ress."

the wondrous allegory of the "Pilgrim's Prog-| referred to, either in depreciation of De Foe, or by On Sundays he had to put on a grave way of illustrating the poet's penetration. face, and go forth with the family to the "meetingAt what time De Foe quitted the Newington house in Little St. Helen's, Bishopsgate Street," institution is not distinctly known; neither is it to hear the Rev. Dr. Annesley, an esteemed apparent what induced him to abandon the design Presbyterian minister,' ," who had been formerly of entering the Presbyterian ministry. Perhaps ejected from the incumbency of Cripplegate. he had no sufficient sense of any call to the work. It There, with subdued and steady countenance, in has even been surmised that the volatility of his disthe grave Presbyterian congregation, Daniel undoubtedly sat and listened to the fervid eloquence of the preacher, and imbibed from it something of the manly independence and invincible love of liberty which he was destined afterwards to display in his own career. It is even conceivable that the good minister sometimes visited his father's house, and it is not unlikely that, on suitable occasions, he may have put his hand on the boy's head and bade him remember to stand resolutely by the principles and religious doctrines in which he had been instructed.

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position might have proved incompatible with that dignified vocation. An early turn for authorship, and an inveterate tendency for satire, may have contributed to unfit him for entering into the ministry with an exclusive devotion to its duties, and may possibly have determined him to renounce his purpose, for the sake of addressing himself more freely to literary and political pursuits. At any rate, at the age of twenty-one he came forth boldly as an author, embracing the popular side in politics. His first production was a spirited lampoon, levelled at the noted Roger L'Estrange, who, in a work entitled a "Guide to the Inferior Clergy," had recently advanced some highly illiberal notions. De Foe's pamphlet bore the title of " Speculum

It were interesting to know whether Daniel ever carried a butcher's tray, and what was the price of mutton, as his father retailed it to customers, two hundred years ago. To such questions as these, Crape-Gownorum; or a Looking-Glass for the however, we can now obtain no answer. But Young Academics, new Foyl'd; with Reflections judging from the prosperous circumstances of his on some of the late High-flown Sermons, to which family, and from the fact that young De Foe was is added an Essay towards a Sermon of the Newest early destined for the Presbyterian ministry, it Fashion. By a Guide to the Inferior Clergy. seems improbable that he was ever actively connected London; 1682." The title was adopted in alluwith his father's business. At the age of fourteen, sion to the crape-gowns then in use among the inafter he had been sufficiently qualified by inferior ferior clergy, and the banter was sufficiently effectteachers, he was sent to a Nonconformist college, ive to put them out of fashion, and thereby damage or academy, at Newington, then under the direction the respectability of the material, against which, of the Rev. Charles Morton, a gentleman who had however, the author had no particular antipathy. the reputation of being a polite and profound The design of the work was to expose and ridicule scholar." Here he is reported to have had great the pretensions of the High Church Faction. The advantages for learning, and to have lived in very most amusing portion is the sermon, which is a agreeable society. Little, however, is known of clever parody of the pulpit discourses of the times, his manner of life, or of the progress which he made and was especially intended to satirize the "crapewhile residing at this institution; but it has been gown men" for their interferences with politics, concluded, from certain passages in his writings, that he had not failed to turn his opportunities to account. He has informed us that he had in his time been master of five languages, and that he had studied the mathematics, natural philosophy, logic, geography, and history. With the theory and practical capabilities of the English constitution he was thoroughly acquainted; and he sometimes boasts of having investigated politics as a science. Under the direction of his tutor, he went through the authorized courses of theology, in which he acquired such a proficiency as enabled him to cope with the acutest writers of the disputatious age in which he lived. His knowledge of ecclesiastical history was also very considerable; and, indeed, his attainments in all departments of general information were such as to entitle him to be considered a person of great intelligence and cultivation. A man of deep or extensive " learning," in the technical acceptation, he certainly never was, nor as such was he ever desirous of being regarded; but that he was anything like the "illiterate person" which some of his opponents delighted to represent him to be, there is evidence enough in his writings to disprove. The poet Gay, adopting the cant of the Scriblerus Club, speaks of him as a fellow who had excellent natural parts, but wanted a small" which is scarcely paralleled in history." On the foundation of learning," and cites him as "a lively suppression of this rebellion, our adventurous instance of those wits who, as an ingenious author volunteer narrowly escaped being taken prisoner. says, will endure but one skimming;" but this is Eluding pursuit, however, he managed to save his a judgment which time has since emphatically head; and being personally unknown in that part reversed; and it is not likely that it will be again of the kingdom which was the seat of the insurrec

