is not inconsistent with a free Government, and absolutely destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy. 2. Chronic. ix. 25. London:[120] printed for E. Whitlock, near Stationers'-hall. 1698. 4to. pp. 26.
5. The Character of Dr. Annesley, by way of Elegy. 1697.
6. A new Discovery of an old Intrigue, a Satyr: levelled at Treachery and Ambition. Calculated to the Nativity of the Rapparee Plot, and the Modesty of the Jacobite Clergy: designed by way of conviction to the CXVII Petitioners, and for the Benefit of those that study the City Mathematics. London. 1697.
7. The Poor Man's Plea, in relation to all the Proclamations, Declarations, Acts of Parliament, &c., which have been, or shall be made, or published, for a Reformation of Manners, and suppressing Immorality in the Nation. London: printed in the year 1698. 4to. pp. 31.
8. The Pacificator: a Poem. London: printed and are to be sold by J. Nutt, near Stationers'-hall. 1700. Folio.
9. The two Great Questions considered:—1. What the French King will do with respect to the Spanish Monarchy? 2. What Measures the English ought to take? London: printed by R. T. for R. Baldwin, at the Bedford Arms, in Warwick-lane. 1700. 4to. pp. 28.
10. The two Great Questions further considered: with some Reply to the Remarks. Non licet hominem muliebriter rixare. London. 1700. 4to.
11. The Danger of the Protestant Religion from the present prospect of a Religious War in Europe. London. 1700. 4to.
12. Six Distinguishing Characters of a Parliament Man. London. 1701. 4to.[121]
13. The Freeholders' Plea against Stock-jobbing Elections of Parliament Men. London: printed in the year 1701. 4to. pp. 27.
14. The Villany of Stock-jobbers detected, and the Causes of the late Run upon the Bank and Bankers discovered and considered. London: printed in the year 1701. 4to. pp. 26.
15. The True-Born Englishman: a Satyr. 'Statuimus pacem, et securitatem, et concordiam, judicium et justiciam, inter Anglos et Normandos, Francos, et Britones Walliæ et Cornubiæ, Pictos et Scotos Albaniæ, similiter inter Francos et Insulares Provincias et Patrias quæ pertinent ad coronam nostram et inter omnes nobis subjectos, firmiter et inviolabiliter observari.' Charta Regis Wilhelmi Conquisitoris de pace publicâ. Cap. 1. London. 1701. 4to. pp. 60.
16. The Succession to the Crown of England considered. London: printed in the year 1701. 4to. pp. 38.
17. A Memorial from the Gentlemen Freeholders and Inhabitants of the Counties of ——, in behalf of themselves and many Thousands of the good People of England. London. 1701.
18. History of the Kentish Petition. London. 1701. 4to.
19. The Original Power of the Collective Body of the People of England examined and asserted. With a double Dedication to the King, and to the Parliament. London. 1701. Folio.
This tract was reprinted in 1769, by R. Baldwin in Paternoster-row, with a Dedication "To the Lord Mayor (Beckford), the Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London;" and again, in 1790, by Mr. J. Walker, in his Selections from the Writings of De Foe.
[122]20. The Present State of Jacobitism considered, in Two Queries:—1. What Measures the French King will take with respect to the Person and Title of the P. P. of Wales? 2. What the Jacobites in England ought to do on the same Account? London. 1701. 4to. pp. 22.
21. Reasons against a War with France: or, an Argument, showing that the French King's owning the Prince of Wales as King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, is no sufficient Ground of a War. London: printed in the year 1701. 4to. pp. 30.
22. A Letter to Mr. How, by way of Reply to his Considerations of the Preface to an Enquiry into the occasional Conformity of Dissenters. London. 1701. 4to.
23. Legion's New Paper; being a second Memorial to the Gentlemen of a late House of Commons. With Legion's humble Address to his Majesty. London: printed and sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster. 1702. 4to. pp. 20.
24. The Mock Mourners: a Satyr, by way of Elegy on King William. By the Author of 'The True-Born Englishman.' London: printed in the year 1702. 4to.
Reprinted in 'Poems on Affairs of State.'
25. The Spanish Descent; a Poem. London. 1702. 4to.
26. A New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty; or, Whiggish Loyalty and Church Loyalty compared. Printed in the year 1702. 4to.
27. An Enquiry into occasional Conformity, showing that the Dissenters are no ways concerned in it. London. 1702. 4to.[123]
28. Reformation of Manners; a Satyr, 'Væ vobis hypocritæ.' Printed in the year 1702. 4to. pp. 64.
29. The Shortest Way with the Dissenters; or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church. London: printed in the year 1702. 4to. pp. 29.
30. A Brief Explanation of a late Pamphlet, entituled, 'The Shortest Way with the Dissenters.' London: printed in the year 1703. 4to.
31. A Hymn to the Pillory. London: printed in the year 1703. 4to. pp. 24.
32. More Reformation, a Satyr upon Himself. By the Author of 'The True-Born Englishman.' London: printed in the year 1703. 4to. pp. 52.
33. The Shortest Way to Peace and Union. By the Author of 'The Shortest Way with the Dissenters.' London: printed in the year 1703. 4to. pp. 26.
34. A True Collection of the Writings of the Author of 'The True-Born Englishman.' Corrected by Himself. London: printed and are to be sold by most Booksellers in London and Westminster. 1703. 8vo. pp. 465.
The following pieces are contained in it:—1. The True-Born Englishman. 2. The Mock Mourners. 3. Reformation of Manners. 4. Character of Dr. Annesley. 5. The Spanish Descent. 6. Original Power of the People of England. 7. The Freeholders' Plea against Stock-jobbing Elections of Parliament Men. 8. Reasons against a War with France. 9. An Argument, showing that a Standing Army, with Consent of Parliament, is not inconsistent with a Free Government, &c. 10. The Danger of the Protestant Religion from the present Prospect of a Religious War in Europe. 11. The Villany of Stock-jobbers detected. 12. Six Distinguishing Characters of a Parliament Man. 13. Poor Man's Plea. 14. Enquiry into occasional Conformity; with a Preface to Mr. How. 15. Letter to Mr. How. 16. Two Great Questions considered.[124] 17. Two Great Questions further considered. 18. Enquiry into Occasional Conformity, showing that the Dissenters are noways concerned in it. 19. A New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty. 20. The Shortest Way with the Dissenters. 21. A brief Explanation of a late Pamphlet, entituled, 'The Shortest Way with the Dissenters.' 22. The Shortest Way to Peace and Union. A second edition of this volume, with some additions, was printed in 1705.
35. King William's Affection to the Church of England examined. London: printed in the year 1703. 4to. pp. 26.
36. The Sincerity of the Dissenters vindicated from the Scandal of occasional Conformity; with some Considerations on a late Book, entituled 'Moderation a Virtue.' London: printed in the year 1703. 4to. pp. 27.
37. A Challenge of Peace, addressed to the whole nation: with an Inquiry into the Ways and Means of bringing it to pass. London: printed in the year 1703. pp. 24.
38. Peace without Union. By way of reply to sir H. M——'s Peace at Home. London: printed in the year 1703. 4to.
39. Original Right; or the Reasonableness of Appeals to the People. Being an Answer to the first chapter in Dr. Davenant's Essays, entituled, 'Peace at Home and War Abroad'. Printed and sold by R. Baldwin, near the Oxford Arms in Warwick-lane. London: 1704. 4to. pp. 30.
40. Dissenter's Answer to the High Church Challenge. London: printed in the year 1704. 4to. pp. 55.
41. The Christianity of the High Church considered. Dedicated to a Noble Peer. London: printed in the year 1704. 4to. pp. 20.
42. Royal Religion; being some Inquiry after the Piety of Princes, with remarks on a book, entituled,[125] A Form of Prayers used by king William. London: printed in the year 1704. 4to. pp. 27.
43. Essay upon the Regulation of the Press. London: 1704.
44. The Liberty of Episcopal Dissenters in Scotland truly stated. London: printed in the year 1704.
45. The Parallel, or Persecution of Protestants the Shortest Way to prevent the Growth of Popery in Ireland. London: 1704.
46. A serious Inquiry into this grand Question, whether a Law to prevent the occasional Conformity of Dissenters would not be inconsistent with the Act of Toleration, and a Breach of the Queen's Promise? London: 1704. 4to.
47. More Short Ways with the Dissenters. London: 1704. 4to. pp. 24.
48. The Dissenters Misrepresented and Represented. London: 1704. 4to.
49. The Protestant Jesuit Unmasked; in answer to the Two Parts of Cassandra; wherein the author and his libels are laid open, with the true reason why he would have the Dissenters humbled. London: 1704.
50. A new Test of the Church of England's Honesty. London: 1704. 4to. pp. 24.
51. The Storm; or a Collection of the most remarkable Casualties and Disasters which happened in the late dreadful Tempest, both by Sea and Land. The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. Nehemiah i. 3. London: printed for S. Sawbridge, in Little Britain, and sold by J. Nutt, near Stationers'-hall. 1704. 8vo. pp. 272.
Later editions are entituled: A Collection of the most remarkable[126] Casualties and Disasters which happened in the late dreadful Tempest, both by Sea and Land, on Friday, November 26th, 1703. To which are added several very surprising deliverances; the natural causes and origin of winds; of the opinion of the ancients that this island was more subject to storms than any other part of the world. With several other curious observations upon the storm. The whole divided into chapters, under proper heads. The Second Edition. London: printed for Geo. Sawbridge, at the Three Golden Fleur-de-Lis, in Little Britain, and J. Nutt, in the Savoy. Price, bound, 3s. 6d. The matter in both editions is precisely the same.
52. Elegy on the author of The True-Born Englishman. With an essay on the late Storm. By the author of the Hymn to the Pillory. London: 1704. 4to. pp. 56.
53. A Hymn to Victory. London: printed for J. Nutt, near Stationers'-hall, 1704. 4to. pp. 52.
54. An Inquiry into the Case of Mr. Asgill's General Translation; showing that it is not a nearer Way to Heaven than the Grave. By the Author of The True-Born Englishman. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusions. 2 Thess. ii. 11. London: printed and sold by J. Nutt, near Stationers'-hall. 1704. 8vo. pp. 48.
55. Giving Alms no Charity, and Employing the Poor a Grievance to the Nation. Being an Essay upon this great Question, whether Workhouses, Corporations, and Houses of Correction for Employing the Poor, as now practised in England, or Parish-stocks, as proposed in a late pamphlet, entituled A Bill for the Better Relief, Employment, and Settlement of the Poor, &c., are not mischievous to the Nation; tending to the Destruction of our Trade, and to increase the Number and Misery of the Poor. Addressed to the Parliament of England. London: printed and sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster. 1704. 8vo. pp. 28.[127]
56. A Review of the Affairs of France, and of all Europe, as influenced by that nation; being Historical Observations on the Public Transactions of the World, purged from the Errors and Partiality of Newswriters and petty Statesmen of all sides. With an entertaining Part in every Sheet, being Advice from the Scandal Club to the curious Inquirers; in Answer to Letters sent them for that purpose. London: printed in the year 1705. 4to. pp. 456.
57. The Double Welcome to the Duke of Marlborough. By the Author of The True-Born Englishman. London: printed for Benjamin Bragge, in Ave Maria lane, Ludgate-street. 1705. 4to.
58. Party Tyranny; or, an Occasional Bill in Miniature; as now practised in Carolina. Humbly offered to the Consideration of both Houses of Parliament. London: printed in the year 1705. 4to. pp. 30.
59. Advice to all Parties. By the Author of The True-Born Englishman. London: printed and are to be sold by Benj. Bragge, at the Blue Ball, in Ave Maria lane. 1705. Price 6d. 4to. pp. 24.
60. Writings of the Author of The True-Born Englishman (a second Volume of); some whereof never before published. Corrected and enlarged by the Author. 1705. The following are the pieces in this Volume:—1. A New Discovery of an old Intrigue. 2. More Reformation. 3. An Elegy on the Author of The True-Born Englishman. 4. The Storm, an Essay. 5. A Hymn to the Pillory. 6. A Hymn to Victory. 7. The Pacificator. 8. The Double Welcome to the Duke of Marlborough. 9. The Dissenter's Answer to the[128] High Church Challenge. 10. A Challenge of Peace to the whole Nation. 11. Peace without Union. 12. More Short Ways. 13. A new Test of the Church of England's Honesty. 14. A Serious Inquiry. 15. The Dissenter Misrepresented, and Represented. 16. The Parallel. 17. Giving Alms no Charity. 18. Royal Religion.
A third edition, or perhaps the remainder of the impressions of the first, was published in 1710, with the addition of a key to many of the names. They were sold by John Morphew, near Stationers'-hall, price 12s.
61. The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon. Translated from the Lunar language, by the Author of The True-Born Englishman. London: printed and are to be sold by Benjamin Bragge, at the Blue Ball, in Ave Maria lane. 1705. 8vo. pp. 360.
62. The Experiment; or, the Shortest Way with the Dissenters Exemplified. Being the Case of Mr. Abraham Gill, a Dissenting Minister of the Isle of Ely; and a full account of his being sent for a soldier, by Mr. Fern (an ecclesiastical Justice of the Peace) and other Conspirators. To the eternal Honour of the Temper and Moderation of High Church Principles. Humbly dedicated to the Queen. London: printed and sold by B. Bragge, at the Blue Ball, in Ave Maria lane. 1705. 4to. pp. 58.
The remaining copies of this tract were sent forth in 1707, with the following new title: The Modesty and Sincerity of those worthy Gentlemen, commonly called High Churchmen, Exemplified in a Modern Instance. Most humbly dedicated to her Majesty, and her High Court of Parliament. London: printed and sold by B. Bragge, in Paternoster-row. 1707.
63. The Dyet of Poland; a Satyr. Printed at Dantzick in the year 1705. 4to. pp. 60.[129]
64. High Church Legion; or, the Memorial Examined; being a new Test of Moderation, as it is recommended to all that love the Church of England and the Constitution. London: printed in the year 1705. 4to. pp. 21.
65. A Declaration without Doors. By the Author of The True-Born Englishman. Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster. 1705. 4to.
66. An Answer to Lord Haversham's Speech. London. 1705. 4to.
67. A Reply to a Pamphlet called The Lord Haversham's Vindication of his Speech, &c. By the Author of the Review. London: printed in the year 1706. 4to. pp. 32.
68. A True Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs. Veal, the next day after her death, to one Mrs. Bargrave at Canterbury, the 8th of September, 1705. Which Apparition recommends the Perusal of Drelincourt's Book of Consolations against the Fear of Death. London. 1705. 4to.
69. A Review of the Affairs of France; with Observations on Transactions at Home. Vol. II. London: printed in the year 1705. 4to. pp. 558.
70. Hymn to Peace; occasioned by the Two Houses joining in one Address to the Queen. By the Author of The True-Born Englishman. London: printed for John Nutt, near Stationers'-hall. 1706. 4to. pp. 60.
71. Remarks on the Bill to prevent Frauds committed by Bankrupts; with Observations on the Effect it may have upon Trade. London: printed in the year 1706. 4to. pp. 29.
72. A Preface to a New Edition of Delaune's Plea for the Nonconformists. London. 1706.
73. A Sermon preached by Mr. Daniel De Foe, on[130] the Fitting-up of Dr. Burgess's late Meeting-house. Taken from his Review of Thursday, 20th of June, 1706. 4to.
74. Jure Divino; a Satyr, in 12 Books. By the Author of The True-Born Englishman. 'O sanctas gentes, quibus hæc nascuntur in hortis numina.' London: printed in the year 1706. Folio, pp. 346. Preface, xxviii.
75. The Advantages of the Act of Security, compared with those of the intended Union; founded on the Revolution Principles. By D. De Foe. London. 1706. 4to.
76. An Essay at Removing National Prejudices against a Union with Scotland. To be continued during the Treaty here. London and Edinburgh: printed in the year 1706. 4to. pp. 30.
77. —— Part II.
78. —— III.
79. —— IV.; with some Reply to Mr. H—dges, and some Authors who have printed their Objections against a Union with England. 4to. 1706.
80. —— Part V. 1706.
81. —— VI. 1707.
82. Caledonia; a Poem in Honour of Scotland and the Scots Nation. In Three Parts. Edinburgh: printed by the Heirs and Successors of Andrew Anderson, Printer to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty. An. Dom. 1706. Folio, pp. 60.
An 8vo. edition of this work was printed in London in the following year, and another in 1748.
83. The Dissenters in England Vindicated from some Reflections in a late Pamphlet, called, 'Lawful Prejudices,' &c. London. 1707.
84. The Dissenters Vindicated; or a Short View[131] of the Present State of the Protestant Religion in Britain, as it is now professed in the Episcopal Church of England, the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, and the Dissenters in both. In answer to some Reflections in Mr. Webster's Two Books published in Scotland. London: printed in the year 1707. 8vo. pp. 48.
