Читать книгу The Life of Daniel De Foe - George Chalmers - Страница 4

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It is lamented by those who labour the fields of British biography, that after being entangled in briars they are often rewarded with the scanty products of barrenness. The lives of literary men are generally passed in the obscurities of the closet, which conceal even from friendly inquiries the artifices of study, whereby each may have risen to eminence. And during the same moment that the diligent biographer sets out to ask for information, with regard to the origin, the modes of life, or the various fortunes of writers who have amused or instructed their country, the housekeeper, the daughter, or grandchild, that knew connections and traditions, drop into the grave.

These reflections naturally arose from my inquiries about the life of the author of The History of The Union of Great Britain; and of The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Whether he were born on the neighbouring continent, or in this island; in London, or in the country; was equally uncertain. And whether his name were Foe, or De Foe, was somewhat doubtful. Like Swift, he had perhaps reasons for concealing what would have added little to his consequence. It is at length known, with sufficient certainty, that our author was the son of James Foe, of the parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, London, citizen and butcher. The concluding sentiment of The True-born Englishman, we now see, was then as natural as it will ever be just:—

Then, let us boast of ancestors no more,

For, fame of families is all a cheat;

'Tis personal virtue only makes us great.

If we may credit the gazette, Daniel Foe, or De Foe, as he is said by his enemies to have called himself, that he might not be thought an Englishman, was born in London[1], about the year 1663. His family were probably dissenters[2], among whom he received no unlettered education; at least it is plain, from his various writings, that he was a zealous defender of their principles, and a strenuous supporter of their politics, before the liberality of our rulers in church and state had freed this conduct from danger. He merits the praise which is due to sincerity in manner of thinking, and to uniformity in habits of acting, whatever obloquy may have been cast on his name, by attributing writings to him, which, as they belonged to others, he was studious to disavow.

Our author was educated at a dissenting academy, which was kept at Newington-green, by Charles Morton. He delights to praise that learned gentleman[3], whose instructive lessons he probably enjoyed from 1675 to 1680, as a master who taught nothing either in politics, or science, which was dangerous to monarchial government, or which was improper for a diligent scholar to know. Being in 1705 accused by Tutchin of illiterature, De Foe archly acknowledged, "I owe this justice to my ancient father, who is yet living, and in whose behalf I freely testify, that if I am a blockhead, it was nobody's fault but my own; he having spared nothing that might qualify me to match the accurate Dr. B—— or the learned Tutchin[4]."

De Foe was born a writer, as other men are born generals and statesmen; and when he was not twenty-one, he published, in 1683, a pamphlet against a very prevailing sentiment in favour of the Turks, as opposed to the Austrians; very justly thinking, as he avows in his riper age, that it was better the popish house of Austria should ruin the protestants in Hungary, than the infidel house of Ottoman should ruin both protestants and papists, by overrunning Germany[5]. De Foe was a man who would fight as well as write for his principles; and before he was three-and-twenty he appeared in arms for the duke of Monmouth, in June 1685. Of this exploit he boasts[6] in his latter years, when it was no longer dangerous to avow his participation in that imprudent enterprise, with greater men of similar principles.

Having escaped from the dangers of battle, and from the fangs of Jeffreys, De Foe found complete security in the more gainful pursuits of peace. Yet he was prompted by his zeal to mingle in the controversies of the reign of James II. whom he efficaciously opposed, by warning the dissenters of the secret danger of the insidious tolerance which was offered by the monarch's bigotry, or by the minister's artifice[7]. When our author collected his writings, he did not think proper to republish either his tract against the Turks, or his pamphlet against the king.

De Foe was admitted a liveryman of London on the 26th of January, 1687–8; when, being allowed his freedom by birth, he was received a member of that eminent corporation. As he had endeavoured to promote the revolution by his pen and his sword, he had the satisfaction of partaking, ere long, in the pleasures and advantages of that great event. During the hilarity of that moment, the lord mayor of London asked king William to partake of the city feast on the 29th of October, 1689. Every honour was paid the sovereign of the people's choice. A regiment of volunteers, composed of the chief citizens, and commanded by the celebrated earl of Peterborough, attended the king and queen from Whitehall to the Mansion-house. Among these troopers, gallantly mounted, and richly accoutred, was Daniel De Foe, if we may believe Oldmixon[8].