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that they may see how ridiculous they are, when they stand fretting, and fuming, and heating themselves about state affairs in their pulpits. Its success with the town, and the fertility of the subject, induced the author to follow it up with a second part, in which, however, he deals more seriously with the government on account of its severity to Dissenters, and, by exhibiting the practical effects of persecution, cleverly exposes its absurdity. The work seems to have attracted attention enough to lead some one to reply to it, as the same year we have notice of a publication bearing the title of " Reflections upon Two Scurrilous Libels, called Speculum Crape-Gownorum." The author is commonly supposed to have been L'Estrange himself.

Three years after the publication of his pamphlet-namely, in the summer of 1685-De Foe engaged in practical hostility against the government of James II., by joining the standard of the Duke of Monmonth when he landed in Dorsetshire with his hundred and fifty men, for the purpose of delivering the country from the dominion of arbitrary rule, and the anticipated sway of popery, and thereby gaining for himself the crown of England a romantic kind of invasion," says Welwood,

tion, he does not appear to have been afterwards suspected, and therefore was never brought to trial for his treason. Returning subsequently to London, he next proceeded to settle himself peaceably in business, resolved, if possible, to refrain from interfering further in public or polemical affairs. In Freeman's Court, near the thoroughfare of Cornhill, he accordingly became established as a hosefactor, designing to live by a reasonable commission on the sale of stockings. In 1688, being a freeman by birth, he was admitted into the livery of London. For ten years he devoted himself more or less to business; but the times were too unfavorable to permit him to succeed. The discontents and agitations of the country, occasioned by the arbitrary proceedings of the king, who was aiming at absolute power over the lives and consciences of his subjects, and fomented by the disputes and controversies of the several factions into which the nation was divided, were of too exciting and interesting a character for a man of De Foe's active and earnest temperament to refrain from taking part in them. Mixing continually in company, in coffeehouses and in taverns, he seems to have spent more of his time in discussing the movements and pretensions of the parties, and the bearings of political disputes, than in attending to his personal interests at the counter. With him, it would appear, there was no alternative; when the well-being of the nation, and the most important liberties of the people, were endangered, all private convenience and advantage ceased, in comparison, to have any sensible hold on his regards. He therefore stood forth boldly in defence of the popular rights, speaking and writing whatsoever might seem to him calculated to consolidate and support them.

jected to subscribe, and scrupled not to denounce it as an abominable heresy. Such a presumptuous exaltation of the divine right of kings he considered to be entirely subversive of the divine rights of men; and, rather than acknowledge it, or sanction its acknowledgment, he was constrained to try the case by logical disputation, and was even nowise disinclined to try it by argument of battle. To this disposition, indeed, the whole country came at last. James II., in attempting to carry the current dogmas into practice, aroused a universal opposition to his schemes and government; and Church of England people and Dissenters finally combined to expel him from the kingdom. The 4th of November, the day on which the Prince of Orange landed, De Foe is reported to have commemorated ever afterwards as a sort of sacred holiday. "It is a day," said he, "famous on various accounts, and every one of them dear to Britons who love their country, value the Protestant interest, or who have an aversion to tyranny and oppression." In the following year, when King William and Queen Mary visited the city, our exulting Dissenter rode on horseback in the proces sion as a member of a royal regiment of volunteers.