85. A Voice from the South; or, an Address from some Protestant Dissenters in England to the Kirk of Scotland. 1707. 4to.
86. Two Great Questions considered with regard to the Union. 1707.
87. The Quaker's Sermon on the Union. Being the only Sermon preached by that sort of People on that Subject. London. 1707.
88. A Review of the State of the English Nation, Vol. III. London: printed in the year 1706. 4to. pp. 688.
89. The Union Proverb.
90. A Review of the State of the British Nation. Vol. IV. London: printed in the year 1708. 4to. pp. 700.
91. The Scots Narrative examined; or, the Case of the Episcopal Ministers in Scotland stated, and the late treatment of them in the City of Edinburgh inquired into. With a brief Examination into the Reasonableness of the grievous Complaint of Persecution in Scotland, and a Defence of the Magistrates of Edinburgh[132] in their Proceedings there. Being some Remarks on a late Pamphlet, entituled 'A Narrative of the late Treatment of the Episcopal Ministers within the City of Edinburgh,' &c. London: printed in the year 1709. 4to. pp. 41. Postscript x.
92. The History of the Union of Great Britain. Edinburgh: printed by the Heirs and Successors of Andrew Anderson, Printer to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty. An. Dom. 1709. Folio, pp. 685. Preface xxxii.
Reprinted in 1712, and again in 1786.
93. An Answer to a Paper concerning Mr. De Foe, against the History of the Union. Edinburgh. 1709. 4to.
A single sheet.
94. A Reproof to Mr. Clark, and a brief Vindication of Mr. De Foe. Edinburgh. 1709.
A single sheet.
95. A Review of the State of the British Nation. Vol. V. London: printed in the year 1709. 4to. pp. 632.
96. A Letter from Captain Tom to the Mob now raised by Dr. Sacheverell. London: J. Baker. 1710.
97. Instructions from Rome, in favour of the Pretender. Inscribed to the most elevated Don Sacheverellio, and his brother Don Higginisco; and which all Perkinites, Nonjurors, High-fliers, Popish Desirers, Wooden-shoe Admirers, and absolute Non-resistance Drivers, are obliged to pursue and maintain, under pain of his Unholiness's Damnation, in order to carry on their intended Subversion of a Government fixed upon Revolution Principles. London:[133] J. Baker. Registered in the Stationers'-hall Book. 1710. 8vo.
98. A Review of the British Nation. Vol. VI. London: printed in the year 1710. 4to. pp. 600.
99. An Essay upon Public Credit. Being an Inquiry how the Public Credit came to depend upon the Change of the Ministry, or the Dissolutions of Parliaments; and whether it does so, or no? With an Argument proving that the Public Credit may be upheld and maintained in this Nation, and perhaps brought to a greater height than it ever yet arrived at, though all the changes or dissolutions already made, pretended to, and now discoursed of, should come to pass in the world. London. 1710. 8vo.
100. An Essay upon Loans; or an Argument, proving that substantial Funds, settled by Parliament, with the Encouragement of Interests, and the Advances of prompt Payment usually allowed, will bring in Loans of Money to the Exchequer, in spite of all the Conspiracies of Parties to the contrary; while a just, honourable, and punctual Performance on the part of the Government, supports the Credit of the Nation. By the Author of the 'Essay on Credit.' London. 1710. 8vo. pp. 27.
101. A New Test of the Sense of the Nation. Being a modest Comparison between the Addresses to the late King James and those to her present Majesty, in order to observe how far the Sense of the Nation may be judged of by either of them. London: printed in the year 1710. 8vo. pp. 91.
102. A Word against a New Election; that the[134] People of England may see the happy Difference between English Liberty and French Slavery, and may consider well before they make the Exchange. Printed in the year 1710. 8vo. pp. 23.
103. A Review of the State of the British Nation; Vol. VII. London: printed in the year 1711. 4to. pp. 620.
104. An Essay on the South Sea Trade; with an Inquiry into the Grounds and Reasons of the present Dislike and Complaints against the Settlement of a South Sea Company. By the Author of the 'Review.' London. 1710. 8vo.
105. Eleven Opinions about Mr. H—y; with Observations. London: printed for J. Baker. 1711. 8vo. pp. 89.
106. An Essay at a Plain Exposition of that difficult phrase: 'A Good Peace.' Printed for J. Baker. 1711. 8vo. pp. 52.
107. The Felonious Treaty; or, an Inquiry into the Reasons which moved his late Majesty king William, of glorious Memory, to enter into a Treaty at two several times with the King of France for the Partition of the Spanish Monarchy. With an Essay proving that it was always the Sense, both of king William and of all the Confederates, and even of the Grand Alliance itself, that the Spanish Monarchy should never be united in the Person of the Emperor. By the Author of the 'Review.' London: printed and sold by J. Baker. 1711. Price 6d. 8vo. pp. 48.
108. An Essay on the History of Parties and Persecution in Britain: beginning with a brief Account of the Test Act, and an Historical Inquiry into the Reasons, the Original, and[135] the Consequences of the occasional Conformity of Dissenters; with some Remarks on the several Attempts already made and now making for an Occasional Bill; inquiring how far the same may be esteemed a Preservation to the Church, or an Injury to the Dissenters. London: printed for J. Baker. 1711. 8vo. pp. 48.
109. The Conduct of Parties in England, more especially of those Whigs who now appear against the New Ministry and a Treaty of Peace. Printed in the year 1712. 8vo. pp. 62.
110. The present State of Parties in Great Britain, particularly an Inquiry into the State of the Dissenters in England, and the Presbyterians in Scotland; their Religious and Political Interest considered, as it respects their Circumstances before and since the late Acts against occasional Conformity in England; and for Toleration of Common Prayer in Scotland. 1712. London: printed and sold by J. Baker, in Paternoster-row. Price 5s. 8vo. pp. 352.
111. A Review of the State of the British Nation. Vol. VIII. London: printed in the year 1712. 4to. pp. 848.
112. A Seasonable Caution and Warning against the Insinuations of Papists and Jacobites in favour of the Pretender. London: 1712. 8vo.
113. An Answer to the Question that Nobody thinks of, viz., But what if the Queen should die? London: printed for J. Baker. 1713. 8vo. pp. 44.
114. Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover, with an Inquiry how far the Abdication of King James, supposing it to[136] be legal, ought to affect the Person of the Pretender. 'Si populus vult decepi, decipiatur.' London: printed for J. Baker. 1713. 8vo. pp. 45.
115. And what if the Pretender should come? or, some Considerations of the Advantages and real Consequences of the Pretender's possessing the Crown of Great Britain. London: printed for J. Baker. 1713. 8vo.
116. A Review of the State of the British Nation. Vol. IX. London: printed in the year 1713.
117. An Essay on the Treaty of Commerce with France; with necessary Expositions. Prov. xviii. 12. London: printed for J. Baker. 1713. 8vo. pp. 44.
118. A General History of Trade; and especially considered as it respects the British Commerce, as well at Home as to all Parts of the World; with Essays upon the Improvement of our Trade in particular. To be continued monthly. 1st August, 1713. 8vo. Price 6d. J. Baker.
119. A General History of Trade; and especially considered as it respects the British Commerce, as well at Home as to all Parts of the World: with a Discourse of the Use of Harbours and Roads for Shipping, as it relates particularly to the filling up the Harbour of Dunkirk. This for the month of July. 15th August, 1713. 8vo. Price 6d.
120. Whigs turned Tories; and Hanoverian Tories, from their avowed Principles, proved Whigs; or, each side in the other mistaken; being a plain Proof that each Party deny that Charge which the others bring against them; and that neither side will disown those which the others profess; with an earnest Exhortation[137] to all Whigs, as well as Hanoverian Tories, to lay aside those uncharitable Heats among such Protestants, and seriously to consider, and effectually to provide against those Jacobite, Popish, and Conforming Tories, whose principal Ground of Hope to ruin all sincere Protestants, is from those unchristian and violent Feuds among ourselves. London: printed for J. Baker. 1713. 8vo.
121. A Letter to the Dissenters. London: sold by John Morphew, near Stationers'-hall. 1714. Price 6d. 8vo.
122. The Remedy worse than the Disease; or, Reasons against passing the Bill for preventing the Growth of Schism; to which is added, a brief Discourse on Toleration and Persecution, showing their unavoidable effects, good or bad; and proving that neither Diversity of Religion, nor Diversity in the same Religion, are dangerous, much less inconsistent with good Government; in a Letter to a Noble Earl. 'Hæc sunt enim fundamenta firmissima nostræ libertatis, sui quemque juris et retinendi et dimittendi esse dominum.' Cicer. in Orat. pro Balbo. London: printed for J. Baker. 1714. 8vo. pp. 48.
123. Advice to the People of Great Britain with respect to Two important Points of their future Conduct. 1. What they ought to expect from the King. 2. How they ought to behave to him. London: printed for J. Baker, in Paternoster-row. 1714. Price 6d.
124. The Secret History of the White Staff; being an Account of Affairs under the Conduct of several late Ministers, and of what might probably have happened, if her Majesty[138] had not died. London: J. Baker. 1714. 8vo. pp. 71.
125. The Secret History of the White Staff; being an Account of Affairs under the Conduct of several late Ministers, and of what might probably have happened, if her Majesty had not died. London: J. Baker. Part II. 1714.
126. —— Part III. 1715.
127. A Reply to a traitorous Libel, entituled 'English Advice to the Freeholders of Great Britain.' London: printed for J. Baker. 1715. 8vo. pp. 40.
128. A Hymn to the Mob. London: printed and sold by S. Popping, in Paternoster-row. 1715. 8vo. pp. 40.
129. Appeal to Honour and Justice, though it be of his worst Enemies; by Daniel De Foe; being a true Account of his Conduct in Public Affairs. Jeremiah xvii. 18. London: printed for J. Baker. 1715. 8vo. pp. 58.
130. The Family Instructor; in Three Parts; with a Recommendatory Letter by the Rev. S. Wright. London: sold by Emanuel Matthews, at the Bible, in Paternoster-row; and John Button, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 1715. 12mo. pp. 444.
131. A Friendly Epistle by way of Reproof, from one of the People called Quakers, to Thomas Bradbury, a Dealer in many Words. London: printed and sold by S. Keimer, at the Printing Press, in Paternoster-row. 1715. 8vo. pp. 39.
132. A Sharp Rebuke from one of the People called Quakers, to Henry Sacheverell, the High Priest of Andrew's, Holborn. By the same[139] Friend that wrote to Thomas Bradbury. London: S. Keimer. 1715. 8vo. pp. 35.
133. A Seasonable Expostulation with, and Friendly Reproof unto, James Butler, who, by the Men of this World, is styled Duke of O—d, relating to the Tumults of the People. By the same Friend that wrote to Thomas Bradbury, the Dealer in many Words, and Henry Sacheverell, the High Priest of Andrew's, Holborn. London: S. Keimer. 1715. 8vo. pp. 31.
134. Some Account of the Two Nights' Court at Greenwich; wherein may be seen the Reason, Rise, and Progress of the late unnatural Rebellion against his Sacred Majesty King George, and his Government. London: printed for J. Baker. 1716. 8vo. pp. 72.
135. Memoirs of the Church of Scotland. In Four Periods. 1. The Church in her Infant State, from the Reformation to the Queen Mary's Abdication. 2. The Church in its Growing State, from the Abdication to the Restoration. 3. The Church in its Persecuted State, from the Restoration to the Revolution. 4. The Church in its Present State, from the Revolution to the Union. With an Appendix of some Transactions since the Union. London: printed for Emanuel Matthews, at the Bible, and T. Warner, at the Black Boy, both in Paternoster-row. 1717. 8vo. pp. 438.
136. The Family Instructor; in Two Parts. 1. Relating to Family Breaches, and their obstructing Religious Duties. 2. To the great Mistake of mixing the Passions in the managing and correcting of Children. With a[140] great Variety of Cases relating to setting ill Examples to Children and Servants. Vol. II. London: printed for Emanuel Matthews, at the Bible, in Paternoster-row. 1718. 12mo. pp. 404.
137. Memoirs of the Life and eminent Conduct of that Learned and Reverend Divine Daniel Williams, D.D. With some Account of his Scheme for the vigorous Propagation of Religion, as well in England as in Scotland, and in several other Parts of the World. Addressed to Mr. Pierce. London: printed for E. Curll, at the Dial and Bible, against St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet-street. 1718. Price 2s. 6d. bound. 8vo. pp. 86.
138. A Letter to the Dissenters. London: printed for J. Roberts, in Warwick-lane. 1719. Price 6d. pp. 27.
139. A curious Oration delivered by Father Andrews, concerning the present great Quarrels that divide the Clergy of France. Translated from the French. By D. De F—e. London. 1719. 8vo.
140. The Life, and strange surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, mariner; who lived Eight-and-twenty Years all alone in an uninhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the great River Oroonoque, having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the men perished but himself. With an Account how he was at last strangely delivered by Pirates. Written by Himself. London: printed for W. Taylor, at the Ship, in Paternoster-row. 1719. 8vo. pp. 364.
141. The further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, being the second and last Part of his Life; and the strange surprising Accounts of his[141] Travels round Three Parts of the Globe. Written by Himself. To which is added a Map of the World, in which is delineated the Voyages of Robinson Crusoe. London: printed for W. Taylor. 1719. 8vo. pp. 373.
142. The Dumb Philosopher; or, Great Britain's Wonder. Containing.—I. A Faithful and very surprising Account of Dickory Cronke, a Tinner's Son, in the County of Cornwall, who was born Dumb, and continued so for fifty-eight years; and how some days before he died he came to his Speech; with Memoirs of his Life and the Manner of his Death. II. A Declaration of his Faith and Principles in Religion, with a Collection of Select Meditations composed in his Retirement. III. His Prophetical Observations upon the Affairs of Europe, more particularly of Great Britain, from 1720 to 1729. The whole extracted from his Original Papers, and confirmed by unquestionable authority. To which is annexed his Elegy, written by a young Cornish Gentleman of Exeter College, in Oxford; with an Epitaph by another hand. 'Non quis, sed quid?' London: printed by Thomas Bickerton, at the Crown, in Paternoster-row. 1719. Price 1s. 8vo. pp. 64.
143. The Life, Adventures, and Pyracies of the famous Captain Singleton, containing an Account of his being set on Shore in the Island of Madagascar, his Settlement there, with a Description of the Place and Inhabitants; of his Passage from thence in a Paraquay to the Main Land of Africa, with an Account of the Customs and Manners of the People, his great Deliverances from the barbarous Natives and wild Beasts; of his meeting with an Englishman,[142] a Citizen of London, among the Indians; the great Riches he acquired, and his Voyage home to England; as also Captain Singleton's Return to Sea, with an Account of his many Adventures and Pyracies with the famous Captain Avery and others. 8vo. London: printed for J. Brotherton, at the Black Bull, in Cornhill; T. Graves, in St. James's-street; A. Dodd, at the Peacock, without Temple Bar; and T. Warner, at the Black Boy, in Paternoster-row. 1720. 8vo. pp. 360.
144. Serious Reflections during the Life and surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. With his Vision of the Angelic World. Written by Himself. London: printed for W. Taylor. 1722. 8vo. pp. 354.
145. The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell, a Gentleman who, though Deaf and Dumb, writes down any Stranger's Name at first sight, with their future Contingencies of Fortune. Now living in Exeter-court, over against the Savoy, in the Strand. London: printed for E. Curll, and sold by W. Meers, &c. 1720. 8vo. pp. 320.
146. The Complete Art of Painting, a Poem; translated from the French of M. Du Fresnoy. By D. F., Gentleman. London: printed for T. Warner. 1720. Price 1s. 8vo. pp. 54.
147. Christian Conversation; in Six Dialogues. 1. Between a doubting Christian and one more confirmed, about Assurance. 2. Between the same Persons, about Mortification. 3. Between Eutocus and Fidelius, about Natural Things Spiritualized. 4. Between Simplicius and Conscius, about Union. 5. Between Thlipsius and Melaudius about[143] Afflictions. 6. Between Athanasius and Bioes, about Death. By a Private Gentleman. London: printed for W. Taylor. 1720. 8vo.
148. The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders, who was born in Newgate, and during a Life of continued Variety of Three Score Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Years a Whore, Five Times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Years a Thief, Eight Years a Transported Felon to Virginia; at last grew rich, lived honest, and died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums. London: printed for and sold by W. Chetwood, at Cato's Head, in Russell-street, Covent-garden; and T. Edlin, at the Prince's Arms, over against Exeter Change, in the Strand. 1722.