While our author thus displayed his zeal, and courted notice, he is said to have acted as a hosier in Freeman's Yard, Cornhill; but the hosier[9] and the poet are very irreconcilable characters. With the usual imprudence of superior genius, he was carried by his vivacity into companies who were gratified by his wit. He spent those hours with a small society for the cultivation of polite learning, which he ought to have employed in the calculations of the counting-house; and being obliged to abscond from his creditors, in 1692, he naturally attributed those misfortunes to the war, which were probably owing to his own misconduct[10]. An angry creditor took out a commission of bankruptcy, which was soon superseded on the petition of those to whom he was most indebted, who accepted a composition on his single bond. This he punctually paid by the efforts of unwearied diligence. But some of those creditors, who had been thus satisfied, falling afterwards into distress themselves, De Foe voluntarily paid them their whole claims, being then in rising circumstances from king William's favour[11]. This is such an example of honesty as it would be unjust to De Foe and to the world to conceal. Being reproached in 1705 by lord Haversham with mercenariness, our author feelingly mentions; "How, with a numerous family, and no helps but his own industry, he had forced his way with undiscouraged diligence, through a sea of misfortunes, and reduced his debts, exclusive of composition, from seventeen thousand to less than five thousand pounds[12]." He continued to carry on the pantile works near Tilbury-fort, though probably with no great success. It was afterwards sarcastically said, that he did not, like the Egyptians, require bricks without straw, but, like the Jews, required bricks without paying his labourers[13]. He was born for other enterprises, which, if they did not gain him opulence, have conferred a renown that will descend the stream of time with the language wherein his works are written.

While he was yet under thirty, and had mortified no great man by his satire, or offended any party by his pamphlets, he had acquired friends by his powers of pleasing, who did not, with the usual instability of friendships, desert him amidst his distresses. They offered to settle him as a factor at Cadiz, where, as a trader, he had some previous correspondence. In this situation he might have procured business by his care, and accumulated wealth without a risk; but, as he assures us in his old age, Providence, which had other work for him to do, placed a secret aversion in his mind to quitting England[14]. He had confidence enough in his own talents to think, that on this field he could gather laurels, or at least gain a livelihood.

In a projecting age, as our author denominates king William's reign, he was himself a projector. While he was yet young, De Foe was prompted by a vigorous mind to think of many schemes, and to offer, what was most pleasing to the ruling powers, ways and means for carrying on the war. He wrote, as he says, many sheets about the coin; he proposed a register for seamen, long before the act of parliament was thought of; he projected county banks, and factories for goods; he mentioned a proposal for a commission of inquiries into bankrupt's estates; he contrived a pension-office for the relief of the poor[15]. At length, in January 1696–7, he published his Essay upon Projects; which he dedicated to Dalby Thomas, not as a commissioner of glass duties, under whom he then served, or as a friend to whom he acknowledges obligations, but as to the most proper judge on the subject. It is always curious to trace a thought, in order to see where it first originated, or how it was afterwards expanded. Among other projects, which show a wide range of knowledge, he suggests to king William the imitation of Lewis XIV., in the establishment of a society "for encouraging polite learning, for refining the English language, and for preventing barbarisms of manners." Prior offered in 1700 the same project to king William, in his Carmen Seculare; Swift mentioned in 1710 to lord Oxford a proposal for improving the English tongue; and Tickell flatters himself in his Prospect of Peace, that "our daring language, shall sport no more in arbitrary sound." However his projects were taken, certain it is, that when De Foe ceased to be a trader, he was, by the interposition of Dalby Thomas probably, appointed, in 1695, accountant to the commissioners for managing the duties on glass; who, with our author, ceased to act on the 1st of August, 1699, when the tax was suppressed by act of parliament[16].

