he spent in comparative retirement at, Stoke Newington, where he had a house for some years. Here he seemed to be gradually weaning himself from politics, and directing his mental powers to better things than those ephemeral objects which ambition or avarice are continually suggesting to the evil nature of man; but whilst the events connected with them pass away like vapours, and are no more remembered, the effects on the actors in them may remain, and become almost imperishable.

The times were as yet, however, far too unsettled to allow of a mind like De Foe's having any long rest; the peace of Utrecht among other great political events, or rather the conditions of it, drew forth his censures; and with his accustomed ill-fortune he found that, as he had before displeased the body of the people by advocating a peace at all, so he now offended the ministers by finding fault with the terms on which it was concluded treated as an apostate by his own party, and regarded with an eye of suspicion by those whose interests he was accused of secretly advocating, he withdrew for a time from the field of action, and retired to Halifax in Yorkshire, where, according to tradition, he lodged at the sign of the Rose and Crown, in the back lane, and divided his social hours chiefly between Dr. Nettleton, author of several professional publications, and an essay entitled "Some Thoughts concerning Virtue and Happiness," and Mr. Nathaniel Priestley, a dissenting minister, ancestor of the celebrated Dr. Priestley. Neither philosophy, however, nor divinity were sufficient to interest De

Foe, unless he could link them with his darling politics; and in this his comparative retirement he was tempted again to have recourse to his favorite weapon, ironical satire, of which it certainly, as wielded by him, could not be said,

"That two-handed weapon at the door

Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."

It was, indeed, two-edged, as well as two-handed, and speedily brought De Foe into the same situation it had done before; namely, at the bar of the Queen's Bench, there to explain the difference between jest and earnest, for the benefit of all such solemn state blockheads and shallow coffee-house politicians as could not see any difference between one and the other. The explanation cannot be better given than in the words of the preamble to the pardon which her majesty Queen Anne, with that good sense which always distinguished her proceedings when they were suffered to emanate from her own judgment and benevolence, was graciously pleased to grant him."Whereas, in the term of the Holy Trinity last past our Attorney-general did exhibit an information in our Court of Queen's Bench at Westminster, against Daniel De Foe, late of London, gent., for writing, printing, and publishing, and causing to be written, printed and published, three libels; the one entitled 'Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover; with an enquiry how far the Abdication of King James, supposing it to be legal, ought to affect the person of the Pretender.' One other, entitled,

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.' And one other, entitled, An Answer to a question that nobody thinks of, viz. What if the Queen should die?'

"And whereas the same Daniel De Foe hath by his humble petition represented to us that he, with a sincere design to propagate the interest of the Hanover succession, and to animate the people against the designs of the Pretender, whom he always looked on as an enemy to our sacred person and government, did publish the same pamphlets; in all which books, although the titles seemed to look as if written in favor of the Pretender, and several expressions, as in all ironical writings it must be, may be wrested against the true design of the whole, and turned to a meaning quite different from the intention of the author; yet the petitioner humbly assures us, in the solemnest manner, that his true and only design, in all the said books, was, by an ironical discourse of recommending the Pretender, in the strongest and most forcible manner to expose his designs, and the ruinous consequences sof his succeeding therein, which, as the petitioner humbly represents, will appear to our satisfaction by the books themselves, where the following expressions are very plain, viz. That the Pretender is recommended as a person proper to amass the English liberties into one sovereignty; supplying them with the privilege of wearing wooden shoes; easing them of the trouble of choosing parliaments; and the nobility and gentry of

the hazard and expense of winter journeys, by governing them in that more righteous method, of his absolute will, and enforcing the laws by a glorious standing army; paying all the nation's debts at once, by stopping the funds, and shutting up the exchequer ; easing and quieting their differences in religion, by bringing them to the union of Popery, or leaving them at liberty to have no religion at all.' That these were some of the very expressions in which the said books, which the petitioner sincerely designed to expose, and oppose, as far as in him lies, the interest of the Pretender, and with no other intention; nevertheless the petitioner, to his great surprise, has been misrepresented, and his said books misconstrued, as if written in favor of the Pretender; and the petitioner is now under prosecution for the same; which prosecution, if further carried on, will be the utter ruin of the petitioner and his family. Wherefore the petitioner, humbly assuring us of the innocence of his designs, as aforesaid, flies to our clemency, and most humbly prays our most gracious and free pardon.

"We, taking the premises and the circumstances of the petitioner into our royal consideration, are graciously pleased to extend our royal mercy to the petitioner. Our will and pleasure therefore is, that you prepare a bill for our royal signature, to pass our great seal, containing our gracious and free pardon to him, the same Daniel De Foe, of the offences aforementioned, and of all indictments, convictions, pains, penalties, and forfeitures, incurred thereby; and you are to insert therein all such apt and beneficial clauses as

you shall judge requisite, to make this our intended pardon more full, valid, and effectual; and for so doing this shall be your warrant. Given at our Castle at Windsor, the 20th day of November, 1713, in the twentieth year of our reign. By her Majesty's command, "BOLINGBROKE."

Thus harmlessly evaporated the effects of productions which Sir Thomas Powis, who had been made a judge a short time before, had gravely asserted, contained matter for which the author "might be hanged, drawn, and quartered." It cannot be denied, however, that the frequent recurrence to this mode of writing was not very creditable either to the judgment or good feeling of De Foe, who must have seen that it answered no other end than that of mystifying all parties alike, and laying him equally open to the most opposite charges. The whigs hated him for his imagined attachment to the tories; the tories hated him for his real attachment to the whigs: the Jacobites hated him for advocating the Hanoverían succession; and the Hanoverians hated him for adhering to his early friend, Harley, Earl of Oxford, who was known to be in the Jacobite interest. Thus, as he acknowledges himself, he lived "under universal contempt," though we must, in fairness, continue in his own words, "which contempt I have learned to contemn, and have one uninterrupted joy in my soul, not at my being contemned, but that no crime can be laid to my charge, to make this contempt my due." Certain it is, however, that his political vacillation, or tergiversation,