The Revolution being settled, De Foe appears for some time to have abstained from politics, and to have directed his attention principally to affairs of trade. For some years past he had been engaged in" commercial speculations with Spain and Portugal;" but, being repeatedly unsuccessful, he finally failed in business. The occupations of trade seldom assort well with literary genius, and it is thought that De Foe's lively and discursive talents were the principal hindrance to his success. "With the usual imprudence of superior genius," says Mr. Chalmers, "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

One of the prominent dogmas of the day, and one which served the cause of despotism more effectually than any other, was the absurd pretension of the unlimited and unconditional divine right of kings. "It was for many years," says De Foe, "and I am witness to it, that the pulpit sounded nothing but the duty of absolute submission, obedi-employed in the calculations of the counting-house; ence without reserve, subjection to princes as God's vicegerents, accountable to none, to be withstood in nothing, and by no person. I have heard it publicly preached, that if the king commanded my head, and sent his messengers to fetch it, I was bound to submit, and stand still while it was cut off." That the reader may be assured that this is really no caricature of the opinions which then prevailed, let him take the following delectable passage from a published sermon of the Bishop of Chester in those days, who undoubtedly spoke only what were the common sentiments of the clergy:"Though the king," saith he, "should not please to humor us-though he rend off the mantle from our bodies, as Saul did from Samuel-nay, though he should sentence us to death, of which, blessed be God and the king, there is no danger; yet, if we were living members of the Church of England, we must neither open our mouths nor lift up our hands against him, but honor him before the elders and people of Israel; nor must we ask our prince why he governs us otherwise than we please to be governed ourselves; we must neither call him to account for his religion, nor question his policy in civil matters, for he is made our king by God's law, of which the law of the land is only declarative!"

To this sort of doctrine De Foe altogether ob* Somers' Tracts, ix. 129

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." Be this as it may, it is very evident that his failure was no impeachment to his honesty. An angry creditor, indeed, took out a commission of bankruptcy against him; but this was shortly afterwards superseded, on the petition of those to whom he was most indebted, and who accepted a composition on his single bond. This was punctually paid, as he became capable of paying it, by efforts of unwearied diligence. Some of his creditors who had been thus satisfied, falling afterwards into difficulties themselves, De Foe voluntarily paid up their entire claim-" an example of honesty," says Mr. Chalmers, "which it would be unjust to De Foe and to the world to conceal." The amount for which he failed cannot now be ascertained, but it must have been considerable, and shows that he was no peddling or petty trader, such as his political enemies delighted in representing him. Being reproached by Lord Haversham as a mercenary, De Foe tells him, in 1705, that, "with a numerous family, and no help 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.'

* Reply to Lord Haversham's Vindication.

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in public upon any other day. The fact of De Foe's residence in Bristol, either at this or some later period of his life, is further corroborated by another circumstance, mentioned to Mr. Wilson by the friend alluded to. By this it appears that there was formerly a tavern in Castle Street, known by the sign of the Red Lion, and kept by one Mark Watkins, "an intelligent man, who had been in better circumstances," and whose house was in considerable repute among the Bristol tradesmen, who were then in the habit of resorting to it after dinner for the purpose of smoking their pipes, and hearing the news and small talk of the day. Here De Foe, following the custom of the times, is reported to have spent an occasional afternoon among the company, and was well known to the landlord under the same name of "The Sunday Gentleman." Mark Watkins, who appears to have been a humorist, is said to have entertained his guests in after-times with a very whimsical account of a strange man, who went about Bristol clothed in goat-skins, and who he affirmed was none other than the celebrated Robinson Crusoe.* The house, we believe, is still standing, but has been latterly reduced to a mere pot-house, so that none need go there to make inquiries about De Foe.