From projects of ways and means, De Foe's ardour soon carried him into the thorny paths of satiric poetry; and his muse produced, in January, 1700–1, The True-born Englishman. Of the origin of this satire, which was the cause of much good fortune, but of some disasters, he gives himself the following account: During this time came out an abhorred pamphlet, in very ill verse, written by one Mr. Tutchin, and called The Foreigners; in which the author, who he was I then knew not, fell personally upon the king, then upon the Dutch nation, and, after having reproached his majesty with crimes that his worst enemies could not think of without horror, he sums up all in the odious name of Foreigner. This filled me with a kind of rage against the book, and gave birth to a trifle which I never could hope should have met with so general an acceptation. The sale was prodigious, and probably unexampled; as Sacheverell's Trial had not then appeared[17]. The True-born Englishman was answered, paragraph by paragraph, in February, 1700–1, by a writer who brings haste to apologise for dulness. For this Defence of king William and the Dutch, which was doubtless circulated by detraction and by power, De Foe was amply rewarded. "How this poem was the occasion," says he, "of my being known to his majesty; how I was afterwards received by him; how employed abroad; and how, above my capacity of deserving, rewarded, is no part of the present case[18]." Of the particulars, which the author thus declined to tell, nothing can now be told. It is only certain that he was admitted to personal interviews with the king, who was no reader of poetry; and that for the royal favours De Foe was always grateful.

When the pen and ink war was raised against a standing army, subsequent to the peace of Ryswick, our author published An Argument, to prove that a standing army, with consent of parliament, is not inconsistent with a free government[19]. "Liberty and property," says he, "are the glorious attributes of the English nation; and the dearer they are to us, the less danger we are in of losing them; but I could never yet see it proved, that the danger of losing them by a small army was such, as we should expose ourselves to all the world for it. It is not the king of England alone, but the sword of England in the hand of the king, that gives laws of peace and war now to Europe; and those who would thus wrest the sword out of his hand in time of peace, bid the fairest of all men in the world to renew the war." He who is desirous of reading this treatise on an interesting topic, will meet with strength of argument, conveyed in elegant language[20].

When the nation flamed with faction, the grand jury of Kent presented to the commons, on the 8th of May, 1701, a petition, which desired them, "to mind the public business more, and their private heats less;" and which contained a sentiment, that there was a design, as Burnet tells, other counties and the city of London should equally adopt. Messrs. Culpeppers, Polhill, Hamilton, and Champneys, who avowed this intrepid paper, were committed to the Gatehouse, amid the applauses of their countrymen. It was on this occasion that De Foe's genius dictated a Remonstrance, which was signed Legion, and which has been recorded in history for its bold truths and seditious petulance. De Foe's zeal induced him to assume a woman's dress, while he delivered this factious paper to Harley, the speaker, as he entered the house of commons[21]. It was then also that our author, who was transported by an equal attachment to the country and the court, published The Original Power of the collective Body of the People of England examined and asserted[22]. This timeful treatise he dedicated to king William, in a dignified strain of nervous eloquence. "It is not the least of the extraordinaries of your majesty's character," says he, "that, as you are king of your people, so you are the people's king; a title, which, as it is the most glorious, so it is the most indisputable." To the lords and commons he addresses himself in a similar tone: The vindication of the original right of all men to the government of themselves, he tells them, is so far from being a derogation from, that it is a confirmation of their legal authority. Every lover of liberty must be pleased with the perusal of a treatise, which vies with Mr. Locke's famous tract in powers of reasoning, and is superior to it in the graces of style.

At a time when "union and charity, the one relating to our civil, and the other to our religious concerns, were strangers in the land," De Foe published The Freeholder's Plea against Stock-jobbing Elections of Parliament men[23]. "It is very rational to suppose," says our author, "that they who will buy will sell; or, what seems more rational, they who have bought must sell." This is certainly a persuasive performance, though we may suppose, that many voters were influenced then by arguments still more persuasive. And he concludes with a sentiment, which has not been too often repeated, That nothing can make us formidable to our neighbours, and maintain the reputation of our nation, but union among ourselves.

How much soever king William may have been pleased with The True-born Englishman, or with other services, he was little gratified probably by our author's Reasons against a War with France. This argument, showing that the French king's owning the prince of Wales as king of England, is no sufficient ground of a war, is one of the finest, because it is one of the most useful, tracts in the English language[24]. After remarking the universal cry of the people for war, our author declares he is not against war with France, provided it be on justifiable grounds; but, he hopes, England will never be so inconsiderable a nation, as to make use of dishonest pretences to bring to pass any of her designs; and he wishes that he who desires we should end the war honourably, ought to desire also that we begin it fairly. "But if we must have a war," our author hoped, "it might be wholly on the defensive, in Flanders, in order to carry on hostilities in remote places, where the damage may be greater, by wounding the Spaniard in some weaker part; so as upon a peace he shall be glad to quit Flanders for an equivalent." Who at present does not wish that De Foe's argument had been more studiously read, and more efficaciously admitted?

