too heavy. The parting will be a price beyond the enjoyment.

"I would say, (I hope) with comfort, that 'tis yet well. I am so near my journey's end, and am hastening to the place where ye weary are at rest, and where 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. I congratulate you on the occasion of yo' happy advance in yo' employment. May all you do be prosperous, and all you meet with pleasant, and may you both escape the tortures and troubles of uneasie life. May you sail ye dangerous voyage of life with a forcing wind, and make the port of heaven without a storm.

“It adds to my grief that I must never see the pledge of your mutual love, my little grandson. Give him my blessing, and may he be to you both your joy in youth, and your comfort in age, and never add a sigh to your sorrow. But, alas! that is not to be expected. Kiss my dear Sophy once more for me; and if I must see her no more, tell her this is from a father that loved her above all his comforts to his last breath.

Yo' unhappy

D. F.

About two miles from Greenwich, Kent,

Tuesday, August 12th, 1730.

"P.S. I wrote you a letter some months ago, in

answer to one from you about selling ye house; but

you never signified to me whether you received it. I have not the policy of assurance; I suppose my wife or Hannah may have it.

Idem,

"D. F."

When the drama of life begins to exhibit scenes like these, it is time to drop the curtain. De Foe was gently removed, in seeming lethargic calmness, from this transient state into eternal life, on the 24th of April, 1731. He died in the parish where he was born, like the poor hunted hare, who terminates all its anxious breathless windings at the spot where it was first compelled to start from by its tormentors.

It now only remains to take a general view of the character, moral and literary, of this extraordinary man, whose fate it seemed to be, like that of Cassandra, to foresee and to foretel, without the power of inspiring belief in the truth of the prediction, or the sincerity of the predictor. That his political writings attracted considerable attention in the beginning of his career, is evident from the unjustifiable means that were resorted to in order to suppress them, and to crush their author; but as we have already remarked, the success with which he could assume either side of an argument, seems gradually to have lost him the confidence of all parties; for each in turn felt more certain of his power to injure, than of his sincerity in serving. It must be observed, however, that there is no proof of Daniel De Foe ever having actually swerved from the principles he professed; and the strong testimony in favor of his integrity, from

Durston, his personal enemy and a rival journalist, ought to weigh against a host of anonymous calum

nies.

De Foe did not meet with much more liberality as a projector than a politician; it is indeed the general fate of speculatists to be looked on with envy, ridicule, and dislike, rather than with the respect due to ingenuity and disinterestedness. If the plan suggested fail, those who never would have had skill or science sufficient to suggest it, yet feel a sudden accession of both in the triumphant declaration, that they had always foreseen it would never succeed. Should success, on the contrary, crown the undertaking, envy is as busy in pointing out reasons why it might have succeeded to a still greater extent, or why it ought not to have succeeded at all.

Many of the suggestions of De Foe, which during his life only held him up to ridicule as a visionary, have been acted on in the present day to the advantage of society at large; and the singularity by which he is least known, and in which he has been least imitated, is that of paying his debts in full, when he was acquitted by his creditors for a part. This reflection brings us to the contemplation of the moral part of his character of his honesty commercially considered, it would be cruel and unjust to doubt, after the testimonies which even his enemies have borne to it: his religious habits were fixed too early in life to forsake him afterwards, and consequently his troubles and afflictions could only have the effect of making him throw himself with more devout submission on

the support of that wise Disposer of all things, who saw fit to visit him with them: of his domestic characteristics not much is known. The habits of the Dissenters in his time were sufficiently rigid to make them hold theatrical exhibitions and public entertainments in dislike, but he does not appear to have been of gloomy or censorial habits: that he was a tender parent as well as dutiful son, is evident from many passages in his letters and writings, where he mentions his father and his children; and that he was an affectionate husband may be inferred not only from the same evidence, but also from the high appreciation in which he at all times held the female sex; and as he who acknowledges a claim on love and admiration in generals, is not likely to deny it in particulars, we may fairly conclude that Daniel De Foe would not belie his own taste and judgment, and that, having chosen one according to the same standard, he would not fail to treat her with the tenderness and respect he acknowledges to be her due.

"A woman of sense and manners," says he, "is the finest and most delicate part of God's creation ; the glory of her Maker, and the great instance of his singular regard to man, to whom he gave the best gift either God could bestow or man receive; and it is the sordidest piece of folly and ingratitude in the world to withhold from the sex the due lustre which the advantages of education give to the natural beauty of their minds. A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without compari

son.

Her society is the emblem of sublime enjoyments; she is all softness and sweetness, love, wit, and delight; she is every way suitable to the sublimest wish; and the man that has such a one to his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and to be thankful."

That De Foe possessed natural benevolence of heart, and amiability of temper, may be proved from his writings, as well as from the acknowledgements of some at least of those whom he had served: in his fictions an author generally delineates the characteristic features of his own mind; and to judge his by this rule, it affords a picture of many virtues. No writer, since the days of Shakspeare, with the exception of Richardson, has shown so much knowledge of the human heart, or delineated it with such exquisite exactness of detail and truth of colouring; and if some of his works are less known than others, it is not because they are less true to nature, but that they represent those objects in nature, which are less pleasing to contemplate: he was always, however, equally intent on instructing, and in his hands the very incidents of vice are so managed as to produce lessons of virtue. Of him it may be said as Johnson said of Goldsmith, that he left no species of writing unattempted; and we may add that all the separate excellencies of his character, attainments of his mind, and his felicity in expressing them, may be contemplated with benefit and delight little less than is afforded by his "Robinson Crusoe."