149. The Memoirs of a Cavalier; or, a Military Journal of the Wars in Germany and the Wars in England from the Year 1632 to the Year 1648. Written above Three Score Years ago by an English Gentleman, who served first in the Army of Gustavus Adolphus, the glorious King of Sweden, till his Death; and after that in the royal Army of King Charles the First, from the beginning of the Rebellion to the end of that War. London: printed for A. Bell, at the Cross Keys, in Cornhill; J. Osborn, at the Oxford Arms, in Lombard-street; W. Taylor, at the Ship and Swan; and T. Warner, at the Black Boy, in Paternoster-row.
150. The History of the most remarkable Life and extraordinary Adventures of the truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, vulgarly called Colonel[144] Jack, who was born a Gentleman, put Apprentice to a Pickpocket, flourished Six-and-twenty Years as a Thief, and was then kidnapped to Virginia; came back a Merchant, was five times married to four Whores, went into the Wars, behaved bravely, got Preferment, was made Colonel of a Regiment; returned again to England, followed the Fortunes of the Chevalier de St. George, was taken at the Preston Rebellion; received his Pardon from the late King, is now at the Head of his Regiment, in the Service of the Czarina, fighting against the Turks, completing a Life of Wonders, and resolves to die a General. London: printed for J. Brotherton. 1722.
151. A Journal of the Plague Year; being Observations or Memorials of the most remarkable Occurrences, as well Public as Private, which happened in London during the last great Visitation in 1665. Written by a Citizen who continued all the while in London: never made public before. London: printed for E. Nutt, at the Royal Exchange; J. Roberts, in Warwick-lane; A. Dodd, without Temple Bar; and J. Graves, in St. James's-street. 1722. 8vo. pp. 287.
The first edition. The second, published by F. and J. Noble, in 1754, is called 'The History of the Great Plague in London in the Year 1665;' containing Observations, &c. To which is added 'A Journal of the Plague at Marseilles in the Year 1720.' 8vo. The latter piece forms no part of De Foe's publication.
152. Religious Courtship: being Historical Discourses on the Necessity of marrying Religious Husbands and Wives only; as also of Husbands and Wives being of the same Opinions in Religion[145] with one another. With an Appendix, of the Necessity of taking none but Religious Servants, and a Proposal for the better managing of Servants. London: printed for E. Matthews, at the Bible, and A. Bettersworth, at the Red Lion, in Paternoster-row; J. Brotherton and W. Meadows, in Cornhill. 1722. 8vo. pp. 358.
153. The Fortunate Mistress; or, A History of the Life and vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle De Beleau, afterwards called the Countess De Wintelsheim, in Germany; being the Person known by the name of the Lady Roxana in the time of Charles II. London: printed for T. Warner, at the Black Boy in Paternoster-row; W. Meadows, at the Angel in Cornhill; W. Pepper, at the Crown in Maiden-lane, Covent-garden; S. Harding, at the Post House in St. Martin's-lane; and T. Edin, at the Prince's Arms against Exeter Change, in the Strand. 1724.
154. A Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, divided into Circuits or Journies. Giving a Particular and Diverting Account of whatever is Curious and worth Observation, viz.: 1. A Description of the principal Cities and Towns, their Situation, Magnitude, Government, and Commerce. 2. The Customs, Manners, Speech, as also the Exercises, Diversions, and Employment of the Poor. 3. The Produce and Improvement of the Lands, the Trade and Manufactures. 4. The Sea-ports and Fortifications, the Course of Rivers, and the Inland Navigation. 5. The public Edifices, Seats, and Palaces of the Nobility and Gentry: with useful Observations upon the whole. Particularly fitted for the reading of such as[146] desire to travel over the Island. By a Gentleman. London: printed and sold by G. Strahan, in Cornhill; W. Mears, at the Lamb, without Temple Bar; R. Francklin, under Tom's Coffee-house, Covent-garden; T. Chapman, at the Angel in Pall Mall; R. Stagg, in Westminster Hall; and J. Graves, in St. James's-street. 1724.
All the subsequent editions vary considerably from the original. This work is frequently confounded with John Macky's 'Journey through England, in Familiar Letters from a gentleman here to his Friend abroad. 1722.'
155. The Great Law of Subordination Considered; or, the Insolence and unsufferable Behaviour of Servants in England, duly inquired into. Illustrated with a great variety of Examples, historical Cases, and remarkable Stories of the Behaviour of some particular Servants, suited to all the several Arguments made use of as they go on. In Ten Familiar Letters; together with a Conclusion, being an earnest and moving Remonstrance to the Housekeepers and Heads of Families in Great Britain, pressing them not to cease using their utmost Interest (especially at this Juncture) to obtain sufficient Laws for the effectual Regulations of the Manners and Behaviour of their Servants. As also, a Proposal, containing such Heads, or Constitutions, as would effectually answer this great end, and bring Servants of every Class to a just, and yet not a grievous Regulation. London: sold by S. Harding, at the Post House, in St. Martin's-lane, and other Booksellers. 1724. 8vo. pp. 302.
156. A Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, divided into Circuits or Journies. Giving a Particular and Diverting Account of whatever[147] is curious and worth Observation, viz.: 1. A Description of the principal Cities and Towns, their Situation, Magnitude, Government, and Commerce. 2. The Customs, Manners, Speech, as also the Exercises, Diversions, and Employment of the Poor. 3. The Produce and Improvement of the Lands, the Trade and Manufactures. 4. The Sea-ports and Fortifications, the Course of Rivers, and the Inland Navigation. 5. The public Edifices, Seats, and Palaces of the Nobility and Gentry; with useful Observations upon the whole. Particularly fitted for the reading of such as desire to travel over the Island. With a Map of England and Wales by Mr. Moll. Vol. 2. By a Gentleman. London: printed and sold by G. Strahan, in Cornhill; W. Mears, at the Lamb, without Temple Bar; R. Francklin, under Tom's Coffee-house, Covent-garden; S. Chapman and J. Jackson, in Pall Mall; R. Stagg, in Westminster Hall. 1725.
157. Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business; or, Private Abuses public Grievances. Exemplified in the Pride, Insolence, and exorbitant Wages of our Women-Servants, Footmen, &c. With a Proposal for Amendment of the same, as also, for the clearing the Streets of those Vermin called Shoe Cleaners, and substituting in their stead many Thousands of industrious Poor now ready to starve. With divers other Hints of great Use to the Public. Humbly submitted to the Consideration of our Legislature, and the careful Perusal of all Masters and Mistresses of Families. By Andrew Moreton, Esq. London: printed for W. Meadows, in Cornhill; and sold by T. Warner, Paternoster-row; A. Dodd, without Temple Bar; and E.[148] Nutt, at the Royal Exchange. 1725. 8vo. pp. 36.
158. Mere Nature Delineated; or, a Body without a Soul. Being Observations upon 'The Young Forester,' lately brought to town from Germany: with suitable Applications. Also a brief Dissertation upon the Usefulness and Necessity of Fools, whether political or natural. London: printed for T. Warner, at the Black Boy, in Paternoster-row. 1726. Price 1s. 6d. 8vo. pp. 123.
159. A New Voyage round the World, by a Course never sailed before. Being a Voyage undertaken by some Merchants, who afterwards proposed the setting up an East India Company in Flanders. London: printed for and sold by A. Bettesworth, at the Red Lion, in Paternoster-row; and W. Mears, at the Lamb, without Temple Bar. 1725.
160. An Essay upon Literature; or, An Inquiry into the Antiquity and Origin of Letters; proving that the Two Tables, written by the finger of God in Mount Sinai, was the first writing in the world; and that all other Alphabets derive from the Hebrew. With a short View of the Methods made use of by the Ancients to supply the Want of Letters before, and impose the Use of them after they were known. London: printed for Thomas Bowles, Printseller, next to the Chapter House, St. Paul's Church-yard; John Clark, Bookseller, under the Piazza, Royal Exchange; and John Bowles, Printseller, over against the Stocks Market. 1726. 8vo. pp. 127.
161. The Political History of the Devil, as well Ancient as Modern: in two Parts. Part I. Containing a state of the Devil's Circumstances,[149] and the various turns of his Affairs, from his Expulsion out of Heaven to the Creation of Man; with Remarks on the several Mistakes concerning the Reason and Manner of his Fall. Also, his Proceedings with Mankind ever since Adam, to the first Planting of the Christian Religion in the World. Part II. Containing his more Private Conduct, down to the present Time; his Government, his Appearance, his Manner of Working, and the Tools he works with.
London: printed for T. Warner, at the Black Boy in Paternoster-row. 1726. 8vo. pp. 408.
In the second edition, published in the same year, it is called 'The History of the Devil,' &c., but in the subsequent editions the original title is restored. A third edition was called for in 1734; a fourth in 1739; another in 1770; and since then it has been frequently reprinted both in London and the country.
162. The History of the Principal Discoveries and Improvements in the several Arts and Sciences; particularly the great branches of Commerce, Navigation, and Plantation, in all parts of the known World. London: printed for W. Mears, at the Lamb; F. Clay, at the Bible; and D. Browne, at the Black Swan, without Temple Bar. 1727.
163. A Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, divided into Circuits or Journies. Giving a Particular and Diverting Account of whatever is curious and worth Observation, viz.: 1. A Description of the principal Cities and Towns, their Situation, Magnitude, Government, and Commerce. 2. The Customs, Manners, Speech, as also the Exercises, Diversions,[150] and Employment of the Poor. 3. The Produce and Improvement of the Lands, the Trade and Manufactures. 4. The Sea-ports and Fortifications, the Course of Rivers, and the Inland Navigation. 5. The public Edifices, Seats, and Palaces of the Nobility and Gentry: with useful Observations upon the whole. Particularly fitted for the reading of such as desire to travel over the Island. Vol. 3. Which completes the work, and contains a Tour through Scotland, &c. With a Map of Scotland by Mr. Mole. By a Gentleman. London: printed and sold by G. Strahan, in Cornhill; W. Mears, at the Lamb, without Temple Bar; and R. Stagg in Westminster Hall. 1727.
164. A System of Magic; or, A History of the Black Art. Being an Historical Account of Mankind's most early Dealings with the Devil, and how the Acquaintance on both sides first began.
London: printed and sold by J. Roberts, in Warwick-lane. 1727. 8vo. pp. 403.
165. An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions. Being an Account of what they are, and are not. As also, how we may distinguish between the Apparitions of Good and Evil Spirits, and how we ought to behave to them. With a great Variety of Surprising and Diverting Examples, never published before.
London: printed and sold by J. Roberts, in Warwick-lane. 1727. 8vo. pp. 395.
This work was issued for the third time, in 1738, with the following title: 'The Secrets of the Invisible World Disclosed; or, An Universal History of Apparitions, Sacred and Profane, under all Denominations, whether Angelical, Diabolical, or Human Souls departed, showing—1. Their various Returns to this World; with some Rules to know, by their Manner of Appearing, if they are Good or Evil ones. 2. The Differences of the Apparitions of Ancient and Modern Times; and an Inquiry into the Spiritual Doctrine of Spirits. 3. The many Species of Apparitions, their real Existence and Operations by Divine Appointment. 4. The nature of seeing Ghosts before and after Death; and how we should behave towards them. 5. The Effects of Fancy, Vapours, Dreams, Hyppo, and of real and imaginary Appearances. 6. A Collection of the most Authentic Relations of Apparitions, particularly that surprising one attested by the learned Dr. Scott. By Andrew Moreton, Esq. London: printed and sold by J. Roberts, in Warwick-lane.' 8vo. pp. 395. It has since been reprinted in a smaller size.
166. The Protestant Monastery; or, a Complaint against the Brutality of the present Age, particularly the Pertness and Insolence of our Youth to aged Persons. With a Caution to People in Years how they give the Staff out of their own Hands, and leave themselves at the Mercy of others; concluding with a Proposal for erecting a Protestant Monastery, where Persons of small Fortunes may end their Days in Plenty, Ease, and Credit, without burthening their Relations, or accepting Public Charities. By Andrew Moreton, Esq., Author of 'Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business.' London: printed for W. Meadows, at the Angel, in Cornhill; and other Booksellers. 1727. 8vo. pp. 31.[152]
167. Parochial Tyranny; or, the Housekeeper's Complaint against the insupportable Exactions and partial Assessments of Select Vestries, &c., with a plain Detection of many Abuses committed in the Distribution of Public Charities: together with a practicable Proposal for Amendment of the same, which will not only take off great part of the Parish Taxes now subsisting, but ease Parishioners from serving troublesome offices, or paying exorbitant Fines. By Andrew Moreton, Esq. London: printed for W. Meadows, at the Angel, in Cornhill; and other Booksellers, 8vo.
168. A New Family Instructor. In Familiar Discourses between a Father and his Children, on the most Essential Points of the Christian Religion. In Two Parts. Part I. Containing a Father's Instructions to his Son upon his going to Travel into Popish Countries; and to the rest of his Children on his Son's turning Papist; confirming them in the Protestant Religion, against the Absurdities of Popery. Part II. Instructions against the Three Grand Errors of the Times; viz.: 1. Asserting the Divine Authority of the Scripture against the Deists. 2. Proofs that the Messias is already come, &c.; against the Atheists and Jews. 3. Asserting the Divinity of Jesus Christ, that He was really the same with the Messias, and that Messias was to be really God; against our modern heretics. With a Poem on the Divine Nature of Jesus Christ; in Blank Verse. By the Author of 'The Family Instructor.' London: printed for T. Warner, at the Black Boy, in Paternoster-row. 1727. 8vo. pp. 384.
A second edition, with a varying title, was published in 1732, by C. Rivington and T. Warner. It is there called 'A New Family Instructor: containing a Brief and Clear Defence of the Christian Religion in general, against the Errors of the Atheists, Jews, Deists, and Sceptics: and of the Protestant Religion in particular, against the Superstitions of the Church of Rome. In Familiar Discourses between a Father and his Children. In Two Parts, &c.
169. A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed; showing, 1. The Nature of Matrimony, its sacred Original, and the true Meaning of its Institution. 2. The gross Abuse of Matrimonial Chastity, from the wrong Notions which have possessed the World, degenerating even to Whoredom. 3. The Diabolical Practice of attempting to prevent Child-bearing by Physical Preparations. 4. The fatal Consequences of clandestine or forced Marriages, through the Persuasion, Interest, or Influence of Parents and Relations, to wed the Person they have no Love for, but often an Aversion to. 5. Of unequal Matches as in the Disproportion of Age; and how such many ways occasion a Matrimonial Whoredom. 6. How married Persons may be guilty of Conjugal Lewdness, and that a Man may, in effect, make a Whore of his own Wife. Also many other Particulars of Family concern. London: printed for T. Warner, at the Black Boy, in Paternoster-row. 1727. Price 5s. 8vo. pp. 406.
This work was at first called 'Conjugal Lewdness; or, Matrimonial Whoredom;' but this title being considered offensive to delicacy, the author immediately cancelled it, and substituted the above title.
170. The Complete English Tradesman: in Familiar Letters, directing him in all the several Parts and Professions of Trade; viz.: 1.[154] Of acquainting him with the Business during his Apprenticeship. 2. Of Writing to Correspondents in a Trading Style. 3. Of Diligence and Application, as the Life of all Business. 4. Cautions against Over-trading. 5. Of the ordinary Occasions of a Tradesman's Ruin; such as Expensive Living, too early Marrying, Innocent Diversions, too much Credit, being above Business, Dangerous Partnerships, &c. 6. Directions in several Distresses of a Tradesman, when he comes to fail. 7. Of Tradesmen compounding with other Tradesmen, and why they are so particularly severe upon one another. 8. Of Tradesmen ruining one another by Rumours and Scandal. 9. Of the customary Frauds of Trade, and particularly of Trading Lies. 10. Of Credit, and how it is only to be supported by Honesty. 11. Of Punctual Paying Bills, and thereby Maintaining Credit. 12. Of the Dignity and Honour of Trade in England more than in other Countries. To which is added, a Supplement; containing, 1. A Warning against Tradesmen's borrowing Money upon Interest. 2. A Caution against that destructive Practice of Drawing and Remitting, as also Discounting Promissory Bills, merely for a Supply of Cash. 3. Directions for the Tradesman's Accounts, with brief, but plain Examples and Specimens for Bookkeeping. 4. Of keeping a Duplicate or Pocket Ledger, in case of Fire. London: printed for C. Rivington, at the Bible and Crown, St. Paul's Church-yard. 1727. 8vo. pp. 474.