A scene of sorrow soon after opened, which probably embittered our author's future life. The death of king William deprived him of a protector, who, he says, trusted, esteemed, and much more valued him than he deserved: and who, as he flattered himself amidst his later distresses, would never have suffered him to be treated as he had been in the world. Of that monarch's memory, he says, that he never patiently heard it abused, nor ever could do so; and in this gratitude to a royal benefactor there is surely much to praise, but nothing to blame[25].

In the midst of that furious contest of party, civil and religious, which ensued on the accession of queen Anne, our author was no unconcerned spectator. He reprinted his Inquiry into the Occasional Conformity of Dissenters[26], which had been published in 1697, with a dedication to sir Humphrey Edwin, a lord mayor, who having carried the regalia to a conventicle, gave rise to some wit in The Tale of a Tub, and occasioned some clauses in an act of parliament. De Foe now dedicated his Inquiry to John How, a dissenting minister, of whom Anthony Wood speaks well. Mr. How did not much care, says Calamy[27], to enter upon an argument of that nature with one of so warm a temper as the author of that Inquiry, and contented himself with publishing some Considerations on the Preface of an Inquiry concerning the Occasional Conformity of Dissenters. De Foe's pertinacity soon produced a reply[28]. He outlaughs and outtalks Mr. How, who had provoked his antagonist's wrath by personal sarcasms, and who now thought it hard that the old should be shoved off the stage by the young. De Foe reprobates, with the unforbearance of the times, "this fast and loose game of religion;" for which he had never met with any considerable excuse but this, "that this is no conformity in point of religion, but done as a civil action." He soon after published another Inquiry, in order to show, that the dissenters are no ways concerned in occasional conformity. The controversy, which in those days occasioned such vehement contests between the two houses of parliament, is probably silenced for ever.

"During the first fury of high-flying," says he, "I fell a sacrifice for writing against the madness of that high party, and in the service of the dissenters." He alludes here to The Shortest Way; which he published towards the end of the year 1702; and which is a piece of exquisite irony, though there are certainly passages in it that might have shown considerate men how much the author had been in jest. He complains how hard it was, that this should not have been perceived by all the town, and that not one man can see it, either churchman or dissenter. This is one of the strongest proofs how much the minds of men were inflamed against each other, and how little the virtues of mutual forbearance and personal kindness existed amid the clamour of contradiction, which then shook the kingdom, and gave rise to some of the most remarkable events in our annals[29]. The commons showed their zeal, however they may have studied their dignity, by prosecuting[30] several libellists.

During the previous twenty years of his life, De Foe had busied himself unconsciously in charging a mine, which now blew himself and his family into the air. He had fought for Monmouth; he had opposed king James; he had vindicated the Revolution; he had panegyrised king William; he had defended the rights of the collective body of the people; he had displeased the treasurer and the general, by objecting to the Flanders' war; he had bantered sir Edward Seymour, and sir Christopher Musgrave, the tory leaders of the commons; he had just ridiculed all the high-fliers in the kingdom; and he was at length obliged to seek for shelter from the indignation of persons and parties, thus overpowering and resistless.

A proclamation was issued in January, 1702–3[31], offering a reward of fifty pounds for discovering his retreat. De Foe was described by the gazette, "as a middle-sized spare man, about forty years old, of a brown complexion, and dark brown hair, though he wears a wig, having a hook nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes, and a large mole near his mouth."

He soon published An Explanation; though he "wonders to find there should be any occasion for it." "But since ignorance," says he, "has led most men to a censure of the book, and some people are like to come under the displeasure of the government for it; in justice to those who are in danger to suffer by it; in submission to the parliament and council, who may be offended at it; and courtesy to all mistaken people, who, it seems, have not penetrated into the real design, the author presents the world with the genuine meaning of the paper, which he hopes may allay the anger of government, or at least satisfy the minds of such as imagine a design to inflame and divide us[32]". Neither his submissiveness to the ruling powers, nor his generosity to his printers, was a sufficient shield from the resentment of his enemies. He was found guilty of a libel, sentenced to the pillory, and adjudged to be fined and imprisoned[33]. Thus, as he acknowledges, was he a second time ruined; and by this affair, as he asserts, he lost above £3,500 sterling, which consisted probably in his brick works, and in the more abundant product of his pen.

