He made himself thoroughly acquainted with the writings of the High Flyers, or, as we should say, High Churchmen, and collecting all their venom, put it into form. And when Sacheverell preached a sermon called the "Political Union," in which he urged all true sons of the Church to raise the banner of defiance against the Dissenters, De Foe sallied out with his "Shortest Way with the Dissenters," and made some jump on their seats. He pretended to be a High Flyer himself, and began by rejoicing that the Dissenters had, on Anne's accession, lost the power they had enjoyed nearly fourteen years, to eclipse, buffet, and disturb the poorest of all churches. But now, he said, seeing their day was over, they were all for peace and mutual forbearance, wishing, like Esop's cock after he was unperched, to preach up union. "But no, gentlemen," he exclaimed, "your day of grace is over: you should have practised moderation and charity, if you expected any yourselvesit is now our turn.' He then went on to speak of the fatal lenity (?) which had been shown them by James I. and Charles I., in their being suffered to colonize New England, instead of being sent to the West Indies, (the transportation of those times,) or by some other method cleared out of the nation! "If this had been done," he said, "the anointed of God would never have been murdered (Charles); we should have had no sordid impostor set up (Cromwell);" and more to that effect. whose doctrines he took care to show were The effects of this pamphlet were extraordinary. Every one was deceived. The Low Church party were terrified'at this bold proposition of red-hot persecution, fearing to be forced into it, or compelled to join the Dissenters. The Dissenters fell into a kind of stupor at so positive a threat of war to their barren liberties. And the High Church people were delighted to have their secret wishes so thoroughly set forth; Sacheverell himself not having dared hitherto to name the stake and gallows. After this he turned to the reasons offered why the Dissenters should be tolerated, answering them plainly. To the reason that they were very numerous, and made a great part of the nation, he said that the Protestants in France had been more so, but the French king had effectually cleared the nation of them on St. Bartholomew's day, and did It is to us, we confess, a perfect mystery not seem to miss them; and the more numer- how any one could have been deceived. ous they were, the more dangerous, and there- Party spirit is the most dull and earthy of fore the more need to suppress them: adding, all spirits. The banter is so evident on the that if they were to be allowed only because very face of the thing, that none but relitheir number was an obstacle to their sup-gious disputants could have doubted it. pression, then it ought to be tried whether they could be suppressed or not. To the reason that it would be inconvenient to have internal strife in war time, he adduced the success of suppressing the old coinage during the late war, and said that the nation could never enjoy peace till the spirit of Whiggism anders,' for which I thank you. I join with schism was melted down like the old money. He then undertook, in his character of Churchman, to show the Queen what she ought to do as a member of that Church, De Foe often boasted of having a letter by him from a Churchman in the country to his bookseller, which was as follows: "Sir, I received yours, and with it that pamphlet which makes so much noise in the world, called The Shortest Way with the Dissent that author in all he says, and have such a value for the book that, next to the Holy Bible and sacred Comments, I take it for the most valuable piece I have. I pray God put it into her Majesty's heart to put what is there proposed in execution." Truly if his belief came from no more deep study of his Bible and Comments than he could have given this tract, it was of small value. No sooner, however, was the authorship of the satire traced to De Foe than a storm burst on his head. The High Flyers were ashamed at having been so thoroughly deceived, and vexed at having their designs so discovered and given to the world by an Independent; and they blushed when they reflected how they had applauded the book, and as they were now obliged to condemn it, so they were hampered betwixt doing so and pursuing their rage at the Dissenters. The greater part of them, in order to condemn the author, condemned the principles, for it was impossible to do one without the other, and they labored in print and in the pulpit to clear their Church of the slander. But this still answered the writer's end; for, the more they censured the practices he recommended, the more they condemned such wretches as their pet Sacheverell. But he had wounded the tenderest part of these men's human nature; and few men can pardon a wound in their self-esteem. They might have overlooked, or answered, an insult, but he had made them laughingstocks to themselves, and their very discovery of this made them laughing-stocks to the world. So they resolved to punish him. A reward of fifty pounds was offered for his apprehension; and his pamphlet was burnt by the hangman. He wrote a defence, but it availed nothing. His printers were arrested, and he, to save them, gave himself up to the law, which treated him with the utmost cruelty. He was tried