171. The Complete English Tradesman, Vol. II. In Two Parts. Part I. Directed chiefly to[155] the more experienced Tradesman; with Cautions and Advices to them after they are thriven, and suppose to be grown rich, viz., 1. Against running out of their Business into needless Projects and dangerous Adventures, no Tradesman being above Disaster. 2. Against Oppressing one another by Engrossing, Underselling, Combinations in Trade, &c. 3. Advices, that when he leaves off Business, he should part Friends with the World; the great Advantages of it; with a Word of the scandalous Character of a Purse-proud Tradesman. 4. Against being Litigious and Vexatious, and apt to go to Law for Trifles; with some Reasons why Tradesmen's Differences should, if possible, be all ended by Arbitration. Part II. Being useful generals in Trade, describing the Principles and Foundation of the Home Trade of Great Britain; with large Tables of our Manufactures, Calculations of the Product, Shipping, Carriage of Goods by Land, Importation from Abroad, Consumption at Home, &c., by all which the infinite number of our Tradesmen are employed, and the general Wealth of the Nation raised and increased. The whole calculated for the Use of all our Inland Tradesmen, as well in the City as in the Country. London: Charles Rivington. 1727. 8vo. pp. 474.
172. A Plan of the English Commerce. Being a Complete Prospect of the Trade of this Nation, as well the Home Trade as the Foreign. In Three Parts: 1. Containing a View of the present Magnitude of the English Trade as it respects the Exportation of our own Growth and Manufacture. 2. The Importation of[156] Merchant Goods from Abroad. 3. The prodigious Consumption of both at Home. Part II. Containing an Answer to that great and important Question now depending, whether our Trade, and especially our Manufactures, are in a declining Condition, or no? Part III. Containing several Proposals, entirely new, for Extending and Improving our Trade, and Promoting the Consumption of our Manufactures in Countries wherewith we have hitherto had no Commerce. Humbly offered to the Consideration of King and Parliament. London: printed for Charles Rivington. 1728. 8vo. pp. 368.
To the second edition in 1730, were added 'An Appendix, containing a View of the Increase of Commerce, not only of England, but of all the Trading Nations of Europe since the Peace with Spain.' A third edition in 8vo. was printed by Rivington in 1737; in which it is called, by mistake, the second.
173. Augusta Triumphans: or, the Way to make London the most Flourishing City in the Universe. 1. By establishing a University, where Gentlemen may have an Academical Education, under the Eye of their Friends. 2. To prevent much, &c., by an Hospital for Foundlings. 3. By suppressing pretended Mad-Houses, where many of the Fair Sex are unjustly Confined, while their Husbands keep Mistresses, &c., and many Widows are locked up for the sake of their Jointures. 4. To save our Children from Destruction, by clearing the Streets of Impudent Strumpets, suppressing Gambling-Tables, and Sunday Debauches. 5. To avoid the expensive Importation of Foreign Musicians, by forming an Academy of our own. 6. To save our Lower Class of People from utter Ruin, and[157] render them useful, by preventing the immoderate use of Geneva; with a frank Exposure of many other common Abuses, and incontestible Rules for Amendment. Concluding with an effectual Method to prevent Street Robberies; and a Letter to Colonel Robinson, on account of the Orphan's Tax. London: printed for J. Roberts and other Booksellers. 1728. 8vo. pp. 63.
174. Second Thoughts are Best; or, a further Improvement of a late Scheme to prevent Street Robberies. By which our Streets will be so strongly guarded, and so gloriously illuminated, that any part of London will be as safe and pleasant at Midnight as at Noonday, and Burglary totally impracticable. With some Thoughts for suppressing Robberies in all the Public Roads of England, &c. Humbly offered for the Good of his Country, submitted to the Consideration of Parliament, and dedicated to his Sacred Majesty King George II. By Andrew Moreton, Esq. London: printed for W. Meadows, at the Angel, in Cornhill, and sold by J. Roberts, in Warwick-lane. 1729. Price 6d. 8vo. pp. 24.
Besides the above, De Foe left behind him, prepared for the press, a work on the 'Conduct of a Gentleman,' which is now in the possession of Dawson Turner, Esq., of Yarmouth.
[1] It is at last discovered, by searching the chamberlain's books, which have since been burnt, that our author was the son of James Foe, of the parish of Cripplegate, London, citizen and butcher; who was himself the son of Daniel Foe, of Elton, in the county of Northampton, yeoman; and who obtained his freedom by serving his apprenticeship with John Levit, citizen and butcher. Daniel Foe, the son of James, was admitted to his freedom by birth, on the 26th of January, 1687-8. I was led to these discoveries by observing that De Foe had voted at an election for a representative of London; whence I inferred, that he must have been a citizen either by birth or service. But in the parish books I could find no notice of his baptism; as his parents were dissenters.
[2] 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.
[3] Works, 3rd. edit. vol. ii. p. 276. He was placed there when about fourteen years old, and appears to have been educated to his own satisfaction in afterlife. He described it as an academy where all the lectures, whether in philosophy or divinity, were given in English, and where consequently "though the scholars were not destitute of the languages, yet it is observed of them that they were by this made masters of the English tongue, and more of them excelled in that particular than of any school at that time." Certainly no man ever better understood how to use plain, racy, thorough English style, than De Foe. But still he was not deficient in learning. He boldly asserts himself on this point, in the passage from which Mr. Chalmers has made an extract in the text: "I have no concern to tell Dr. Browne I can read English, nor to tell Mr. Tutchin, I understand Latin; non ita Latinus, sum ut Latine loqui. I easily acknowledge myself blockhead enough to have lost the fluency of expression in the Latin, and so far trade has been a prejudice to me, and yet I think I owe this justice to my ancient father, still living (1705), 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 in my education that might qualify me to match the accurate Dr. Browne, or the learned Observator. As to Mr. Tutchin, I never gave him the least affront; I have, even after base usage, in vain invited him to peace; in answer to which he returns unmannerly insults, calumnies, and reproach. As to my little learning, and his great capacity, I freely challenge him to translate with me any Latin, French, and Italian author, and after that, to retranslate them crossways, for 20l. each book; and by this he shall have an opportunity to show the world how much De Foe, the hosier, is inferior in learning to Mr. Tutchin, the gentleman." [Review vol. ii. p. 149.] He also vindicated Mr. Morton's academy from the charge made against it by the Rev. Samuel Wesley, father of the celebrated founder of Methodism, that antimonarchical and unconstitutional doctrines were taught there. De Foe especially denies this. His domestic education seems to have been according to the system then pursued by the strict and pious dissenters. He mentions that he began the task performed by many others of that then persecuted body, of copying the Bible in shorthand, and that he finished the Pentateuch. [Review vol. vi. p. 573.] He was intended for the ministry; but for what reason he relinquished that profession is not known. "It was his disaster," he says, "first, to be set apart for, and then to be set apart from, the honour of that sacred employ."—Ed.
[4] Review, vol. ii. p. 150.
[5] Appeal, p. 51. This was not the first occasion of his appearing in print. His earliest effort as an author was an answer to Roger L'Estrange's Guide to the Inferior Clergy, and was intituled, Speculum Crape Gownorum; or, A Looking-glass for the Young Academicks, new Foyl'd, with Reflections on some of the late high-flown Sermons; to which is added, An Essay towards a Sermon of the newest fashion. By a Guide to the Inferior Clergy. Ridentem discere verum, quis vitat? It was published in 1682. This work, as might be anticipated, was a satiric attack on the clergy of that day.
De Foe's object in the pamphlet mentioned in the text, was to assert the policy of defending the house of Austria, then closely and vigorously attacked by the Turks. The "prevailing sentiment," referred to by Mr. Chalmers, was a dissatisfaction with the emperor for his cruel persecution of the protestants in Hungary; and which carried the national feeling so far as to make any assistance rendered to the emperor, even against the threatening Turks, extremely unpopular. De Foe, then very young, took the field on the weaker side, and strenuously maintained the danger to Christendom arising from the Mahommedan power being allowed to enter Vienna. Happily, the courage of John Sobieski, king of Poland, prevented that, once imminent, danger. De Foe, in a late period of his life, thus refers to his conduct on this occasion. "The first time I had the misfortune to differ from 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; whilst 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 threescore and ten kingdoms, could by no means agree with, and though then but a young man and a young author, I opposed it and wrote against it, which was taken very unkind indeed." [Vide Appeal to Honour and Justice.]—Ed.
[6] Appeal.
[7] The title of De Foe's pamphlet, or pamphlets, on this subject, does not seem to be known, but he more than once in afterlife proudly refers to his efforts on that important matter. "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. And as in the first I used to say, I had rather the popish house of Austria should ruin the protestants in Hungary, than that the infidel house of Ottoman should ruin both protestant and papist, by overrunning Germany, so in the other I told the dissenters I had rather the Church of England should pull our clothes off by fines and forfeitures, than that the papists should fall both upon the church and the dissenters, and pull our skins off by fire and fagot." [Appeal to Honour and Justice.] And again: "I never would have had the dissenters to join with king James, to take off the penal laws and test. No; no: I thank God I was of age then to bear my testimony against it, and to affront some who were of a different opinion." [Review, vol. viii. p. 694.]—Ed.
[8] History, vol. ii. p. 37. The following is the passage in Oldmixon: "Their majesties, attended by their royal highnesses and a numerous train of nobility and gentry, went first to a balcony prepared for them at the Angel in Cheapside, to see the show; which for the great number of liverymen, the full appearance of the militia, and the artillery company, the rich adornments of the pageants, and the splendour and good order of the whole proceedings, outdid all that had been seen before, on that occasion; and what deserved to be particularly remembered, says a reverend historian, was a royal regiment of volunteer horse, made up of the chief citizens, who being gallantly mounted and richly accoutred, were led by the earl of Monmouth, now earl of Peterborough, and attended there majesties from Whitehall. Among these troopers, who were for the most part dissenters, was Daniel De Foe, at that time a hosier in Freeman's Yard, Cornhill." [History of England, vol. iii. p. 36.]
[9] Being reproached by Tutchin, in his Observator, with having been bred an apprentice to a hosier, De Foe asserts, in May, 1705, that he never was a hosier, or an apprentice, but admits that he had been a trader. [Review, vol. ii. p. 149.] Oldmixon, who never speaks favourably of De Foe, allows that he had never been a merchant, otherwise than peddling a little to Portugal. [Hist. vol. ii. p. 519.] But, peddling to Portugal makes a trader.
[10] These views of Mr. Chalmers seem confirmed by De Foe's own severe comments on the distraction caused to tradesmen by an over-indulgence in literary pursuits. In his Complete Tradesman, one of the most valuable practical books that was ever published, and which should be the manual of every young man beginning business, he says, "a wit turned tradesman! no apron-strings will hold him; it is in vain to lock him behind the counter, he is gone in a moment. Instead of journal and ledger, he runs away to his Virgil and Horace; his journal entries are all Pindarics, and his ledger is all heroics. He is truly dramatic from one end to the other through the whole scene of his trade; and as the first part is all comedy, so the two last acts are always made up with tragedy; a statute of bankrupt is his exeunt omnes, and he generally repeats the epilogue in the Fleet prison or the Mint." [See ante, vol. xvii.] He is also very severe against tradesmen who are led away into expensive pleasures and idle company. But Mr. Wilson vindicates De Foe, in some degree, by showing from his own statements that he had been the victim of the fraud of others, as well as of his own imprudent habits. In one of the Reviews, [vol. iii. p. 70.] he says, that "nothing was more frequent than for a man in full credit to buy all the goods he could lay his hands on, and carry them directly from the house he bought them at into the Fryars, and then send for his creditors, and laugh at them, insult them, showing them their own goods untouched, offer them a trifle in satisfaction, and if they refuse it, bid them defiance. I cannot refrain vouching this of my own knowledge, since I have more than many times been served so myself." Certainly under such a monstrous system of abuse, an honest tradesman must have been at great disadvantage.—Ed.
[11] The Mercator, No. 101.
[12] Reply to Lord Haversham's Vindication.
[13] Mr. Wilson has some valuable observations on this subject, which justice to the memory of De Foe requires us to transcribe. "The failure of this speculation seems to have been owing rather to the want of encouragement upon the part of the public, than to any imprudence in the projector. Pantiles had been hitherto a Dutch manufacture, and were brought in large quantities to England. To supersede the necessity of their importation, and to provide a new channel for the employment of labour, the works at Tilbury were laudably erected; and De Foe tells us that he employed a hundred poor labourers in the undertaking. The capital embarked in the concern must also have been considerable; for he informs us that his own loss by its failure was no less a sum than three thousand pounds. But besides so serious a misfortune to himself, it was no less so to the public; not only by the failure of an ingenious manufacture, but for the sake of the numerous families supported by it, who were now turned adrift in the world, or thrown upon some other branch of trade. De Foe continued the pantile works it is believed until the year 1703, when he was prosecuted by the government for a libel, and being deprived of his liberty the undertaking soon came to an end." Mr. Wilson adds an extract from one of the Reviews, (March, 1705,) in which De Foe indignantly refers to this undertaking and its calamitous issue. "Nor should the author of this paper boast in vain, if he tells the world that he himself, before violence, injury, and barbarous treatment destroyed him and his undertaking, employed a hundred poor people in making pantiles in England, a manufacture always bought in Holland; and thus he pursued this principle with his utmost zeal for the good of England; and those gentlemen who so easily persecuted him for saying what all the world since owns to be true, and which he has since a hundred times offered to prove, were particularly serviceable to the nation, in turning that hundred of poor people and their families a begging for work, and forcing them to turn other poor families out of work to make room for them, besides three thousand pounds damage to the author of this, which he has paid for this little experience."—Ed.
[14] The sentence in italics is part of the passage in De Foe's Appeal to Honour and Justice, (in which he gives a summary of his life, and vindicates his conduct throughout it,) which particularly refers to this period. We give the whole. "Misfortunes in business having unhinged me from matters of trade; it was about the year 1694, when I was invited by some merchants with whom I had corresponded abroad, and some also at home, to settle at Cadiz, in Spain; and that with the offer of very good commissions. But Providence, which had other work for me to do, placed a secret aversion in my mind to quitting England upon any account, and made me refuse the best offers of that kind, to be concerned with some eminent persons at home, in proposing ways and means to the government for raising money to supply the occasions of the war, then newly begun." [Vide Appeal to Honour and Justice.]
[15] Besides the topics mentioned by Mr. Chalmers, De Foe suggests various improvements in road-making, and an asylum for idiots. He also warmly advocates a great improvement in the system of education, and especially of females. Before the publication of the next work mentioned by Mr. Chalmers, De Foe took part in a controversy then very warmly agitated, viz., of Occasional Conformity. The Dissenters differed on this subject; one party being willing to comply outwardly with the ceremonies of the church, when in certain offices, and the other party objecting to that compliance as a sinful and dastardly desertion from their principles of dissent. De Foe adopted the latter view, and, in 1697, maintained it with his accustomed warmth, in An Inquiry into the Occasional Conformity of Dissenters in Parliament. He also vigorously took the field against the vices and social abuses of the times; and, in 1698, published The Poor Man's Plea in relation to all the Proclamations, Declarations, Acts of Parliament, &c., which have been or shall be made or published, for a Reformation of Manners, and suppressing Immorality in the Nation.—Ed.
[16] 10 and 11 Wm. III. ch. 18.
[17] De Foe says himself, that he had published nine editions fairly printed upon good paper, and sold at the price of one shilling, and that it had been printed twelve times by other persons without his concurrence. We must presume it to have produced a great effect. De Foe himself says, many years afterwards, "National mistakes, vulgar errors, and even a general practice, have been reformed by a just satire. None of our countrymen have been known to boast of being true-born Englishmen, or so much as to use the word as a title or appellation, ever since a late satire upon that national folly was published, though almost thirty years ago. Nothing was more frequent in our mouths before that, nothing so universally blushed and laughed at since. The time I believe is yet to come for any author to print it, or any man of sense to speak of it in earnest; whereas before you had it in the best writers, and in the most florid speeches before the most august assemblies, upon the most solemn occasions." [Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed, p. 400.] The object of the poem is thus stated by the author in the preface: "The intent of the satire is pointed at the vanity of those who talk of their antiquity, and value themselves upon their pedigree, and being true-born; whereas it is impossible we should be true-born; and if we could, should have lost by the bargain. These sort of people who call themselves true-born, and tell long stories of their families, and like a nobleman of Venice, think a foreigner ought not to walk on the same side of the street with them, are owned to be meant in this satire. What they would infer from their long original, I know not, nor is it easy to make out, whether they are the better or the worse for their ancestors. Our English nation may value themselves for their wit, wealth, and courage, and I believe few nations will dispute it with them; but for long originals and ancient true-born families, I would advise them to waive the discourse. A true Englishman is one who deserves a character, and I have nowhere lessened him that I know of."—Ed.
[18] p. 13. We add the remaining part of this passage, which is extracted by Mr. Chalmers from the Appeal to Honour and Justice; "And is only mentioned here as I take all occasions to do, for the expressing the honour I ever preserved for the immortal and glorious memory of that greatest and best of princes, and whom it was my honour and advantage to call master as well as sovereign, whose goodness to me I never forget, and whose memory I never patiently heard abused, and never can do so; and who, had he lived, would never have suffered me to be treated as I have been in this world."—Ed.