When by these means, immured in Newgate, our author consoled himself with the animating reflection, that, having meant well, he unjustly suffered. He had a mind too active to be idle in the solitude of a prison, which is seldom invaded by visitors. And he wrote a hymn to the pillory, that—

Hieroglyphic state machine,

Contrived to punish fancy in.

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:

The first intent of laws

Was to correct the effect, and check the cause.

And all the ends of punishment

Were only future mischiefs to prevent:

But justice is inverted, when

Those engines of the law,

Instead of pinching vicious men,

Keep honest ones in awe[34].

He employed this involuntary leisure in correcting for the press a collection of his writings, which, with several things he had no hand in, had been already published by a piratical printer. He thought it a most unaccountable boldness in him to print that particular book called The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, while he lay under the public resentment for the same fact. In this collection of 1703, there are one-and-twenty treatises in poetry and prose, beginning with The True-born Englishman, and ending with The Shortest Way to Peace and Union. To this volume there was prefixed the first print of De Foe; to which was afterwards added, the apt inscription: Laudatur et alget[35].

In the solitariness of a gaol, the energy of De Foe projected the Review. This is a periodical paper in 4to., which was first published on the 19th of February, 1703–4; and which was intended to treat of news, foreign and domestic; of politics, British and European; of trade, particular and universal. But our author foresaw, from the natural aversion of the age to any tedious affair, that however profitable, the world would never read, if it were not diverting. With this design, both instructive and amusing, he skilfully institutes a Scandal Club, which discusses questions in divinity, morals, war, trade, language, poetry, love, marriage, drunkenness, and gaming. Thus, it is easy to see, that the Review pointed the way to the Tatlers, Spectators, and Guardians, which may be allowed, however, to have treated those interesting topics with more delicacy of humour, more terseness of style, and greater depth of learning; yet has De Foe many passages, both of prose and poetry, which, for refinement of wit, neatness of expression, and efficacy of moral, would do honour to Steele or to Addison. Of all this was Johnson unconscious, when he speaks of the Tatlers and Spectators as the first English writers who had undertaken to reform either the savageness of neglect, or the impertinence of civility; to show when to speak, or to be silent; how to refuse, or how to comply[36].

In the midst of these labours our author published, in July, 1704, The Storm; or, a Collection of the most remarkable Casualties, which happened in the tempest, on the 23rd of November, 1703[37]. In explaining the natural causes of winds De Foe shows more science, and in delivering the opinions of the ancients that this island was more subject to storms than other parts of the world, he displays more literature than he has been generally supposed to possess. Our author is moreover entitled to yet higher praise. He seized that awful occasion to inculcate the fundamental truths of religion; the being of a God, the superintendency of Providence, the certainty of heaven and hell, the one to reward, the other to punish.

While, as he tells himself, he lay friendless in the prison of Newgate, his family ruined, and himself without hopes of deliverance, a message was brought him from a person of honour, whom till that time he had not the least knowledge of. This was no less a person than sir Robert Harley, the speaker of the house of commons. Harley approved probably of the principles and conduct of De Foe, and doubtless foresaw, that, during a factious age, such a genius could be converted to many uses. And he sent a verbal message to the prisoner, desiring to know what he could do for him. Our author readily wrote the story of the blind man in the gospel; concluding—Lord, that I may receive my sight.

When the high-fliers were driven from the station which enabled them to inflame rather than conciliate, Harley became secretary of state, in April, 1704. He had now frequent opportunities of representing the unmerited sufferings of De Foe to the queen and to the treasurer; yet our author continued four months longer in gaol. The queen, however, inquired into his circumstances; and lord Godolphin sent, as he thankfully acknowledges, a considerable sum to his wife, and to him money to pay his fine and the expense of his discharge. Here is the foundation, says he, on which he built his first sense of duty to the queen, and the indelible bond of gratitude to his first benefactor. "Let any one say, then," he asks, "what I could have done, less or more than I have done for such a queen and such a benefactor?" All this he manfully avowed to the world[38], when queen Anne lay lifeless and cold as king William, his first patron; and when Oxford, in the vicissitude of party, had been persecuted by faction, and overpowered, though not conquered, by violence.