at the Old Bailey in June, 1703, having lain in prison six months. He was advised to plead guilty, with many half promises that if he abstained from defending himself he would find mercy. In this his own lawyers concurred, and he accordingly did so. But it was a snare. He was found guilty; there was no recommendation to mercy; and his sentence was-a fine of 200 marks; to stand thrice in the pillory; to be imprisoned during pleasure; and to find sureties for good behavior for seven years. This infamous sentence was sufficiently severe in itself. But its consequences were severer still; from being in respectable circumstances, he was reduced to ruin. His Pantile Company was completely broken up; and he had no other means of supporting his wife and children, while in prison, than by his pen. Besides which, he lost the countenance of many of his friends, who could not believe an innocent man would be so severely punished. The brave man was not to be subdued by means like these. He was put up in the pillory at Temple-bar, in Cheapside, and at the Royal Exchange, where every second man knew him; but, by a poem which he circulated among the people, he turned the disgrace of the punishment upon those who inflicted it. "Hail! hieroglyphic state machine," he exclaimed, addressing the pillory, "Contrived to punish Fancy in." "Tell all people that De Foe stands upon it: "Because he was too bold, And told those truths which he should not have told, That thus he is an example made Are at a loss to find his guilt, For this publication, however, the Government did not care to prosecute him, having already gone too far that way. And now he turned with stern determination to provide bread for his family. We cannot give an abstract of all he wrote in his imprisonment; we shall only refer to some of the chief topics. In his "Reformation of Manners," he says of the slave traders, respecting their infamous traffic, which had never before been censured: "The harmless natives basely they trepan, Thus stepping far in advance of his age in this as in so many other things. He wrote several pamphlets in defence of the Dissenters from various enemies, as well as against the High Church party. He entered into the question of "The Liberty of Episcopal Dissenters in Scotland," in which he adverted (as afterwards at greater length in his " Memoirs of the Church of Scotland") to the miseries and brutalities to which they had been subjected by the High Flyers in past and present times. We wish that poor Aytoun had read some of his statements before he put out his absurd prose prefaces to the "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers." De Foe now turned his pen to the defence of suffering Nonconformity in Ireland, where the Episcopalians, under pretence of preventing the growth of Popery, had got the Dissenters shut out of all place and power in government. suaded they would not do their murderous work by day; or by day, he would wear armor on his back, because he was sure they would not attack him face to face. So time passed. Space fails us to speak His most extraordinary work, which he of his controversies and tracts much further. commenced and carried on in prison, was We had purposed to enter on his belief in the "Review," a periodical which he at first apparitions, and his ludicrous imposition on issued once, then twice, and ultimately thrice the credulity of the public, in order to sell a week, writing the whole of it himself, and Drelincourt's terrible book of divinity on the continuing it for nine years. This, independ-"Fear of Death." We must pass these by, ently of his other elaborate works, written at the same time, is a feat unparalleled in the history of letters; and considering the variety, pathos, wit, and satire contained in it, would have served, if he had left no other works, as an imperishable monument of his genius. In 1704 his enemies' administration ended, and Harley entered office. De Foe's almost boundless talents and invention, altough employed under all the disadvantages of personal captivity, had naturally drawn much attention to him. Many attempts had been made to win him, but in vain-he was not in the market; they could not buy the indomitable Dissenter. But Harley was almost one of his own school, and though he could not buy his services, he got him set free from prison, and afterwards made a useful public servant of him. He left Newgate in August of that year. He retired with his family to the country, where he continued his literary labors. But malignity followed him there. He was said to have stolen from custody; this he answered by offering himself to the officer who said he had a warrant against him. His works were reprinted in a garbled form. His Reviews were stolen from the coffee-houses to prevent their being read. His debts were brought up that he might be prosecuted. He was summoned before magistrates on frivolous pretences. He was harassed in every conceivable way. At one time, he says, he had fifteen letters threatening to kill him, some naming the very day and manner of the murder. Still he held on his way; stadfastly walking by that inner light of truth which was his constant guide. Not too peacefully, however, for he took every occasion to show his scorn of his opponents. He was several times waylaid, but came to no harm; and he told his enemies that he put such trust in