[19] This pamphlet was published before the poem of the True-born Englishman, viz., in 1698, and was an answer to one by Mr. Trenchard, "showing that a standing army is inconsistent with a free government, and absolutely destructive to the constitution of the English monarchy." It is supposed that De Foe wrote another pamphlet on this subject, entituled, Some Reflections on a pamphlet lately published, entituled, &c. (Mr. Trenchard's pamphlet.) 1697. But there is great doubt as to this work being De Foe's.—Ed.
[20] Subsequently to the publication of the pamphlet referred to in the text, in the year 1700, the indefatigable De Foe was again in the political arena. The Spanish king had just died, bequeathing the crown to the duke of Anjou, grandson of Lewis XIV. and Europe was anxiously awaiting the French monarch's decision. He subsequently broke through the partition treaty, and placed his grandson on the throne of Spain. In the meanwhile, however De Foe published, a pamphlet, entituled, The Two Great Questions Considered: 1. What the French king will do with respect to the Spanish monarchy? 2. What measures the English ought to take. In the same year, he published The Danger of the Protestant Religion, from the present Prospect of a Religious War in Europe. His object is to point out the powerful front presented by the popish party, and to warn and arouse England to the danger and defence of protestantism.—Ed.
[21] Mr. Polhill, of Cheapstead-place, in Kent, whose father, Mr. David Polhill, was committed to the Gatehouse, and thereby gained great popularity, was so good as to communicate to me the curious anecdote of De Foe's dressing himself in women's clothes, and presenting the Legion paper to the speaker. De Foe says himself in his Original Power of the People, p. 24: "this is evident from the tenor and yet undiscovered original of the Legion paper; the contents of which had so much plain truth of fact; and which I could give a better history of, if it were needful." When De Foe republished his works, in 1703, he thought it prudent to expunge this passage, that too plainly pointed out the real history of the Legion paper, which is not mentioned by the Commons Journals. Mr. Wilson thinks Mr. Chalmers mistaken in supposing that De Foe delivered the petition disguised as a woman. He says, "such a report was certainly current at the time, but the true history of it seems to be that which is related in the history of the Kentish petition; it was said it was delivered to the speaker by a woman, but I have been informed since, that it was a mistake, and it was delivered by the very person who wrote it, guarded by about sixteen gentlemen of quality, who if any notice had been taken of him, were ready to have carried him off by force." The Remonstration is too long a paper to be here reprinted, but the general tone and object of it will be gathered by the conclusion. "We do hereby claim and declare:—
"1. That it is the undoubted right of the people of England, in case their representatives in parliament do not proceed according to their duty, and the people's interest, to inform them of their dislike, disown their actions, and direct them to such things as they think fit, either by petition, address, proposal, memorial, or any other peaceable way.
"2. That the house of commons, separately, and otherwise than by bill legally passed into an act, have no legal power to suspend or dispense with the laws of the land, any more than the king has by his prerogative.
"3. That the house of commons has no legal power to imprison any person, or commit them to custody of sergeants, or otherwise, (their own members excepted,) but ought to address the king, to cause any person, on good grounds, to be apprehended, which person so apprehended, ought to have the benefit of the Habeas Corpus act, and be fairly brought to trial by due course of law.
"4. That, if the house of commons, in breach of the laws and liberties of the people, do betray the trust reposed in them, and act negligently, or arbitrarily and illegally, it is the undoubted right of the people of England, to call them to an account for the same, and by convention, assembly, or force, may proceed against them as traitors and betrayers of their country.
"These things we think proper to declare, as the unquestionable right of the people of England, whom you serve, and in pursuance of that right, (avoiding the ceremony of petitioning our inferiors, for such you are by your present circumstances, as the person sent is less than the sender,) we do publicly protest against all your aforesaid illegal actions, and in the name of ourselves, and of all the good people of England, do require and demand:—
"1. That all the public just debts of the nation be forthwith paid and discharged.
"2. That all persons illegally imprisoned, as aforesaid, be either immediately discharged, or admitted to bail, as by law they ought to be; and the liberty of the subject recognised and restored.
"3. That John Home, aforesaid, be obliged to ask his majesty's pardon for his vile reflections, or be immediately expelled the house.
"4. That the growing power of France be taken into consideration; the succession of the emperor to the crown of Spain supported; our protestant neighbours protected, as the interest of England and the protestant religion requires.
"5. That the French king be obliged to quit Flanders, or his majesty be addressed to declare war against him.
"6. That suitable supplies be granted to his majesty for the putting all these necessary things in execution, and that care be taken that such taxes as are raised, may be more equally assessed and collected, and scandalous deficiences prevented.
"7. That the thanks of this house may be given to those gentlemen who so gallantly appeared in the behalf of their country with the Kentish petition, and have been so scandalously used for it.
"Thus, gentlemen, you have your duty laid before you, which it is hoped you will think of; but if you continue to neglect it, you may expect to be treated according to the resentment of an injured nation; for Englishmen are no more to be slaves to parliaments, than to kings.
"Our name is Legion, and we are Many."
De Foe seems to have written a History of the Kentish Petition. And in the following year, 1702, he is supposed to have written Legion's Newspaper; being a Second Memorial to the Gentlemen of the late House of Commons.—Ed.
[22] This pamphlet was in reply to sir Humphrey Mackworth's Vindication of the Rights of the Commons of England; and recent events, arising out of Stockdale's proceedings against Mr. Hansard for publishing a report of the house of commons, have made both sir Humphrey's and De Foe's pamphlets extremely interesting to the political world. De Foe maintains four general propositions as the foundation of his argument.
"1. That all government is instituted for the protection of the governed.
"2. That its constituent members, whether king, lords, or commons, if they invert the great end of their institution, the public good, cease to be; and power retreats to its original.
"3. That no collective or representative body of men whatever, in matters of politics or religion, have been infallible.
"4. That reason is the test and touchstone of laws, which cease to be binding, and become void, when contradictory to reason." He also maintains that no power has a right to dispense with the laws, and deduces that when such a right is assumed by either of the three powers, the constitution suffers a convulsion, and is dissolved of course. This tract has had considerable reputation. Mr. Wilson tells us, "that during the contest between the house of commons and the celebrated Mr. Wilkes, who was refused his seat, although repeatedly returned by his constituents, it was judged seasonable to reprint this work. It was accordingly published in 8vo. in 1769, by R. Baldwin, accompanied by some distinguished characters of a parliament man, by the same author, and is stated in the title-page to be the third edition. Prefixed to the work is a spirited dedication to the right honourable the lord mayor, the aldermen, and commons, of the city of London." [The dedication, amongst other things, states, "the reprinting of this excellent piece of the celebrated Daniel De Foe, who seems to have understood as well as any man the civil constitution of the kingdom, wherein the nature of our own constitution is set in the clearest light, upon self-evident principles, and the original power of the collective body of the people asserted, seemed to be altogether seasonable and fitting. It is with propriety addressed to the body of men which has always stood, like Mars in the gap, against all encroachments on the liberties of the people, and to which the nation hitherto owes its freedom and prosperity," &c.] The chief magistrate at that time was the patriotic alderman Beckford, who has a noble statue erected by his fellow-citizens in their Guildhall, to commemorate his worth. De Foe's work was reprinted, for the fourth time, at the logographic press, and included in the "Selection" from his writings published by the late Mr. John Walker, in 1790. [Life of De Foe, vol. i. p. 436.]
[23] This pamphlet was published before the events mentioned in the preceding paragraph of the text. It was preceded by another pamphlet of our indefatigable author, entituled, Six Distinguishing Characters of a Parliament man. As the pamphlets of De Foe illustrate not only the character of the author, but the spirit of the times, we give a summary of the 'Distinguishing characteristics' of the member of the house, desired by De Foe. 1. He must be a thorough partisan of the revolution, neither papist nor Jacobite. 2. A man of religion, of orthodox principles, and moral practice. 3. "A parliament man," says the sensible and experienced author, "ought to be a man of general knowledge, acquainted with the true interest of his country as to trade, liberties, laws, and common circumstances, especially of that part of it for which he serves. He ought to know how to deliver his mind with freedom and boldness, and pertinently to the case; to understand when our liberties are encroached upon, and be able to defend them: and to distinguish between a prince, who is faithful to liberty, and the interest of his country, and one whose business it is to invade both liberty and property." 4. He should be a man in years. 5. And of thorough honesty. 6. And of morals. This pamphlet was followed by the one mentioned in the text, and that again almost immediately by The Villany of Stock-jobbers detected; and the Cause of the late Run upon the Banks and Bankers discovered and considered.—Ed.
[24] The author of De Foe's life in the Biographia Britannica, Dr. Towers, says, "in this piece De Foe wrote against the views and conduct of the court, and against what then seemed to be the prevailing sentiment of the nation. He appears however to have been perfectly right, to have exhibited on this occasion great political discernment, and to have been influenced by no motives but those of public spirit." Many opponents entered the field against De Foe upon this subject.—Ed.
[25] De Foe frequently vindicates the memory of William III., but more especially in his Reviews. In 1702, he published The Mock Mourners, a satire by way of elegy on king William. By the author of the True-born Englishman. De Foe's summary of William III.'s character in the reviews is as follows:—
"It may, perhaps, be thought by some people a digression too remote from my present pursuit, when I launch out into the crimes of a party; but, if I am carried into extremes when the memory of king William is touched, I am altogether careless of making an excuse; and I acknowledge myself less master of my temper in that case, than in anything I can be touched in besides. The memory of that glorious monarch is so dear, and so valuable in the hearts of all true protestants, that have a sense both of what they escaped and what they enjoy by his hand, that it is difficult to retain any charity for their principles that can forget the obligation. His name is a word of congratulation; and 'The immortal memory of king William,' will be a health, as long as drinking healths is suffered in this part of the world.
"Let the ungrateful wretch that forgets what God wrought by his hand, look back upon popery coming in like a flood; property trampled underfoot; all sorts of cruelties and butcheries in practice in Scotland, and approaching in England! Let him review the insolence of the soldiery, the inveteracy of the court party, the tyranny, perjury, and avarice of governors; and at the foot of the account let him write, Delivered by king William. Then let him look back on the prince: How great, how splendid, how happy, how rich, how easy, and how justly valued by friends and enemies! He lived before in the field glorious, feared by enemies of his country, loved by the soldiery, having a vast inheritance of his own, governor of a rich state, blessed with the best of consorts, and as far as this life could give, completely happy. Compare this with the gaudy crown we gave him. Had a visible scheme been laid with it, of all the uneasinesses, dangers, crosses, disappointments, and dark prospects which that prince found with it, no wise man would have taken it off the dunghill, or come out of gaol to be master of it.
"Unhappy Englishmen! Is this the man you reproach? Had he any failing but that he bare too much with the most barbarous usage in the world? Had he not the most merit and the worst treatment that ever king in England met with?
"Who can hear men tell us, they helped to make him king, and were not considered for it? You helped to make him king! Pray what merit do you plead, and from whom was the debt? You helped to make him king? That is, you helped to save your country, and ruin him; you helped to recover your own liberties and those of your posterity, as you ought to have been blasted from heaven if you had not, and now you claim rewards from him! I will tell you how he rewarded you fully: he rewarded you by sacrificing his peace, his comfort, his fortune, and his country, to support you. He died a thousand times in the chagrin, vexation, and perplexity he had from the unkindness and treachery of his friends, and the numberless hazards of the field against the enemy. And yet all would not satisfy a craving generation, an insatiable party, who thought all the taxes raised for the war, given, not to the nation, but to the king, and endeavoured to blot the best character in the world with the crimes of those whom they themselves recommended him to trust." [Review, 1707, vol. iv. p. 77.]
[27] Life of Mr. John How, p. 210.
[28] A Letter to Mr. How, by way of Reply to his Considerations, &c. 1701.
[29] De Foe afterwards described the effect produced by this book. "The soberer churchmen, whose principles were founded on charity, and who had their eye upon the laws and constitution of their country, as that to which their own liberties were annexed, though they still believed the book to be written by a high-churchman, yet openly exclaimed against the proposal, condemned the warmth that appeared in the clergy against their brethren, and openly professed that such a man as Sacheverell and his brethren would blow up the foundations of the church. But either side had scarce time to discover their sentiments, when the book appeared to have been written by a dissenter; that it was designed in derision of the standard held up by Sacheverell and others; that it was a satire upon the fury of the churchmen, and a plot to make the rest discover themselves. Nothing was more strange than to see the effect upon the whole nation which this little book, a contemptible pamphlet of but three sheets of paper, had, and in so short a time too. The most forward, hot, and furious, as well among the clergy as others, blushed when they reflected how far they had applauded the book; raged that such an abuse should be put upon the church; and as they were obliged to damn the book, so they were strangely hampered between the doing so, and pursuing the rage at the dissenters. The greater part, the better to qualify themselves to condemn the author, came earnestly in to condemn the principle; for it was impossible to do one without the other. They laboured incessantly, both in print and in pulpit, to prove that this was a horrible slander upon the church. But this still answered the author's end the more; for they could never clear the church of the slander, without openly condemning the practice; nor could they possibly condemn the practice without censuring those clergymen who had gone such a length already as to say the same thing in print. Nor could all their rage at the author of that book contribute anything to clear them, but still made the better side the worse. It was plain they had owned the doctrine, had preached up the necessity of expelling and rooting out the dissenters in their sermons and printed pamphlets; that it was evident they had applauded the book itself, till they knew the author; and there was no other way to prevent the odium falling on the whole body of the church of England, but by giving up the authors of those mad principles, and openly professing moderate principles themselves." [Present State of Parties, p. 18.]
[30] On the 25th of February, 1702-3, a complaint was made in the house of commons, of a book entituled The Shortest Way with the Dissenters: and the folios 11-18 and 26 being read, resolved, That this book, being full of false and scandalous reflections on this parliament, and tending to promote sedition, be burnt by the hands of the common hangman, to-morrow, in New Palace-yard. 14 Jour. p. 207.
[31] He who is desirous of reading the proclamation, may be gratified by the following copy from the London gazette, No. 3879:—
"St. James's, Jan. 10th, 1702-3.
"Whereas Daniel De Foe, alias De Fooe, is charged with writing a scandalous and seditious pamphlet, entituled The Shortest Way with the Dissenters: he is a middle-sized spare man, about forty years old, of a brown complexion, and dark-brown coloured hair, but wears a wig, a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes, and a large mole near his mouth; was born in London, and for many years was a hose-factor, in Freeman's-yard, in Cornhill, and now is owner of the brick and pantile Works near Tilbury-fort, in Essex: whoever shall discover the said Daniel De Foe to one of her majesty's principal secretaries of state, or any of her majesty's justices of peace, so as he may be apprehended, shall have a reward of fifty pounds, which her majesty has ordered immediately to be paid upon such discovery."
[32] The next paragraph of the passage further explains De Foe's object. "The 'Sermon preached at Oxford,' the 'New Association,' the 'Poetical Observator,' with numberless others, have said the same things in terms very little darker; and this book stands fair to let these gentlemen know, that what they design can no further take with mankind, than as their real meaning stands disguised by artifice of words; but that, when the persecution and destruction of the dissenters, the very thing they drive at, is put into plain English, the whole nation will start other notions, and condemn the author to be hanged for his impudence. He humbly hopes, he shall find no harder treatment for plain English without design, than those gentlemen for their plain design, in duller and darker English. The meaning then of the paper is, in short, to tell these gentlemen that it is nonsense to go round about and tell us of the crimes of the dissenters, to prepare the world to believe they are not fit to live in a human society; that they are enemies to the government and the laws, to the queen, and the public peace, and the like; the shortest way and the soonest, would be to tell us plainly, that they would have them all hanged, banished, and destroyed."
[33] At his trial he was treated by the then attorney-general, sir Simon Harcourt, in the style of sir Edward Coke. He complained himself bitterly of the conduct of his own counsel. He was sentenced to pay a fine of two hundred marks to the queen, to stand three times in the pillory, be imprisoned during the queen's pleasure, and find sureties for his good behaviour during seven years! Well may the learned and candid biographer, in the Biographia Britannia, exclaim, "The very infamous sentence reflected much more dishonour upon the court by which it was pronounced, than upon De Foe upon whom it was inflicted." But when he stood in the pillory, instead of suffering an ignominious punishment, he appears rather to have enjoyed a striking triumph. He says, "The people, who were expected to treat him very ill, on the contrary, pitied him, and wished those who set him there were placed in his room, and expressed their affections by loud shouts and acclamations when he was taken down." [Consolidator.]
[34] The Hymn was published in 1703, and ran rapidly through several editions. In 1702, before his prosecution, he published a satiric poem on the vices of the age, entitled "Reformation of Manners." During his imprisonment, he continued the subject in another poem, entituled, "More Reformation. A Satire upon himself."—Ed.