Such was the high interposition by which De Foe was relieved from Newgate, in August, 1704. In order to avoid the town-talk, he retired immediately to St. Edmund's Bury: but his retreat did not prevent persecution. Dyer, the newswriter, propagated that De Foe had fled from justice. Fox, the bookseller, published that he had deserted his security. Stephen, a state-messenger, everywhere said, that he had a warrant for seizing him. This I suppose was wit, during the witty age of Anne. In our duller days of law, such outrages would be referred to the judgment of a jury. De Foe informed the secretary of state where he was, and when he would appear; but he was told not to fear, as he had not transgressed. Notwithstanding this vexation, our author's muse produced, on the 29th of August, 1704, A Hymn to Victory, when the successful skill of Marlborough furnished our poets with many occasions to publish Gazettes in Rhyme[39].

De Foe opened the year 1704–5 with his Double Welcome to the duke of Marlborough; disclaiming any expectation of place or pension. His encomiastic strains, I fear, were not heard while he wrote like an honest Englishman, against the continuance of the war; a war indeed of personal glory, of national celebration, but of fruitless expense. De Foe's activity, or his needs, produced in March, 1705, The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions, from the World in the Moon. It was one of De Foe's felicities to catch the 'living manners as they rose,' or one of his resources, to 'shoot folly as it flew.' In the lunar language he applies his satiric file to the prominences of every character: of the poets, from Dryden to Durfy; of the wits, from Addison to Prior; of the metaphysicians, from Malbranche to Hobbes; of the freethinkers, from Asgyl to the Tale of a Tub. Our author continually complains of the ill usage of the world; but with all his acuteness he did not advert, that he who attacks the world, will be by the world attacked. He makes the lunar politicians debate the policy of Charles XII. in pursuing the Saxons and Poles, while the Muscovites ravaged his own people. I doubt whether it were on this occasion that the Swedish ambassador was so ill-advised as to complain against De Foe, for merited ridicule of a futile warfare[40]. They had not then discovered, that the best defence against the shafts of satire is to let them fly. Our author's sentiment was expanded by Johnson, in those energetic lines, which thus conclude the character of the Swedish Charles:

"Who left the name, at which the world grew pale,

To point a moral, or adorn a tale."

De Foe was so little disturbed by the appearance of The Moon Calf[41], or accurate Reflections on the Consolidator, that he plunged into a controversy with sir Humphrey Mackworth about his bill for employing the poor. This had been passed by the commons with great applause, but received by the peers with suitable caution. De Foe, considering this plausible project as an indigested chaos, represented it, through several reviews, as a plan which would ruin the industrious, and thereby augment the poor. Sir Humphrey endeavoured to support his workhouses, in every parish, with a parochial capital for carrying on parochial manufacture. This drew from De Foe his admirable treatise, which he entitled, Giving Alms no Charity. As an English freeholder he claimed it as a right to address his performance to the house of commons, having a particular interest in the common good; but considering the persons before whom he appeared, he laid down his archness, and assumed his dignity. He maintained, with wonderful knowledge of fact and power of argument, the following positions: 1st, That there is in England more labour than hands to perform it; and consequently a want of people, not of employment: 2ndly, No man in England, of sound limbs and senses, can be poor merely for want of work: 3rdly, All workhouses for employing the poor, as now they are employed, serve to the ruin of families and the increase of the poor: 4thly, It is a regulation of the poor that is wanted, not a setting them to work. Longer experience shows this to be a difficult subject, which increases in difficulty with the effluxion of time[42].

De Foe had scarcely dismissed sir Humphrey, when he introduced lord Haversham, a peer, who is famous in our story, as a maker and publisher of speeches. His lordship published his speech on the state of the nation, in 1705, which was cried about the town with unusual earnestness. Our author's prudence induced him to give no answer to the speech; but a pamphlet, which was hawked about the streets and sold for a penny, our author's shrewdness considered as a challenge to every reader. He laughed and talked so much, through several Reviews, about this factious effusion, as to provoke a defence of topics, which his lordship ought neither to have printed nor spoken. De Foe now published a Reply to Lord Haversham's Vindication of his Speech. During such battles the town never fails to cheer the smaller combatant. Our author, with an allusion to the biography of both, says sarcastically: "But fate, that makes footballs of men, kicks some up stairs, and some down; some are advanced without honour, others suppressed without infamy; some are raised without merit, some are crushed without a crime; and no man knows by the beginning of things, whether his course shall issue in a peerage or a pillory[43]."