As the estimate to be taken of De Foe's moral | Bristol, it has been supposed that he did so at the character must be in great part determined by his time when he was under apprehensions from his conduct under these pecuniary difficulties, it is es- creditors. There is even a tradition which seems sential that whatever evidence there may be now to countenance the supposition. A gentleman of existing illustrative of his integrity should be fairly that city informed Mr. Wilson that one of his stated. In the first place, it would appear that his ancestors had a distinct recollection of De Foe, and personal probity was unsuspected; for "so high a often spoke of having seen him walking in the sense of his honor was entertained by his creditors, streets of Bristol, accoutred in the fashion of the that they agreed to take his own personal security times, with a fine flowing wig, lace ruffles, and a for the amount of composition upon his debts." sword by his side; also that he there obtained the The confidence reposed in him seems likewise to name of "The Sunday Gentleman," because, have been justified, inasmuch as he returned ulti-through fear of bailiffs, he did not dare to appear mately to all or the greater number of his creditors the full amount of their original claim. "This," says Mr. Wilson, "was a fine illustration of the effect of moral principle, and an exemplification of the advice he gave to others." Which advice is Never think yourselves discharged in conscience, though you may be discharged in law. The obligation of an honest mind can never die. No title of honor, no recorded merit, no mark of distinction, can exceed that lasting appellation-an honest man. He that lies buried under such an epitaph has more said of him than volumes of history can contain. The payment of debts, after fair discharges, is the clearest title to such a character that I know; and how any man can begin again, and hope for a blessing from Heaven, or favor from man, without such a resolution, I know not."* We thus see that De Foe's notions of obligation were nowise lax or latitudinarian. As an illustration of his practice, let us take the following recorded testimony to his honesty, by one who was no friend of his, from a pamphlet entitled, “A Dialogue between a Dissenter and the Observator," published in 1702. "I must do one piece of justice to the man," observes the writer, "though I love him no better than you do. It is this, that meeting a gentleman in a coffee-house, when I and everybody else were railing at him, the gentleman took us up with this short speech- Gentlemen,' said he, I know this De Foe as well as any of you, for I was one of his creditors, compounded with him, and discharged him fully. Several years afterwards he sent for me, and, though he was clearly discharged, he paid me all the remainder of his debt voluntarily, and of his own accord; and he told me, that as far as God should enable him, he intended to do so with everybody. When he had done, he desired me to set my hand to a paper to acknowledge it, which I readily did, and found a great many names to the paper before me; and I think myself bound to own it, though I am no friend to the book he wrote any more than you.'" The work alluded to was the "Shortest Way with the Dissenters," of which we shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

De Foe is thus as far as possible exonerated from blame, and in this unhappy failure must be regarded rather as an unfortunate than as a fraudulent or unprincipled speculator-as many of the contemporary scribblers, without knowing him sufficiently, were accustomed to consider him. The passage just quoted affords as satisfactory a proof of his upright and honorable efforts and intentions as can be reasonably desired. To avoid the operation of the harsh and crushing laws, however, that were then in force against insolvents, he appears to have absconded, and lived in hiding for some time under a blighted reputation. To what part of the kingdom he retired is not clearly known; but as it was ascertained that he once resided for a while at

*Review, iii. 147-48.

Having at length come to a satisfactory arrangement with his creditors, De Foe was enabled to emerge from his retirement. For two years he had been living in unpleasant and involuntary leisure; not indeed altogether idly; for, notwithstanding the pressure of his affairs, he contrived to write a book. This was his "Essay upon Projects," which, however, he did not find it convenient to publish till nearly five years afterwards. Of his proceedings subsequent to his liberation he himself gives us the following account :-"Misfortunes in business having unhinged me from matters of trade, it was about 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 offers 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 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." The war in question was an expensive one with France, entered on in support of the title of King William, and for the purpose of arresting the conquests of Louis XIV.; and it was part of De Foe's business to devise and suggest taxes, to enable the government to carry on the enterprise. "Some time after this," says he in continuation of the statement just quoted, "I was, without the least application of mine, and being then seventy miles from London, sent for to be the accountant

*De Foe's Life and Times, by Walter Wilson. † Appeal to Honor and Justice, pp. 5, 6.

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would give an undoubted overthrow to the tyranny of vice. But we of the Plebii find ourselves justly aggrieved in all this work of reformation, and the partiality of the reforming rigor makes the real work impossible. Our laws against all manner of vicious practices are very severe; but these are all cobweb laws, in which the small flies are caught, and the great ones break through. My Lord Mayor has whipped about the poor beggars, and a few scandalous females have been sent to the House of Correction; some alehouse keepers and vintners have been fined for drawing drink on the Sabbathday; but all this falls upon us of the mob, as if all the vice lay among us. We appeal to yourselves, whether laws or proclamations are capable of having any effect while the very benches of our justices are infected? 'Tis hard, gentlemen, to be punished for a crime by a man as guilty as ourselves; this is really punishing men for being poor, which is no crime at all; as a thief may be said to be hanged not for the theft, but for being taken." De Foe is not backward to acknowledge that in the upper classes are to be found many persons of honor and good morals, but their partiality in the execution of the laws rendered them almost as criminal as the vicious. "The quality of the person," he observes, has been a license to the open exercise of the worst crimes; as if there were any baronets, knights, or esquires in the next world, who, because of those little steps custom had raised them on higher than their neighbors, they should be exempted from the divine judicature; or, as Captain Vratz, who was hanged for murdering Esquire Thynne, said, 'God would show them some respect, as they were gentlemen.'