[35] The collection contains the following pieces: 1. The True-born Englishman. 2. The Mock Mourners. 3. Reformation of Manners. 4. Character of Dr. Annesley. 5. The Spanish Descent. 6. Original Power of the People of England. 7. The Freeholders' Plea. 8. Reasons against a War with France. 9. Argument on a Standing Army. 10. Danger of the Protestant Religion. 11. Villany of Stock-jobbers. 12. Six Distinguishing Characters of a Parliament Man. 13. Poor Man's Plea. 14. Inquiry into Occasional Conformity; with a Preface to Mr. How. 15. Letter to Mr. How, by way of Reply to his Considerations on the Preface. 16. Two Great Questions considered. 17. Two Great Questions further considered. 18. Inquiry into Occasional Conformity. 19. New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty. 20. Shortest Way with the Dissenters. 21. Brief Explanation of the Shortest Way. 22. Shortest Way to Peace and Union. In the year 1705, another and fuller edition of his works was published. In 1703, and before the publication of the Review, next referred to by Mr. Chalmers, De Foe wrote More Short Ways with the Dissenters, a pamphlet chiefly intended to vindicate the system of education then pursued among the dissenters, and which had been impugned for its alleged disloyalty by the Rev. Samuel Wesley. It was in this work that De Foe so generously alluded to his old master, Mr. Morton, in the passage we have referred to, supra, p. 3, note [2]. During his confinement he engaged with his usual warmth in the controversies of that time. The old dispute of Occasional Conformity still occupied him. He replied to Mr. Owen's pamphlet, Moderation a Virtue, &c., in The Sincerity of the Dissenters vindicated from the Scandal of Occasional Conformity; with some Considerations on a late book, entituled, Moderation a Virtue. 1703. Several other controvertists took the field. In the course of the same year, anxious to put an end if possible to the furious disputes between the church and dissenters, he published, A Challenge of Peace, addressed to the whole Nation, with an Inquiry into Ways and Means of bringing it to pass; and afterwards replied to sir Humphrey Mackworth's Peace at Home, in a pamphlet entituled, Peace without Union. He also reasserted the great principles advocated in his former work on the Original Power of the People, in another published in 1704, which he called Original Right: or the Reasonableness of Appeals to the People: being an Answer to the First Chapter in Dr. Davenant's Essays, entituled, Peace at Home and War Abroad. In this same year, 1704, he had again to vindicate the dissenters, which he did in his pamphlet, The Dissenters' Answer to the High Church Challenge; and honoured the memory of his royal benefactor, William III., by bearing his testimony to his religious principles, which he did in a pamphlet entitled, Royal Religion. He also maintained the claims of the Scotch dissenters, in a pamphlet called The Liberty of Episcopal Dissenters in Scotland truly stated, 1703. And he had to wield his unwearied pen on behalf of the Irish dissenters, against a bill introduced avowedly to prevent the growth of popery, in which were contained some stringent provisions against the protestant dissenters. De Foe ironically headed his pamphlet, The Parallel: or Persecution of Protestants the Shortest Way to prevent the Growth of Popery in Ireland. 1704.—Ed.
[36] Mr. Wilson observes of the Review, "That it did not outlive its day, may be attributed to the great proportion of temporary matter with which it abounded. There are to be found in its pages, however, many instructive pieces of a moral and political nature, besides others devoted to amusement, and also some useful historical documents. A complete copy of the work is not known to be in existence. It deserves to be remarked that De Foe was the sole writer of the nine quarto volumes that compose the work, a prodigious undertaking for one man, especially when we consider his other numerous engagements of a literary nature." Mr. Wilson then refers to an able eulogium by Dr. Drake. [Essays on the Tatler, vol. i. p. 23.] "Contemporary with Leslies' Remains, came forward, under a periodical dress, and of a kind far superior to anything which had hitherto appeared, the Review of Daniel De Foe, a man of undoubted genius, and who, deviating from the accustomed route, had chalked out a new path for himself. The chief topics were as usual, news foreign and domestic, and politics; to these, however, were added the various concerns of trade; and to render the undertaking more palatable and popular, he with much judgment instituted what he termed, perhaps with no great propriety, a 'Scandal Club,' and whose amusement it was to agitate questions in divinity, morals, war, language, poetry, love, marriage, &c. The introduction of this club, and the subjects of its discussion, it is obvious approximated the Review much nearer than any preceding work to our first classical model." The first number of the Review was published Feb. 19th, 1704, as A Weekly Review of the Affairs of France, purged from the Errors and Partiality of Newswriters and Petty Statesmen of all sides. It was at first a weekly publication, but afterwards came out twice a week, as it was changed to half a sheet from a whole one. The price was one penny. Mr. Wilson, in his valuable Life of De Foe, gives long extracts from the Review, a work, he observes, now very difficult to be met with. "A considerable portion of the first volume," observes that gentleman, "is devoted to foreign politics, more particularly the power and grandeur of the French monarchy, for the reduction of which within reasonable limits the principal nations of Europe were then embroiled in an expensive war. In estimating the powers and resources of France, which had attained their summit under Louis XIV., he was anxious to guard his countrymen against the folly of despising such an enemy." Mr. Wilson then gives copious and interesting extracts from the Review, to which we must refer the reader to his able biography, [vol. ii. ch. 10.] The volume closed in one hundred and two numbers, in February, 1705, and had the following title prefixed: A Review of the Affairs of France, and of all Europe, as influenced by that Nation: being Historical Observations on the Public Transactions of the World; purged from the Errors and Partiality of Newswriters and Petty Statesmen of all sides. With an Entertaining Part in every sheet; being Advice from the Scandal Club to the Curious Inquirers, in answer to Letters sent them for that purpose.
[37] The following is the account of this storm by a contemporary historian:—
"About the middle of the night, a violent wind arose, which blew down the steeples of churches, tore off the tiles, and rolled up the leads of houses, tossing them through the air to great distances, rooted up the largest trees, or broke them off short, carried hayricks and stacks of corn to great heights, scattered them abroad, and beat down the chimneys in divers places, to the destruction of many people in the towns. The ships which lay in the mouth of the Thames and other parts, were driven foul of one another. The sailors, not knowing what to avoid, or which way to steer, abandoned themselves to despair, expecting every moment to be their last. Some ships having broke their cables, and lost their anchors, drove before the wind, without helm or steerage, and either dashed one another to pieces, or were swallowed up in the raging deep. Some were driven out to sea, without any rigging; and others run upon the sands, rocks, and shores. The admiral was driven to sea without mast or anchor, from the Downs, and lost together with his ship; and other ships which had been in his squadron were driven to the coast of Holland in five hours' time, with their masts broken, without any art or direction, and others to other places. The watch-towers, with the watchmen, were overthrown together; and the destruction which this storm occasioned was long remembered with awe and horror. In the space of one tempestuous night, a gallant English fleet was reduced to nothing: and it is incredible what a dismal appearance there was at London and other towns. The mathematicians observed that the force of this tempest did not extend further south than the river Loire, in France, nor further north than the river Trent, in England." [Cunningham, vol. i. p. 356.]
[38] By his Appeal, in 1715.
[39] Before the publication of this Hymn, he published a poem on himself, An Elegy on the Author of the True-born Englishman. In the preface to this poem he bitterly complains of the slanders to which he was constantly subject. He might have reflected, however, that such a fate was unavoidable to a political writer in those factious times; and that the more independent the author, the more likely he was to be exposed to the double shafts of partisan malice.—Ed.
[40] It was not on this occasion, but for one of the Reviews published in 1707, in which, he criticises the apparent supineness of Charles XII.—Ed.
[41] The title of a pamphlet published by a Dr. Browne.
[42] The recent discussion of the Poor Law Amendment Act has thrown much additional light on this question. During this year, in addition to the works mentioned by Mr. Chalmers, De Foe advocated the rights of Dissenters in the colony of Carolina, in America, where they had been hardly treated; first deprived of a seat in the house of assembly, and then subjected to stringent laws. De Foe, while their affairs were being made matter of discussion in parliament, published Party Tyranny; or an Occasional Bill in Miniature, as now practised in Carolina. Humbly offered to the Consideration of both Houses of Parliament.—Ed.
[43] The motion of lord Haversham in the house of lords, was to request the queen to invite over the presumptive heir to the crown, which would have produced the mischief of two rival courts. De Foe in this pamphlet gives us one of those passages so extremely interesting, being a sketch of his own life by himself. "If I were to run through the black list of the encouragements I have met with in the world, while I have embarked myself in the raging sea of the nation's troubles, this vindication would be ashamed to call them encouragements. How, in pursuit of peace, I have brought myself into innumerable broils; how many, exasperated by the sting of truth, have vowed my destruction; and how many ways attempted it; how I stand alone in the world, abandoned by those very people that own I have done them service; how I am sold and betrayed by friends, abused and cheated by barbarous and unnatural relations, sued for other men's debts, and stripped naked by public injustice, of what should have enabled me to pay my own; how, with a numerous family, and with no helps but my own industry, I have forced my way with undiscouraged diligence, through a sea of debt and misfortune, and reduced them, exclusive of composition, from seventeen to less than five thousand pounds; how, in gaols, in retreats, in all manner of extremities, I have supported myself without the assistance of friends or relations; how I still live without this Vindicator's suggested methods, and am so far from making my fortune by this way of scribbling, that no man more desires a limitation and regulation of the press than myself; especially that speeches in parliament might not be printed without order of parliament, and poor authors betrayed to engage with men too powerful for them in more forcible arguments than those of reason. A man ought not to be afraid at any time to be mean to be honest. Pardon me, therefore, with some warmth, to say, that neither the Vindicator, nor all his informers, can, with their utmost inquiry, make it appear that I am, or ever was, mercenary. And as there is a justice due from all men, of what dignity or quality soever, the wrong done me in this can be vindicated by nothing but proving the fact, which I am a most humble petitioner that he would be pleased to do, or else give me leave to speak of it in such terms as so great an injury demands. No, my lord, pardon my freedom, I contemn and abhor everything and every man that can be taxed with that name, let his dignity be what it will. I was ever true to one principle; I never betrayed my master or my friend; I always espoused the cause of truth and liberty, was ever on one side, and that side was ever right. I have lived to be ruined for it; and I lived to see it triumph over tyranny, party-rage, and persecution principles, and am sorry to see any man abandon it. I thank God this world cannot bid a price sufficient to bribe me. It is the principle I ever lived by, and shall espouse while I live, that a man ought to die rather than betray his friend, his cause, or his master."—Ed.
[44] 9 Anne, c. 19.
[45] The pieces in this volume are: 1. New Discovery of an Old Intrigue. 2. More Reformation. 3. Elegy on the Author of the True-born Englishman. 4. The Storm: an Essay. 5. A Hymn to the Pillory. 6. Hymn to Victory. 7. The Pacificator. 8. The Double Welcome to the Duke of Marlborough. 9. Dissenters' Answer to the High Church Challenge. 10. A Challenge of Peace to the whole Nation. 11. Peace without Union. 12. More Short Ways. 13. New Test of the Church of England's Honesty. 14. Serious Inquiry. 15. The Dissenters Misrepresented. 16. The Parallel. 17. Giving Alms no Charity. 18. Royal Religion.
[46] In the year 1705, he also published a satirical poem, entituled, The Dyet of Poland: printed at Dantzick. He sketches the leading politicians of the day under Polish names; William III. being represented as Sobieski. He also published A True Relation, of the Apparition of one Mrs. Veal, the next day after her death, to one Mrs. Bargrave, at Canterbury, the 8th of Sept. 1705, which Apparition recommends the perusal of Drelincourt's Book of Consolation against the Fear of Death. This work it is said was written by De Foe to make Drelincourt's sell, which was before a heavy book in the market, and of course produced the desired effect. The future author of Robinson Crusoe may be distinctly seen in this work. Sir Walter Scott considered it one of his happiest efforts, and marked with the distinct impress of De Foe. He observes "that De Foe has put in force within those few pages, peculiar specimens of his art of recommending the most improbable narrative by his specious and serious mode of telling it. Whoever will read it as told by De Foe himself, will agree that could the thing have happened in reality, so it would have been told. In short, the whole is so distinctly circumstantial, that were it not for the impossibility, or extreme improbability at least, of such an occurrence, the evidence could not but support the story." In this year the second volume of the Review was completed. The early part of it refers to matters of trade, which he says he had intended to write more fully upon, but was diverted by domestic affairs; and that his labours in behalf of peace had given great satisfaction.—Ed.
[47] Published the 10th of January, 1705-6. In May, 1706, he published a poem on the duke of Marlborough's great victory, entituled, On the Fight of Ramillies.
[48] It was partly republished in 1821, by Mr. Hone; who says in the preface, "De Foe was the ablest politician of his day, an energetic writer, and, better than all, an honest man; but not much of a poet. The Jure Divino is defective in argument and versification. It is likewise disfigured by injudicious repetitions; a large portion is directed to the politics of the time, and it is otherwise unfit for republication entire; but it abounds with energetic thoughts, forcible touches, and happy illustrations."—Ed.
[49] Appeal, p. 16.
[50] See his History of the Union, p. 401.
[51] Ibid. p. 379.
[52] Daniel De Foe. He had two names through life; and even when letters of administration were granted on his personal estate, some time after his death, De Foe is added with an otherwise. We might thence infer that his father's name was Foe, if we had not now better evidence of the fact.
[53] Ibid. p. 223.
[54] History of the Union, p. 239.
[55] Dr. Towers says, [Biograph. Brit.] "In this poem De Foe celebrates the courage of the Scots, and enumerates some of their military exploits. He endeavours to prove that the situation of Scotland rendered it well adapted for trade; he speaks honourably of the abilities of the inhabitants; he commends them for their learning, and their attention to religion; and he hints at the advantages which they might derive from a union with England. But though De Foe's poem was a panegyric upon Scotland and Scotsmen, it did not wholly consist of commendation. He takes notice of the evils that the common people suffered from their vassalage to their chiefs, and from their ignorance of the blessings of liberty. He also censures the Scots for not improving the natural advantages which their country possessed, and for neglecting their fishery; and he gives them some excellent advice." In 1707, he published a tract called, A Voice from the South; or an Address from some Protestant Dissenters in England to the Kirk of Scotland; the object being, as the title implies, to reconcile the presbyterians to the Union, then on the eve of completion.
He also in that year published a third volume of the Review, in which he dwelt very much upon matters connected with trade. One passage relative to the poor and their management, shows that he was far beyond his age on that point, as on most others. "Perhaps he may give some needful hints as to the state of our poor, in which his judgment may differ from that of others, but he must be plain: and while he is no enemy to charity-hospitals and workhouses, he thinks that methods to keep our poor out of them, far exceed, both in prudence and charity, all the settlements and endeavours in the world to maintain them there. As to censure, he expects it. He writes to serve the world, not to please it. A few wise, calm, disinterested men, he always had the good hap to please and satisfy. By their judgment he desires still to be determined; and if he has any pride, it is that he may be approved by such. To the rest, he sedately says, their censure deserves no notice." In 1708 he published a fourth volume of the Review, in which he discusses the Union at great length. He also discusses the war, the policy of the Swedes, &c.; the insurrection in Hungary, the revolution in Naples. The great principles of liberty are here, as they always were by De Foe, maintained with energy and warmth; but De Foe's mind was essentially practical, and therefore moderate. In the following fine passage he displays his principle of action. "In all my writings, as well as in this paper, it has been my endeavour, and ever shall be, I hope, to steer the middle way between all our extremes, and while I am applauding the lustre of moderation, to practise it myself." He foresees, however, the fate of impartiality in the contests of faction. "If I might give a short hint to an impartial writer, it should be to tell him his fate. If he resolves to venture up the dangerous precipice of telling unbiassed truths, let him proclaim war with mankind, a la mode le pais de Pole, neither to give nor take quarter. If he tells the crimes of great men, they fall upon him with the iron hands of the law; if he tells their virtues, when they have any, then the mob attacks him with slander. But if he regards truth, let him expect martyrdom on both sides, and then he may go on fearless; and this is the course I take myself." [vol. iv. p. 593.]
In 1708, prince George of Denmark, consort of queen Anne, died; and De Foe described his character in one of the Reviews. The recent circumstances in our own day, so analogous to that of prince George and the queen, make De Foe's sketch one of great interest. "Death has made a very deep incision in the public tranquillity, in the person of the prince of Denmark. His royal highness was a great and good man, a friend to England and her interest, and true and hearty in the cause of liberty.... If I had a design to run through the character of the prince, I would observe upon the excellency of his temper, the calmness of his passions, and the sedateness of his judgment, which commanded respect from the whole nation in a manner peculiar to himself; so that every party, however jarring and opposite, paid him their homage, although nothing was more averse to his temper than the divisions which unhappily agitate the nation. Nor can it be doubted that his highness derived peculiar satisfaction from his not interfering in public affairs more than his exalted station obliged him, since he saw it was impossible to do so without committing himself to a party, which he was always averse to. He sincerely lamented our divisions, but never encouraged or approved them. By his steady conduct, joined with a general courtesy to all sorts of people, he acquired the esteem and love of all parties, and that more than any person of his degree that ever went before him. I need not note how next to impossible it is in this divided nation, for the most consummate prudence to steer through the variety of interests and gain an universal good opinion, or indeed avoid universal censure. How the prince attained that great point I shall not attempt to examine; but this I think ought to be recorded to posterity, that one man in Britain was found, of whom no man spoke evil,—and this was he!" [vol. iv. p. 409.]—Ed.
