here, would occupy an extent beyond the limits of our biography.

De Foe appears to have been no great favourite in Scotland, although, while there, he published Caledonia, He mentions many a poem in honour of the nation. hair-breadth 'scapes, which, by "his own prudence, and God's providence," he effected; and it is not wonderful, that where almost the whole nation was decidedly averse to the Union, a character like De Foe, sent thither to promote it by all means, direct and indirect, should be regarded with dislike, and even exposed to the danger of assassination. The act for the Union was passed by the Scotch parliament in January, and De Foe returned to London in February 1707, to write a history of that great international treaty. It is believed that his services were rewarded by a pension from Queen Anne.

During the troublous period which followed, until the conclusion of the war by the treaty of Utrecht, De Foe, wiser by experience, lived quietly at Newington, publishing his Review. He encountered, however, in the fulfilment of this task, much contentious opposition and obloquy, which he manfully resisted and retorted; but, after the political changes, by which his first patron Sir Robert Harley, and next Lord Godolphin, were turned out of power, his pecuniary allowance from the Treasury seems to have ceased, and he was compelled, as before, to launch out as a general writer for the supply of his necessities. The political agitation of the times dictated his subjects; but, unfortunately for De Foe, both Tories and Jacobites, in those days, were such plain matter-of-fact men, that his raillery was misunderstood, and he was arrested, and committed to his old habitation, for several squibs, which were obviously ironical.

The writings on which he was indicted, were two; What if the Pretender should come? and, What if the Queen should die?"Nothing," says De Foe, "could be more plain, than that the titles of these are amusements, in order to get the books into the hands of those who had been deluded by the Jacobites." His expla

nation would not suffice; he was tried and found guilty, fined in £800, and committed to Newgate. He was now compelled to drop the publication of his Review; and it is singular, that he did so while confined in Newgate, the very place in which its idea had first entered his head nine years before.

After lying in jail a few months, he was liberated by the queen's order in November 1713.

Although thus released, and the innocence of his intentions admitted, if not established, nothing was done for him; and the queen's death, which took place shortly after, (in July 1714,) left him defenceless to the attacks of his rancorous enemies. "No sooner," says he,

His

was the queen dead, and the king, as right required, proclaimed, but the rage of men increased upon me to that degree, that their threats were such as I am unable to express; and though I have written nothing since the queen's death, yet a great many things are called by my name, and I bear the answerer's insults." This was the darkest period of our author's life. He had lost his appointment, whatever it was; he had been obliged to give up his Review; every thing he ventured to publish besides, was received with suspicion, and he was on all hands overborne by faction, injury, and insult. health declined fast under these unmerited sufferings, but the vigour of his mind remained; and he determined to assert the innocence of his conduct, and to clear his blemished fame. He accordingly published, in 1715, "An Appeal to Honour and Justice, though it be of his worst Enemies, being a True Account of his Conduct in Public Affairs." This work contains a long account and defence of his political conduct from the outset, and a most affecting detail of his sufferings; but the subject had been too much for him. When he reviewed what he had done, and how he had been rewarded; how much he had deserved, and how heavily he had suffered; the ardent spirit of De Foe sunk before the picture, and he was struck with apoplexy before he could finish his work. It was published, nevertheless, by his friends, and the profits of its sale seem to have been the only source of his support. This was the terminating period

of our author's political career. He recovered his health, but his mind had changed its tone; and it was now that the history of Selkirk first suggested to him the idea of Robinson Crusoe. It has been thought by some to detract from the merit of De Foe, that the idea was not originally his own but really the story of Selkirk, which had been published a few years before in Woodes Rogers' Voyage round the World, appears to have furnished our author with so little beyond the bare idea of a man living upon an uninhabited island, that it seems quite immaterial whether he took his hint from that, or from any other similar story, of which many were then current. In order to enable our readers to judge how very little De Foe has been assisted by Selkirk's narrative, we have extracted the whole from Woodes Rogers' Voyage, and subjoined it to this article.*

The sale of Robinson Crusoe was, as we have already stated, rapid and extensive, and De Foe's profits were commensurate. The work was attacked on all sides by his ancient opponents, whose labours have long since quietly descended with their authors to merited oblivion; but our author, having the public on his side, set them all at defiance; and the same year he published a second volume with equal success. Thus far

"With steady bark and flowing sail

He ran before the wind;"

but, incited by the hope of further profit, and conceiving the theme of Crusoe inexhaustible, he shortly after published Serious Reflections during the Life of Robinson Crusoe, with his Vision of the Angelic World. These Visions and Reflections were well received at the time, although by no means so much in requisition now.