In the midst of these disputes, either grave or ludicrous, De Foe published Advice to all Parties. He strenuously recommends that moderation and forbearance, which his opponents often remarked he was not so prone to practise as to preach. While he thus gave advice to all parties, he conveyed many salutary lessons to the dissenters, whom he was zealous to defend. In the Review, dated the 25th of December, 1705, he conjures them for God's sake, if not for their own sake, to be content. "Are there a few things more you could wish were done for you? resolve these wishes into two conclusions: 1st, Wait till Providence, if it shall be for your good, shall bring them to pass; 2ndly, Compare the present with the past circumstances, and you cannot repine without the highest ingratitude both to God and man."

De Foe found leisure, notwithstanding all those labours, perhaps a necessity, to publish in 1705, A Second Volume of the Writings of the Author of the True-born Englishman. The same reasons which formerly induced him to collect some loose pieces; held good, says he, for proceeding to a second volume, "that if I do not, somebody else will do it for me." He laments the scandalous liberty of the press; whereby piratic printers deprive an author of the native product of his own thought, and the purity of his own style. It is said, though perhaps without authority, that the vigorous remonstrances of De Foe procured the Act[44] for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the authors or their assigns. The vanity of an administration, which affected to patronise the learned, concurring, with the mutual interest of bookmakers and booksellers, produced this salutary law, that our author alone had called for without success. De Foe's writings, thus collected into volumes, were soon a third time printed, with the addition of a key. The satire being now pointed by the specification of characters, and obscurities being illuminated by the annexation of circumstances, a numerous class of readers were induced, by their zeal of party, or desire of scandal, to look for gratification from our author's treatises. He is studious to complain, "that his writings had been most neglected of them, who at the same time have owned them useful." The second volume of 1705, containing eighteen treatises in prose and rhyme, begins with A New Discovery of an old Intrigue, and ends with Royal Religion[45].

The year 1705 was a year of disquiet to De Foe, not so much from the oppressions of state as from the persecutions of party. When his business, of whatever nature, led him to Exeter, and other western towns, in August, September, and October, 1705, a project was formed to send him as a soldier to the army, at a time when footmen were taken from the coaches as recruits; but conscious of his being a freeholder of England, and a liveryman of London, he knew that such characters could not be violated, in this nation, with impunity. When some of the western justices, of more zeal of party than sense of duty, heard from his opponents of De Foe's journey, they determined to apprehend him as a vagabond: but our author, who, among other qualities, had personal courage in a high degree, reflected, that to face danger is most effectually to prevent it. In his absence, real suits were commenced against him for fictitious debts: but De Foe advertised, that genuine claims he would fairly satisfy. If all these uncommon circumstances had not been published in the Review, we should not have seen this striking picture of savage manners. So much more free are we at present, that the editor of a newspaper, however obnoxious to any party, may travel peaceably about his affairs over England, without fear of interruption. Were a justice of peace, from whatever motive, to offer him any obstruction, such a magistrate would be overwhelmed by the public indignation, and punished by the higher guardians of our quiet and our laws.[46]

De Foe began the year 1706 with A Hymn to Peace[47]; occasioned by the two houses of parliament joining in one address to the queen. On the 4th of May he published An Essay at removing National Prejudices against an Union with Scotland. A few weeks after, he gave the world a second essay, to soften rancour and defeat perversity. But the time was now come when he was to perform what he had often promised: and his fruitfulness produced, in July, 1736, Jure Divino, a satire against Tyranny and Passive Obedience, which had been delayed for fear, as he declares, of parliamentary censure. Of this poem, it cannot be said, as of Thomson's Liberty, that it was written to prove what no man ever denied. This satire, says the preface, had never been published, though some of it has been a long time in being, had not the world seemed to be going mad a second time with the error of passive obedience, and non-resistance. "And because some men require," says he, "more explicit answers, I declare my belief, that a monarchy, according to the present constitution, limited by parliament, and dependent upon law, is not only the best government in the world, but also the best for this nation in particular, most suitable to the genius of the people, and the circumstances of the whole body." Dryden had given an example, a few years before, of argumentative poetry, in his Hind and Panther; by which he endeavoured to defend the tenets of the church of Rome. Our author now reasoned in rhyme, through twelve books, in defence of every man's birthright by nature, when all sorts of liberty were run down and opposed. His purpose is doubtless honester than Dryden's; and his argument being in support of the better cause, is perhaps superior in strength: but in the Jure Divino we look in vain for