[56] Lord Buchan was so obliging as to communicate the subjoined extract of a letter to his lordship's grandfather, the earl of Buchan, from De Foe, dated the 29th of May, 1711:—"The person, with whom I endeavoured to plant the interest of your lordship's friend, has been strangely taken up, since I had that occasion; viz., first, in suffering the operation of the surgeons to heal the wound of the assassin; and since, in accumulating honours from parliament, the queen, and the people. On Thursday evening her majesty created him earl Mortimer, earl of Oxford, and lord Harley of Wigmore: and we expect that to-morrow in council he will have the white staff given him by the queen, and be declared lord high treasurer. I wrote this yesterday; and this day, May the 29th, he is made lord high treasurer of Great Britain, and carried the white staff before the queen this morning to chapel."
[57] Appeal, p. 16.
[58] With the present Life of De Foe, by Mr. Chalmers, prefixed. In this year he closed the fifth volume of the Review. He goes at great length into the affairs of Scotland, especially religious. For the freedom of his remarks in protesting against innovations upon the Scotch establishment, the Review was prosecuted by the grand jury, but the prosecution was soon stopped. He also contended vigorously against licensing the press, and for the Copyright Bill, which subsequently passed. He attacked Dr. Sacheverell for his celebrated sermon on the 5th of November, at St. Paul's. And he published a sixth volume of the Review. He there exposed stock-jobbing;—he refers to his frequently repeated anticipations of the eventual defeat of Charles XII. in relation to the battle of Pultowa; and he pays great attention, as before, to Scotch affairs.—Ed.
[59] Mr. Chalmers here seems to be mistaken. De Foe wrote neither of these works. The first Mr. Wilson tells us was written by Oldmixon. De Foe, indeed, in order to expose the folly of the high tory party, who had procured several addresses to the queen, and which were published by them as an indication, "that the sense of the nation is express for the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance, and for her majesty's hereditary title to the throne of her ancestors," published a counter manifesto, A New Test of the Sense of the Nation: being a modest Comparison between the Addresses to the late King James and those to her present Majesty. In order to show how far the sense of the nation may be judged of by either of them. 1710. His object is of course to expose the folly of supposing that the addresses represented the real feeling of the country. In a strain of great irony, he says; "The practice of addressing has cheated many already; a jest that was put upon Richard Cromwell, and yet they deprived him three weeks afterwards. It was a second time put upon king James II. and they all flew in his face a year after. And I could give some instances of the little value that has been put upon it since, even such as one would think the very people themselves expect,—that for time to come addressing should pass for nothing with their princes."—Ed.
[60] Review, vol. vii. No. 95.
[61] The following letter to Mr. J. Dyer, in Shoe-lane, who was then employed by the leaders of the tories, in circulating news and insinuations through the country, will show the literary manners of those times, and convey some anecdotes, which are nowhere else preserved. The original letter is in the Museum, Harl. MSS. No. 7001. fol. 269.
Mr. Dyer,
I have your letter. I am rather glad to find you put it upon the trial who was aggressor, than justify a thing which I am sure you cannot approve; and in this I assure you I am far from injuring you, and refer you to the time when long since you had wrote I was fled from justice: one Sammon being taken up for printing a libel, and I being then on a journey, nor the least charge against me for being concerned in it by anybody but your letter:—also many unkind personal reflections on me in your letter, when I was in Scotland, on the affair of the Union, and I assure you, when my paper had not in the least mentioned you, and those I refer to time and date for the proof of.
I mention this only in defence of my last letter, in which I said no more of it than to let you see I did not merit such treatment, and could nevertheless be content to render any service to you, though I thought myself hardly used.
But to state the matter fairly between you and I [me], a writing for different interests, and so possibly coming under an unavoidable necessity of jarring in several cases: I am ready to make a fair truce of honour with you, viz., that if what either party are doing, or saying, that may clash with the party we are for, and urge us to speak, it shall be done without naming either's name, and without personal reflections; and thus we may differ still, and yet preserve both the Christian and the gentleman.
This I think is an offer may satisfy you. I have not been desirous of giving just offence to you, neither would I to any man, however I may differ from him; and I see no reason why I should affront a man's person, because I do not join with him in principle. I please myself with being the first proposer of so fair a treaty with you, because I believe, as you cannot deny its being very honourable, so it is not less so in coming first from me, who I believe could convince you of my having been the first and most ill-treated—for further proof of which I refer you to your letters, at the time I was threatened by the envoy of the king of Sweden.
However, Mr. Dyer, this is a method which may end what is past, and prevent what is future; and if refused, the future part I am sure cannot lie at my door.
As to your letter, your proposal is so agreeable to me, that truly without it I could not have taken the thing at all; for it would have been a trouble intolerable, both to you as well as me, to take your letter every post, first from you, and then send it to the post-house.
Your method of sending to the black box, is just what I designed to propose, and Mr. Shaw will doubtless take it of you: if you think it needful for me to speak to him it shall be done—what I want to know is only the charge, and that you will order it constantly to be sent, upon hinting whereof I shall send you the names. Wishing you success in all things (your opinions of government excepted.)
[62] Arnott's Edinburgh. The second newspaper ever published in Scotland. During this period he published the seventh volume of the Review, which is chiefly occupied by home affairs.
[63] De Foe had, many years before Harley proposed it in parliament, suggested an establishment of a South-sea trade, not only for commercial advantage, but as an effectual mode of crippling Spain and France. "I had the honour to lay a proposal before his late majesty king William, in the beginning of this war, for carrying the war, not into Old Spain, but into America: which proposal his majesty approved of, and fully proposed to put it in execution, had not death, to our unspeakable grief, prevented him. And yet I would have my readers distinguish with me, that there is always a manifest difference between carrying on a war with America and settling a trade there; and I shall not fail to speak distinctly to this difference in its turn." He then points out the circumstances of the trade, and distinctly warns his countrymen against those rash and extravagant speculations which they unfortunately persisted to indulge in, and which caused the ruin of so many persons. "I am far from designing to discourage this new undertaking, which I profess to believe a very happy one; but to correct these wild notions, it seems needful to ascertain what we are to understand by a trade to the South Seas, and what not; that in the first place our enemies may not make a wrong improvement of it, our friends in Spain may not take umbrage at it, and our people at home may not grow big with wild expectations, which might end in chagrin and disappointment. There is room enough on the western coast of America for us to establish a flourishing trade without encroaching upon the Spaniards. The industry and enterprise of the English in such a situation would open a wide door for the consumption of our manufactures, and bring a vast revenue of wealth to our own country." [Review, vol. viii. p. 165. 274.] They are the same views substantially as those he afterwards maintained in the pamphlet mentioned by Mr. Chalmers in the text.—Ed.
[64] He also vindicated the memory of William III., who had been fiercely attacked for the Partition Treaty, by a pamphlet rather long and quaint—The Felonious Treaty: or, an Inquiry into the Reasons which moved his late Majesty King William, of Glorious Memory, to enter into a Treaty at ten several times, with the King of France, for the Partition of the Spanish Monarchy. With an Essay, proving that it was always the sense both of King William and of all the Confederates, and even of the Grand Alliance itself, that the Spanish Monarchy should never be united in the Person of the Emperor. 1711. In the year 1712, he vigorously attacked the persecuting bill introduced by lord Nottingham, by which dissenters were to be excluded from civil employments, and persons in office were forbidden to attend dissenting places of worship, under severe penalties. De Foe not only kept up a galling fire in his Reviews, but published a pamphlet on the subject, entituled, An Essay on the History of Parties and Persecution in Britain: beginning with a brief Account of the Test Act, and an Historical Inquiry into the Reasons, the Original, and the Consequences of the Occasional Conformity of the Dissenters: with some Remarks on the recent attempts already made and now making for an Occasional Bill: inquiring how far the same may be esteemed a Preservative of the Church, or an Injury to the Dissenters. He seems to have renewed the attack not only against that measure, but also against a similar bill introduced to authorise the use of the liturgy in Scotland, in a pamphlet which Mr. Wilson says bears undoubted evidence of being De Foe's, although never inserted in any list of his writings, entituled, The Present State of Parties in Great Britain: particularly an Inquiry into the State of the Dissenters in England, and the Presbyterians in Scotland: their religious and politic Interest considered, as it respects their Circumstances before and since the late Acts against Occasional Conformity in England, and for Toleration of Common Prayer in Scotland. In this work he goes into a lengthened history of the dissenters, and strongly recommends union amongst all bodies of them. He also in this year vigorously opposed the tax upon newspapers, which was enforced in 1712. The eighth volume of the Review closed in July, 1712. Trade and war are the main subjects discussed in it.—Ed.
[65] The first Mercator was published on the 26th of May, 1713; the last on the 20th of July, 1714: and they were written by William Brown and his assistants, with great knowledge, great strength, and great sweetness, considering how much party then embittered every composition. The British Merchant, which opposed the Mercator, and which was compiled by Henry Martyn and his associates, has fewer facts, less argument, and more factiousness. It began on the 1st of August, 1713, and ended the 27th of July, 1714. I have spoken of both from my own convictions, without regarding the declamations which have continued to pervert the public opinion from that epoch to the present times. De Foe was struck at in the third number of the British Merchant, and plainly mentioned in the fourth. Mr. Daniel Foe may change his name from Review to Mercator, from Mercator to any other title, yet still his singular genius shall be distinguished by his inimitable way of writing. Thus personal sarcasm was introduced to supply deficience of facts, or weakness of reasoning. When Charles King republished The British Merchant in volumes, among various changes, he expunged, with other personalities, the name of De Foe.
[66] It is now sufficiently known, that Lord Oxford had relinquished the Treaty of Commerce to its fate, before it was finally debated in parliament. See much curious matter on this subject in Macpherson's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 421-23. It is there said, that he gave up the commercial treaty, in compliment to sir Thomas Hanmer, as he would by no means be an occasion of a breach among friends. The treasurer had other reasons: the treaty had been made by Bolingbroke, whom he did not love; the lords Anglesea and Abingdon had made extravagant demands for their support; and, like a wise man, he thought it idle to drive a nail that would not go. Yet lord Halifax boasted to the Hanoverian minister, that he alone had been the occasion of the treaty being rejected. [Same papers, p. 509-47.]
[67] He attacked it first in 1713, in An Essay on the Treaty of Commerce with France, with necessary Expositions.
[68] It closed May, 1713, with the ninth volume.
[69] State of Wit, 1711, which is reprinted in the Supplement to Swift's Works.
[70] It was ordered to be destroyed.
[71] The late History of Halifax relates, that Daniel De Foe, being forced to abscond, on account of his political writings, resided at Halifax, in the Back-lane, at the sign of the Rose and Crown, being known to Dr. Nettleton, the physician, and the Rev. Mr. Priestley, minister of a dissenting congregation there. Mr. Watson is mistaken when he supposes that De Foe wrote his Jure Divino here, which had been published previously in 1706; and he is equally mistaken, when he says, that De Foe had made an improper use of the papers of Selkirk, whose story had been often published.
[72] The pamphlets mentioned in the text were filled with palpable banter. He recommends the Pretender by saying, That the prince would confer on every one the privilege of wearing wooden shoes, and at the same time ease the nobility and gentry of the hazard and expense of winter journeys to parliament.
[73] The pardon is dated on the 13th of November, 1713, and is signed by Bolingbroke. See it set out verbatim. Appeal to Honour and Justice.
[74] See Boyer's Political State, Oldmixon's History, &c.
[75] It is universally said by the sellers and buyers of old books, that John, duke of Argyle, was the real author of The Secret History of the White Staff. His grace, indeed, is not in the Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors. Whether the duke wrote this petty pamphlet may be doubted; but there can be no doubt that De Foe was not the author: for he solemnly asserts by his Appeal, in 1715, That he had written nothing since the queen's death. The internal evidence is stronger than this positive assertion.
[76] In the year 1714, De Foe pleaded the cause of religious liberty in his most effective manner. He was roused to action by the bill then passing parliament, "to prevent the growth of schism," which was of course only another name for intolerance. By this bill, all schoolmasters were required to be licensed by the bishop, and have a certificate of conformity from the minister of his parish! De Foe of course could not be silent on such an occasion, and he published The Remedy worse than the Disease: or Reasons against passing the Bill for preventing the Growth of Schism; to which is added, a Brief Discourse of Toleration and Persecution, showing their unavoidable effects, good or bad, and proving that neither Diversity of Religion, nor Diversity in the same Religion, are dangerous, much less inconsistent with good Government. In a Letter to a noble Earl. Hæc sunt enim fundamenta firmissima nostræ libertatis, sui quemque juris et retinendi et dimittendi esse dominum. Cic. in Orat. pro Balbo. 1714.
[77] The most solemn asseverations, and the most unanswerable arguments of our author, were not, after all, believed. When Charles King republished The British Merchant, in 1721, he without a scruple attributed The Mercator to a hireling writer of a weekly paper called the Review. And Anderson, at a still later period, goes further in his Chronology of Commerce, and names De Foe, as the hireling writer of the Mercator, and other papers in favour of the French treaty of trade. We can now judge with the impartiality of arbitrators: on the one hand, there are the living challenge, and the death-bed declaration of De Foe; on the other, the mere surmise and unauthorised assertion of King, Anderson, and others, who detract from their own veracity by their own factiousness, or foolery. It is surely time to free ourselves from prejudices of every kind, and to disregard the sound of names as much as the falsehoods of party.
[78] It was entered at Stationers'-hall, for J. Roberts, the 18th of February, 1715-16.
[79] 2nd Mem. p. 27, &c.
[80] The family of George I. had been instructed by the copy of this book, which is in the Museum. It would seem from the title-page and Mr. Wright's letter being printed on a different paper from the work itself, that both were added after the first publication. The Family Instructor and Mr. Wright's letter were entered at Stationers'-hall, for Emanuel Mathews, on the 31st of March, 1715.
[81] When Mr. Chalmers wrote, it had been reprinted at least seventeen times. It is a work which has had great circulation.
[82] Mr. Wilson considers that De Foe, in the year 1717, published the Memoirs of the Church of Scotland, in Four Periods: with an Appendix of some Transactions since the Union. [Life of De Foe, vol. iii. p. 418.] And also the Life of Dr. Daniel Williams, the eminent presbyterian divine, founder of the well-known dissenters' library, in Redcross-street. [Ib. p. 423.]
[83] The title was, The Life and strange surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, who lived eight-and-twenty Years all alone in an uninhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the mouth of the great River Oroonoque, having been cast on shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the men perished but himself. With an Account how he was at last strangely delivered by Pirates. Written by Himself.
[84] "No fiction in any language," said Dr. Blair in his elegant Lectures on Rhetoric, "was ever better supported than the Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. While it is carried on with that appearance of truth and simplicity, which takes a strong hold of the imagination of all readers, it suggests at the same time very useful instruction, by showing how much the native power of man may be exerted for surmounting the difficulties of any external situation." "Robinson Crusoe," said Marmontel, "is the first book I ever read with exquisite pleasure; and I believe every boy in Europe might say the same thing." In his Emile, Rousseau says, "Since we must have books, this is one, which, in my opinion, is a most excellent treatise on natural education. This is the first my Emilias shall read; his whole library shall long consist of this work only, which shall preserve an eminent rank to the very last. It shall be the text to which all our conversations on natural science are to serve only as a comment. It shall be a guide during our progress to maturity of judgment; and so long as our taste is not adulterated, the perusal of this book will afford us pleasure. And what surprising book is this? Is it Aristotle? Is it Pliny? Is it Buffon? No, it is Robinson Crusoe." In this judgment Dr. Beattie concurred.—Ed.
[85] The title was, The further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe; being the second and last Part of his Life, and the strange surprising Accounts of his Travels round three Parts of the Globe. Written by Himself. To which is added, a Map of the World, in which is delineated the Voyages of Robinson Crusoe. 1719.