With the return of his good fortune, our author's health was re-established, and the vigour of his mind restored. He published, in 1720, The Life and Piracies of Captain Singleton; and finding it safer, it would seem, as well as more profitable, to amuse the public, than to reform them, he continued this course, with little variation, for the remainder of his life.

* See Appendix, No. I.

His subsequent publications, to all of which a considerable degree of popularity was attached, though none of them equalled the reputation of Robinson Crusoe, were The Dumb Philosopher, History of Duncan Campbell, Remarkable Life of Colonel Jack, Fortunate Mistress, and New Voyage round the World.

We are now to take leave of our author, who died in 1731, at the age of 68, in Cripplegate, London, leaving a widow and large family in tolerable circumstances.

That De Foe was a man of powerful intellect and lively imagination, is obvious from his works; that he was possessed of an ardent temper, a resolute courage, and an unwearied spirit of enterprise, is ascertained by the events of his changeful career; and whatever may be thought of that rashness and improvidence, by which his progress in life was so frequently impeded, there seems no reason to withhold from him the praise of as much, nay more, integrity, sincerity, and consistency, than could have been expected in a political author writing for bread, and whose chief protector, Harley, was latterly of a different party from his own, As the author of Robinson Crusoe, his fame promises to endure as long as the language in which he wrote,

So far my late regretted friend. But these trifling sketches of literary biography being now collected, it seems injustice to the author of Robinson Crusoe to permit his memoirs to be inserted, without a brief attempt to account for that popularity, which, in his principal work at least, has equalled that of any author who ever wrote.

And we must, in the first place, remark, that the fertility of De Foe was astonishing. He wrote on all occasions, and on all subjects, and seemingly had little time. for preparation upon the subject in hand, but treated it from the stores which his memory retained of early reading, and such hints as he had caught up in society, not one of which seems to have been lost upon him. A complete list of De Foe's works, notwithstanding the

exertions of the late George Chalmers, has not yet been procured, and a perfect collection even of such books as he is well known to have written, can scarce be procured, even by the most active bibliomaniac.* The preceding memoir does not notice one half of his compositions, all, even the meanest of which, have something in them to distinguish them as the works of an extraordinary man. It cannot, therefore, be doubted, that he possessed a powerful memory to furnish him with materials, and a no less copious vein of imagination to weave them up into a web of his own, and supply the rich embroidery which in reality constitutes their chief value. De Foe does not display much acquaintance with classic learning, neither does it appear that his attendance on the Newington seminary had led him deep into the study of ancient languages. His own language is genuine English, often simple even to vulgarity, but always so distinctly impressive, that its very vulgarity had, as we shall presently show, an efficacy, in giving an air of truth or probability to the facts and sentiments it conveys. Exclusive of politics, De Foe's studies led chiefly to those popular narratives, which are the amusement of children and of the lower classes; those accounts of travellers who have visited remote countries; of voyagers who have made discoveries of new lands and strange nations; of pirates and bucaneers who have acquired wealth by their desperate adventures on the ocean. His residence at Limehouse, near the Thames, must have made him acquainted with many of those wild mariners, half privateers, half robbers, whom he must often have heard relate their adventures, and with whose manners and sentiments he thus became intimately acquainted. There is reason to believe, from a passage in his Review, (we have unfortunately mislaid the reference,) that he was acquainted with Dampierre, a mariner whose scientific skill in his profession and power of literary composition were at that time rarely found in his profession, especially among those

The author has long sought for his poem termed Caledonia, without being able to obtain a sight of it.