God and his own rectitude, that he should adopt no other caution against them than to stay at home at night, because he was per however, to speak very briefly of one or two more of his greatest works. In 1706, he went to Scotland in a diplomatic character. The object of his mission was the union of that country with England. There he was, at first, very unpopular, but he conducted himself so well that at last he became somewhat of a favorite. His services were repaid with a pension on his return to England in 1708. He wrote several very popular works at this time, but the best is the "History of the Union," a huge quarto, now seldom to be met with, but which we should much like to see reprinted. It contains some of the most vigorous passages that ever came from his pen. When in the commencement of this year Harley left office, De Foe prepared to fall with his semi-patron; but Harley would not have it so, and passages to the honor of all parties occurred, by which his pension was continued by Harley's successors. We can but allude to his writings against the Pretender-against theatrical performances, which he condemned, as men of experience in them usually do; and upon the subject of literary copyright. Far-seeing, and gifted with the courage necessary to propound the almost innumerable schemes that crossed his mind-schemes which were then ridiculed, but are now adopted-he was, of course, subject to the most virulent attacks. His old enemies were ever persecuting him, and in business, and in letters alike, he met with care and misfortune sufficient to have crushed a less resolute man. When George I. came to the throne, and the Whigs, on whose behalf De Foe had written and suffered so much, regained power, the ungrateful treatment he received from them seems to have saddened and subdued the spirit of the great man. Old age was stealing rapidly upon him, and disappointment, and poverty, and persecution, were doing their swift work. It seemed as though the stern conqueror of the strongholds of tyranny and priestcraft was about to fall into the back ground, and his sun was to go down in darkness. Yet he made one great effort to defend his career, and in his Appeal to Honor and Justice," he has left a piece of pathetic self-defence, which few we think who know his life can read unmoved. "By the hint of mortality," he says, "and by the infirmities of a life of sorrow and fatigue, I have reason to think I am not a very great way off from, if not very near to, the great ocean of eternity; and the time may not be long ere I embark on the last voyage. Wherefore I think I should even accounts with this world before I go. I am unconcerned at the rage and clamor of party-men; but I cannot be unconcerned to hear good men and good Christians prepossessed and mistaken about me. However, I cannot doubt but it will please God at some time or other to open such men's eyes. A constant steady adhering to personal virtue, and to public peace, which, I thank God, I can appeal to him, has always been my practice, will at last restore me to the opinion of sober and impartial men, and that is all I desire." But this self-defence was not completed ere a stroke of apoplexy laid him low. and greatest of these works was "Robinson Crusoe." The number of genuine good works that have been refused by "the trade," is extraordinary. "The Fathers," as Southey calls them, are a timid race. Novelty is the worst characteristic of a book with them; good common-place matter is the safer card. It has ever been so. Not to speak of “Paradise Lost," and works of olden times-in our days "Pelham was refused, and “ Vestiges of Creation" was refused; and "Mary Barton went round the trade. Vanity Fair" was rejected by a magazine. We need not wonder, therefore, that no one would undertake "Robinson Crusoe." It was at last bought for a mere trifle by an obscure bookseller; while, if De Foe could have published it at his own risk, it would have made his fortune. Who does not wish that he still had to read this extraordinary work for the first time? It is one of the eras in a boy's life when he gets this book. Full of life and incident, it enchains the attention from first to last, while the wisdom contained in it, and the depth of religious coloring with which it is pervaded, endear it to the heart, as long as truth and beauty have a place there. The style is plain and matter of fact, but no one notices the style while reading it. All is so natural, and unaffected, and real, that its truth seems beyond question, and on putting it down, the universal wish is, with Dr. Johnson, that it was longer. And now comes the most wonderful part of our tale. He languished for six months, (Mr. Chalmers says six weeks,) between life and death, at the end of which time his constitution suddenly threw off his disease, and he returned once more to the world. But he was no longer a dispirited and broken man. Like a phoenix new rising from the His subsequent fictions, if not equal to ashes, he came from the bed of sickness as Robinson Crusoe, are extraordinary in their with new youth, with fresh energies and ren- degree, from the same causes. We can only ovated powers. name them: "The Dumb Philosopher,' He devoted them almost entirely to fresh" Captain Singleton," "Duncan Campbell," pursuits. Thirty years of political strug-"Colonel Jacque," " Memoirs of a Cavalier." gling