[86] The whole story of Selkirk is told in Woodes Rogers' voyage, which he published in 1712, from p. 125 to 131, inclusive: whence it appears that Selkirk had preserved no pen, ink, or paper, and had lost his language; so that he had no journal or papers, which he could communicate, or by others could be stolen. There is an account of Selkirk in The Englishman, No. 26, written by Steele. The particular manner how Alexander Selkirk lived four years and four months, in the isle of Juan Fernandez, is related in captain Cooks's voyage into the South Sea, which was published in 1712. And Selkirk's tale was told in the Memoirs of Literature, vol. v. p. 118: so that the world was fully possessed of Selkirk's story, in 1712, seven years prior to the publication of Crusoe's Adventures. Nor were his adventures singular; for, Ringrose mentions in his account of captain Sharp's voyage, a person who had escaped singly from a ship that had been wrecked on Juan Fernandez, and who lived alone five years before he was relieved: and Dampier mentions a Mosquito indian, who having been accidentally left on this island, subsisted three years solitarily, till that voyager carried him off. From which of these De Foe borrowed his great incident, it is not easy to discover. In the preface to The Serious Reflections, he indeed says, "That there is a man alive and well known, the actions of whose life are the just subject of these volumes, and to whom the most part of the story directly alludes." This turns the scale in favour of Selkirk. Nor, was the name of Crusoe wholly fictitious; for, among De Foe's contemporaries, John Dunton speaks of Timothy Crusoe, who was called the Golden Preacher, and was so great a textuary, that he could pray two hours together in scripture language; but, he was not arrived at perfection, as appeared by his sloth in tying the conjugal knot; yet his repentance was sincere and public, and I fear not but he is now a glorified saint in heaven. [Life and Errors, p. 461.] The whole story of Selkirk, as told by Rogers, is reprinted in the present edition. Rob. Crusoe, vol. i. p. xxiii.
[87] Dr. Towers agrees with Mr. Chalmers. [Biog. Brit.] "The fact appears to have been that the charge against De Foe of having taken his work from Selkirk's manuscripts, or from communication of any kind made by Selkirk, is wholly groundless, and of which he himself never heard; for we do not find that the least hint of any such accusation against him was ever published during his lifetime." And Mr. D'Israeli [Curios. of Literat. vol. iii. p. 285.] considers the point settled in favour of De Foe, by captain Burney's Voyages and Discoveries.
[88] It has been frequently imitated, but never with success.
[89] Morant's Colchester, p. 134.
[90] Before the History of Duncan Campbell, De Foe published similar work, called The Dumb Philosopher, or Great Britain's Wonder. Containing, 1. A faithful and very surprising account how Dickory Cronke, a tinner's son, in the county of Cornwall, who was born dumb and continued so for fifty-eight years, and how some days before he died he came to his speech; with memoirs of his life and the manner of his death, &c. This is a curious pamphlet.
[91] Lord Chatham is said to have long considered it a genuine history. In 1726 De Foe published a similar book, The Military Memoirs of Captain George Carleton. From the Dutch war, 1672, in which he served, to the conclusion of the peace at Utrecht, 1713, &c. 1728. This work was a great favourite with Dr. Johnson.
[92] Mr. Wilson quotes this passage from Mr. Chalmers, and refers to another work published by De Foe, in 1720, not mentioned in the text; Christian Conversation, in six dialogues, about Assurance—Mortification—Natural Things—Spiritualized—Union—Afflictions—Death.
[93] These admirable works are reprinted in the present edition.
[94] He also published, Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business; or Private Abuses, Public Grievances. Exemplified in the pride, insolence, and exorbitant wages of our women-servants, footmen, &c. 1725.
[95] And also, in 1727, An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions, being an account of what they are, and what they are not. As also how we may distinguish between the Apparitions of Good and Evil Spirits, and how we ought to behave to them. With a great variety of surprising and diverting examples, never published before. These three works of De Foe are reprinted in the present edition. In 1726 he also published an Essay upon Literature, or An Inquiry into the Antiquity and Original of Letters, &c., and An Account of Peter the wild Boy, then lately discovered in one of the German forests. This latter work is entituled Mere Nature Delineated; or, A Body Without a Soul. Being Observations upon the young Forester lately brought to Town from Germany. With suitable applications. Also a Brief Dissertation upon the usefulness and necessity of Fools, whether political or natural. In the year 1727, in addition to the work mentioned by Mr. Chalmers, De Foe published The Protestant Monastery; or, A Complaint against the Brutality of the present Age, particularly the Pertness and Insolence of our Youth to Aged Persons, with a Caution to People in years how they give the staff out of their own hands, and leave themselves at the mercy of others. Concluding with a Proposal for erecting a Protestant Monastery, where persons of small fortunes may end their days in plenty, ease, and credit, without burdening their relations, or accepting public charities, And Parochial Tyranny; or, The Housekeeper's Complaint against the insupportable Exactions and partial Assessments of Select Vestries, &c., with a Plain Detection of many Abuses committed in the distribution of public charities. Together with a practicable proposal for amending the same, which will not only take off great part of the parish taxes now subsisting, but ease parishioners from serving troublesome offices, or paying exorbitant fines. Both these works are published under the assumed name of Andrew Moreton, esq. The last was quoted by Mr. (now sir John) Hobhouse when bringing in his bill for the regulation of parish select vestries into the house of commons, in April 1829. (Hansard, Parl. Deb. vol. xxi. p. 898.)
[96] He says, "The preparations for this work have been suitable to my earnest concern for its usefulness. Seventeen very large circuits, or journeys, have been taken through divers parts separately, and three general tours over almost the whole English part of the island; in all which the author has not been wanting to treasure up just remarks upon particular places and things. Besides these several journeys in England, he has also lived some time in Scotland, and has travelled critically over great part of it: he has viewed the north part of England, and the south part of Scotland, five several times over; all which is hinted here, to let the readers know what reason they have to be satisfied with the authority of the relation."
The first of these Tours was published in 1724, under the title of, A Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, divided into Circuits and Journeys. Giving a particular and diverting Account of whatever is Curious and worth Observation, viz., I. A Description of the principal Cities and Towns; their Situations, Magnitude, Government, and Commerce. II. The Customs, Manners, Spirit; as also, the Exercises, Diversions, and Employment of the People. III. The Produce and Improvement of the Lands, the Trade and Manufactures. IV. The Sea-ports and Fortifications, the course of Rivers, and Inland Navigation. V. The Public Edifices, Seats, and Palaces of the Nobility and Gentry. With useful Observations on the whole. Particularly fitted for the reading of such as desire to travel over the island. By a Gentleman.
The favourable reception of this volume, encouraged the author to follow it by a second in the next year, with a similar title, and the addition of a map of South Britain, by Herman Moll, the geographer. A third volume, the same also in title, was added in 1727, containing the northern counties of England, and the south of Scotland; and this completes the work. The useful information contained in these volumes, is conveyed in the familiar form of letters. In commending the work to the notice of the public, he says, "I have endeavoured that these letters shall not be a journal of trifles. If it is on that account too grave for some people, I hope it will not for others. I have studied the advancement and increase of knowledge for those that read, and shall be as glad to make them wise, as to make them merry; yet I hope they will not find the story so ill told, or so dull, as to tire them so soon, or so barren as to put them to sleep over it. The observations here made, as they principally regard the present state of things, so, as near as can be, they are adapted to the present state of the times."
[97] This highly useful book is reprinted in the present edition, and should be in the hands of every young tradesman.
[98] The title is as follows: A Plan of the English Commerce. Being a complete Prospect of the Trade of this Nation, as well the Home Trade as the Foreign. In three parts. I. Containing a View of the present Magnitude of the English Trade, as it respects, 1. The Exportation of our own Growth and Manufacture. 2. The Importation of Merchant Goods from Abroad. 3. The prodigious Consumption of both at Home. Part II. Containing an Answer to that great and important Question now depending, whether our Trade, and especially our Manufactures, are in a declining condition or no? Part III. Containing several Proposals entirely new, for extending and improving our Trade, and promoting the Consumption of our Manufactures in Countries wherewith we have hitherto had no Commerce. Humbly offered to the Consideration of King and Parliament.
[99] He appears to have published two or three works after the Plan of English Commerce, under the assumed name of Andrew Moreton. The first a very remarkable work for the suggestions it contains in anticipation of another age. Augusta Triumphans; or, The Way to make London the most flourishing City in the Universe. I. By establishing an University, where Gentlemen may have Academical Education under the Eye of their Friends. II. To prevent much Murder, &c., by an Hospital for Foundlings. III. By suppressing pretended Madhouses, where many of the Fair Sex are unjustly confined, while their Husbands keep Mistresses, &c., and many Widows are locked up for the sake of their Jointure. IV. To save our Youth from Destruction, by clearing our Streets of impudent Strumpets, suppressing Gaming Tables, and Sunday Debauches. V. To avoid the expensive Importation of Foreign Musicians, by forming an Academy of our own. VI. To save our lower Class of People from utter Ruin, and render them useful, by preventing the immoderate Use of Geneva. With a frank exposure of many other common Abuses, and incontestible Rules for Amendment. Concluding with an effectual Method to prevent Street Robberies. And a Letter to Col. Robinson, on Account of the Orphans' Tax.
The second pamphlet, published in 1729, is entituled, Second Thoughts are Best; or a further Improvement of a late Scheme to prevent Street Robberies. In which our Streets will be so strongly guarded, and so gloriously illuminated, that any part of London will be as safe and pleasant at Midnight as at Noonday; and Burglary totally impracticable. With some Thoughts for suppressing Robberies in all the public Roads of England, &c. Humbly offered for the Good of his Country, submitted to the consideration of the Parliament, and dedicated to his sacred Majesty King George II. By Andrew Moreton, Esq.
Mr. Wilson has given the analysis of what must be considered the last literary effort of De Foe. The MS. work is in the possession of the Rev. Henry De Foe Baker, by whose kindness Mr. Wilson was permitted to examine it. [See Life of De Foe, vol. iii. p. 599.] The analysis is as follows:
The Complete Gentleman, containing useful Observations on the general Neglect of Education of English Gentlemen, with the Reason and Remedies. The apparent Differences between a Well-born and Well-bred Gentleman. And Instructions how Gentlemen may recover a Deficiency of their Latin, and be Men of Learning without the Pedantry of Schools.
Chap. I. Of the gentlemen born, in the common acceptation of the word, and as the gentry amongst us are pleased to understand it. Chap. II. Some examples from history, and from good information, of the want of care taken in the education of princes, and children of the nobility in former times, as well in this nation as in foreign countries, and how fatal the effects of it have been in their future conduct; with some few examples of the contrary also. Chap. III. Examples of the different educations of princes and persons of rank from the beginning of the sixteenth century, viz., from the reign of Henry VIII. inclusive. With observations down to the present time, on the happiness of those reigns in general, when the princes have been educated in principles of honour and virtue; and something of the contrary. Chap. IV. Of royal education. Chap. V. The head of this chapter is erased. Chap. VI. Of the G——; of himself, his family, and fortune.
Part the Second. Chap. I. Of the fund for increase of our nobility and gentry in England: being the beginning of those we call bred gentlemen: with some account of difference. Chap. II. There is no head to this chapter. Chap. III. Of the general ignorance of the English gentry, and the true cause of it in the manner of their introduction into life. Chap. IV. Of what may be the unhappy cause of the general defect in the education of our gentry; with a rational proposal for preventing those consequences.
[100] His latter days were stung by the base ingratitude and unfilial and unbrotherly conduct of his son, to whom, in a touching letter to Mr. Baker, he says he transferred his property, with the duty of maintaining his mother and sisters, and that he positively squandered it upon himself! Mr. Wilson has obtained permission from the great great grandson of Mr. Baker, the gentleman mentioned in the text, to publish the letter from De Foe to his ancestor. It gives a most distressing picture of the sorrows amid which his useful life closed; but as it is the duty of history faithfully and not fancifully to relate the lives of illustrious men, and the constant exposure of the world's ingratitude to its best benefactors, may in time shame it to a better feeling, we leave the true but mournful tale to speak its own lesson: and however agreeable it might have been to show the author of Robinson Crusoe gradually quitting the world he had spent his useful life to improve and delight, in the quiet and repose which might seem the harbinger of the peace he anticipated in a brighter, we must take leave of him, while in misery and in anger, surrounded by clouds and darkness, and stung by the worst of sorrows.
"Dear Mr. Baker,
"I have your very kind and affectionate letter of the 1st: but not come to my hand till the 16th; where it had been delayed I know not. As your kind manner, and kinder thought, from which it flows, (for I take all you say to be as I always believed you to be, sincere and Nathaniel-like, without guile) was a particular satisfaction to me; so the stop of a letter, however it happened, deprived me of that cordial too many days, considering how much I stood in need of it, to support a mind sinking under the weight of an affliction too heavy for my strength, and looking on myself as abandoned of every comfort, every friend, and every relation, except such only as are able to give me no assistance.
"I was sorry you should say at the beginning of your letter, you were debarred seeing me; depend upon my sincerity for this, I am far from debarring you. On the contrary, it would be a greater comfort to me than any I now enjoy, that I could have your agreeable visits with safety, and could see both you and my dearest Sophia, could it be without giving her the grief of seeing her father in tenebris, and under the load of insupportable sorrows. I am sorry I must open my griefs so far as to tell her, it is not the blow I received from a wicked, perjured, and contemptible enemy, that has broken in upon my spirit; which she well knows has carried me on through greater disasters than these. But it has been the injustice, unkindness, and, I must say, inhuman dealing of my own son, which has both ruined my family, and, in a word, has broken my heart; and as I am at this time under a weight of very heavy illness, which I think will be a fever, I take this occasion to vent my grief in the breasts who I know will make a prudent use of it, and tell you that nothing but this has conquered me, or could conquer me. Et tu! Brute. I depended upon him, I trusted him, I gave up my two dear unprovided children into his hands; but he had no compassion, and suffered them and their poor dying mother to beg their bread at his door, and to crave, as if it were an alms, what he is bound under hand and seal, besides the most sacred promises, to supply them with; himself at the same time living in a profusion of plenty. It is too much for me. Excuse my infirmity, I can say no more; my heart is too full. I only ask one thing of you as a dying request. Stand by them when I am gone, and let them not be wronged, while he is able to do them right. Stand by them as a brother; and if you have anything within you owing to my memory, who have bestowed on you the best gift I had to give, let them not be injured and trampled on by false pretences, and unnatural reflections. I hope they will want no help but that of comfort and counsel; but that they will indeed want, being so easy to be managed by words and promises.
"It adds to my grief that it is so difficult to me to see you. I am at a distance from London, in Kent; nor have a lodging in London, nor have I been at that place in the Old Bailey since I wrote you I was removed from it. At present I am weak, having had some fits of a fever that have left me low. But those things much more.
"I have not seen son or daughter, wife or child, many weeks, and know not which way to see them. They dare not come by water, and by land here is no coach, and I know not what to do.
"It is not possible for me to come to Enfield, unless you could find a retired lodging for me, where I might not be known, and might have the comfort of seeing you both now and then; upon such a circumstance, I could gladly give the days to solitude, to have the comfort of half an hour now and then with you both for two or three weeks. But just to come and look at you, and retire immediately, it is a burden too heavy. The parting will be a pain beyond the enjoyment.
"I would say, I hope, with comfort, that it is yet well. I am so near my journey's end, and am hastening to the place where the 'weary are at rest, and the wicked cease to trouble;' but that the passage is rough, and the day stormy, by what way soever He pleases to bring me to the end of it, I desire to finish life with this temper of soul in all cases: Te Deum laudamus.
"I congratulate you on the occasion of your happy advance in your employment. May all you do be prosperous, and all you meet with pleasant, and may you both escape the tortures and troubles of uneasy life. May you sail the dangerous voyage of life with a forcing wind, and make the port of heaven without a storm.
"It adds to my grief, that I must never see the pledge of your mutual love, my little grandson. Give him my blessing, and may he be to you both your joy in youth, and your comfort in age, and never add a sigh to your sorrow. But, alas! that is not to be expected. Kiss my dear Sophy once more for me; and if I must see her no more, tell her this is from a father that loved her above all his comforts, to his last breath.
"Your unhappy,
D. F.
"About two miles from Greenwich, Kent,
Tuesday, August 12th, 1730.
"P.S. I wrote you a letter some months ago, in answer to one from you, about selling the house; but you never signified to me whether you received it. I have not the policy of assurance; I suppose my wife, or Hannah, may have it.
"Idem, D. F."
[101] Pope had collected this scandal from Savage, who says in the preface to his Author to be Let, "Had it not been an honester livelihood for Mr. Norton, (Daniel De Foe's son of love by a lady who vended oysters,) to have dealt in a fish-market, than to be dealing out the dialects of Billingsgate in the Flying Post?"
[102] The above-mentioned particulars were discovered by searching the books at Doctors Commons.
[103] Life and Errors, 239-240.
[104] In the preface to his Reformation.
[105] See the Present State of the War, and the necessity of an augmentation. And see his Commercial Papers in the Freeholder.
[106] Biog. Dict. vol. ii. p. 403. art. De Foe.
[107] Vol. iii. p. 436.