THE

LIFE AND TIMES

OF

DANIEL DE FOE:

WITH

REMARKS DIGRESSIVE AND DISCURSIVE.

BY

WILLIAM CHADWICK.

LONDON:

JOHN RUSSELL SMITH,

36, SOHO SQUARE.

M.DOCC.LIX.

THE PREFACE.

A PREFACE to a book is, singularly enough, always written after the completion of the book; and ought in fairness to be placed at the end, rather than before the commencement.

This is not the age for Prefaces, but yet I may be pardoned for transgressing the rule of the times, if I only keep within the limits of moderation. What do I gather from all my DE-FOE reading but the force of that passage in scripture, "Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days." Old James Foe, butcher, of Cripplegate St. Giles, cast his bread upon the water when he educated his son Daniel at the Stoke Newington Academy for for what? Daniel was a hosier, merchant, pantile maker, statesman, poet, philosopher, free-trader, novelist-in short, everything, from the desolate island of Juan Fernandez to a felon's cell in Newgate. Daniel lived neglected and died in gaol-he died in 1731; and yet left that which is not exhausted in 1859his opinions recorded during a long, turbulent, and industrious life. The Dissenter still educates at his academy-he throws the bread upon the waters; and only let the fostering

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sunshine of persecution impart its fertilizing influences upon the deposited grain; and both crowned heads and saddled backs shall see the results at the appointed time of harvest, by the drudge of the office, the warehouse, or the shop being stamped into the writer or the patriot. The pillory and the gaol shut up the hosier's shop, and gave us Robinson Crusoe. Yes! the grinder's wheel was stopped in Bedford streets and lanes; and years of imprisonment in the borough gaol gave us the Pilgrim's Progress instead. Blindness, neglect, and persecution, gave us the Paradise Lost. A twelve years' imprisonment in the Tower gave Sir Walter Raleigh leisure to write a History of the World; and imprisonment, pillory, and ears-shearing, set Prynne to write as many volumes as would fill an ordinary cart. Yes, and I verily believe that a good ducking in the Thames or Serpentine would force John Bright, the patriot of Rochdale, upon my Reform Bill, in the place of his own.

ARKSEY, NEAR DONCASTER,

March 18, 1859.

WILLIAM CHADWICK.