was enough even for him. His first The last named is, perhaps, superior in genius work was "The Family Instructor," written to all the rest. Then came the "Memoirs in dialogue. Its object was the revival of of the Plague," which is full of pathos and family religion, which had visibly decayed; exciting interest and truthfulness. Its reality and the piety, as well as the nature and good is in fact intense; we become spectators of sense pervading it, have kept it popular till the scenes in the grass-grown streets; we the present day. hear the bellmen cry, "Bring out your dead," and see the dead-carts wending to the pits and emptying their fearful burdens. The subject is, indeed, revolting; yet the treatment of it is so impressive, as well as interesting, that the reader is compelled to finish the book when he has once begun it. His chief labors were, however, in fiction; and the series of imaginative works which he now poured forth, will, as Mr. Wilson says, entail honor on his name, as long as true genius, consecrated by moral worth, shall be esteemed. His stores of reading, and his intimate knowledg eof mankind, were now turned to account. His fancy and judgment had been ripened, and, at the same time, chastened, by his many sufferings. The first 1852.] DANIEL DE FOE. long works (two of them novels) on subjects | this dreadful treachery. Committing the deswhich we shall not further name, not being olate ones to this son-in-law's protection when in accordance with the better morality of he should be gone away, "I would say," he our time. Our knowledge of them is from added of himself," and I hope with comfort, second hand, but we believe they did not at that 'tis yet well. I am near my journey's end, and am hastening to the place where all derogate from his own character. the weary are at rest, and the wicked cease to trouble; be it that the passage is rough and the day stormy, by what way soever He please to bring me to the end of it, I desire to finish life with this temper of soul in all cases, Te Deum laudamus. It adds to my grief," he concluded, "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 But alas! that is not to be exyour sorrow. pected. 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." His last breath was not far off; in a few weeks the hand of death came mercifully upon him, and his toils, and sufferings, and sorrows, were for ever over. Then followed "Religious Courtship," "A Tour through Great Britain," "New Voyage round the World," "Essay on Apparitions," "System of Magic," "Political History of the Devil," "Complete Tradesman," "Captain Carleton," with numerous tracts, chiefly on social subjects. Amongst these was one "Augusta Triumphans," which contained a projeet for a London University and for a Foundling Hospital, both of which we have seen carried out in our days. These, as well as his poetical works "Caledonia" and "Jure Divino," deserve elaborate criticism, but we must be content with naming them. He was now (1730) an old man of seventy, afflicted with both gout and stone. He seems to have borne these sufferings with equanimity, looking forward in religious confidence, as he had done from his youth, to that time when he should drop his pains for ever in the grave. His circumstances appear to have become once more somewhat easy, and he might fairly have expected to close his eyes in peace. But the world he had done so much to improve, harassed him to the last. Some creditor came on him this year, as it seems from sheer malice. He was imprisoned for a short time, and then released. To save what money he had for his children, from an enemy whom he describes as perjured, he made it over to one of his sons, in trust for two unmarried daughters and his aged wife. But his son proved worthless. "I depended upon him; I trusted him," he writes to his son-in-law; "I gave up my two dear unprovided children into his hands. But he has no compassion, and suffers 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, beside 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." Yes, the brave heart that had showed an undaunted front to all "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," could not bear up under In summing up his character we must notice the two great features of it: his intense sincerity, and his no less intense determination that, as far as possible, it should be sincerity about the truth. Always looking to another tribunal than that of man, he passed unwavering on his wonderful career. Living in a troubled time, he took his side, and having taken it, stood fast. He dared to be moral in an age of vice, and to be personally pious in an age of formalism. We have abundance of sentimentalists about us in the matters of religion, and so had he. But he dared to speak openly about Him in whom he trusted; in his tracts, and histories, and novels in the greater part of these two hundred works which have come down to us, we find him, whenever there is a suitable occasion, speaking of the great truths of revelation. And though many of his faults, and they are all on the surface, are such as we cannot now palliate, they were mostly those of a heated and controversial age, and never those of an evil heart; in Mr. Wilson's words, "Religion was uppermost in his mind; and he reaped its consolations"-may we not hopefully add, "its exceeding great reward also." |