better testimony than that of Dr. Franklin, who found it in his father's library, and, alluding to it, says, he received impressions from it which influenced some of the principal events of his after-life. After the publication of this performance De Foe several times exercised his pen in writing pamphlets on various political topics, but produced nothing of any moment till in 1698 he came forward with a tract designed to further the reformation of manners in the nation. The exceeding dissoluteness of the times had offended the moral sense of the constitutional monarch, who had been used to stricter ways, and accordingly, in his speech of the present year, he signified a desire for improvement. "I esteem it," said he, one of the greatest advantages of the peace, (which had lately been concluded,) that I shall now have leisure to rectify such corruptions and abuses as have crept into any part of the administration during the war, and effectually to discourage profaneness and immorality." The House of Commons, in their address to the king shortly afterwards, commended his design, declaring their readiness to support him; and, "in concurrence with his majesty's pious intentions, they most humbly desired that his majesty would issue out his royal proclamation, commanding all judges, justices of the peace, and other magistrates, to put in speedy execution the good laws that were now in force against profaneness and immorality, giving encouragement to all such as did their duty therein." The king, in reply, said that" he could not but be very well pleased with an address of this nature, and he would give immediate directions to the several particulars they desired." Accordingly, a proclamation was issued for preventing and punishing the crimes and vices specified; and the Parlia- Upon the importance of example in the higher ment passed a bill to the same effect. In the like orders, he remarks—“ If my own watch goes false, spirit the Archbishop of Canterbury drew up some it deceives me and no one else; but if the town "excellent rules for the government of the clergy," clock goes false, it deceives the whole parish. The which he communicated in a circular letter to the gentry are the leaders of the mob; if they are lewd bishops of his province. These several proceedings and drunken, the others strive to imitate them; if De Foe looked upon with interest, but only with a they discourage vice and intemperance, the others partial satisfaction, inasmuch as he perceived that will not be so forward in it, nor so fond of it." Of the pains and penalties instituted to effect the in- another class of persons who, by the theory of their tended reformation were all likely to have a one-position, should be patterns of all goodness, he sided and exclusive operation, and would fall mainly, if not entirely, on those classes of society who were called the "common people." To serve the cause of these, he therefore 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;" and in this production he presented the public with a view of the subject not theretofore considered, and facetiously suggested a variety of reformations which, in his opinion, were required to insure the success of the rigorous measures contemplated.

observes-"The clergy also ought not to count themselves exempted in this matter, whose lives have been, and in some places still are, so vicious and so loose that it is well for England we are not subject to be much priest-ridden. The parson preaches a thundering sermon against drunkenness, and the justice of peace sets my poor neighbor in the stocks, and I am like to be much the better for either, when I know, perhaps, that this same parson and this same justice were both drunk together but the night before. A vicious parson that preaches well, but lives ill, may be likened to an unskilful horseman who opens the gate on the wrong side, and lets other folks through, but shuts himself out. The application of this rough doctrine," he concludes," is, in short, both to the gentry and clergy

In searching for the proper cure of an epidemic disease," says he, " physicians tell us it is first necessary to know the cause. Immorality is with--Physicians, heal yourselves!" out doubt the present reigning distemper of the For his own labors in the cause of reformation, nation; and the king and parliament, who are in- De Foe informs us that he was signally ill treated, deed the proper physicians, seem nobly inclined to and calumniated "as a reproacher of magistrates, undertake the cure. But as a person under the a reviler of the rulers of the people, and a meddler violence of a disease sends in vain for a physician, with what was not his own business." The work, unless he resolves to make use of his prescrip- however, was not without its influence on the pubtion, so in vain does the king attempt to reform a lic; we are told that "an honest, learned, and nation, unless they are willing to reform thein-judicious clergyman was even pleased to commend selves." After noticing with due commendation it from the pulpit"-though, as De Foe relates, he the efforts of the public authorities, he says was censured for the sermon, and " is hated to this "These are great things, and, if well improved, | day (eight years afterwards) by all the leading men