mously, and let his friends edit and alter them at will; accordingly some things quite unworthy of him were falsely attributed to him. After the death of Queen Anne all court functionaries were changed, and Arbuthnot removed from St James's to Dover Street. Swift affirmed he knew his art but not his trade, and declared, 'He has more wit than we all have, and more humanity than wit.' Arbuthnot, though displaced at court, still had a good practice in great houses, and to the end maintained his unaffected cheerfulness and good nature. From 1723 he was in ill-health, and bore with

JOHN ARBUTHNOT, M.D.

By special permission, from the Portrait by C. Jervas in the Royal College of Physicians, London.

dignity bereavement and suffering. His severest utterance is his epitaph on Colonel Charteris, the most notorious blackguard of the day:

Here continueth to rot the body of FRANCIS CHARTRES, who, with an inflexible constancy, and inimitable uniformity of life, persisted, in spite of age and infirmities, in the practice of every human vice, excepting prodigality and hypocrisy; his insatiable avarice exempted him from the first, his matchless impudence from the second. Nor was he more singular in the undeviating pravity of his manners than successful in accumulating wealth; for, without trade or profession, without trust of public money, and without bribeworthy service, he acquired, or more properly created, a ministerial estate. He was the only person of his time who could cheat with the mask of honesty, retain his primeval meanness when possessed of ten thousand a year, and having daily deserved the gibbet for what

he did, was at last condemned to it for what he could not do. Oh, indignant reader! think not his life useless to mankind. Providence connived at his execrable designs, to give to after ages a conspicuous proof and example of how small estimation is exorbitant wealth in the sight of God, by his bestowing it on the most unworthy of all mortals.

John Bull (the English), Nic. Frog (the Dutch), and Hocus (the Duke of Marlborough).

Bull, in the main, was an honest plain-dealing fellow, choleric, bold, and of a very unconstant temper; he dreaded not old Lewis either at backsword, single falchion, or cudgel-play; but then he was very apt to quarrel with his best friends, especially if they pretended to govern him; if you flattered him, you might lead him like a child. John's temper depended very much upon the air; his spirits rose and fell with the weatherglass. John was quick, and understood his business very well; but no man alive was more careless in looking into his accompts, or more cheated by partners, apprentices, and servants. This was occasioned by his being a boon-companion, loving his bottle and his diversion; for to say truth, no man kept a better house than John, nor spent his money more generously. By plain and fair dealing, John had acquired some plums, and might have kept them, had it not been for his unhappy lawsuit.

Nic. Frog was a cunning sly whoreson, quite the reverse of John in many particulars; covetous, frugal; minded domestic affairs; would pinch his belly to save his pocket; never lost a farthing by careless servants or bad debtors. He did not care much for any sort of diversions, except tricks of high German artists, and legerdemain; no man exceeded Nic. in these ; yet it must be owned that Nic. was a fair dealer, and in that way acquired immense riches.

Hocus was an old cunning attorney; and though this was the first considerable suit that ever he was engaged in, he showed himself superior in address to most of his profession; he kept always good clerks; he loved money, was smooth-tongued, gave good words, and seldom lost his temper; he was not worse than an infidel, for he provided plentifully for his family; but he loved himself better than them all: the neighbours reported that he was henpecked, which was impossible by such a mild-spirited woman as his wife

was.

The Duchess of Marlborough was a termagant. The Tory wits charged the great duke with peculation as commander-in-chief, and with prolonging the war on that account.

John Bull's Mother (the Church of England). John had a mother whom he loved and honoured extremely; a discreet, grave, sober, good-conditioned, cleanly old gentlewoman as ever lived; she was none of your cross-grained termagant, scolding jades, that one had as good be hanged as live in the house with, such as are always censuring the conduct and telling scandalous stories of their neighbours, extolling their own good qualities, and undervaluing those of others. On the contrary, she was of a meek spirit, and, as she was strictly virtuous herself, so she always put the best construction upon the words and actions of her neighbours, except where they were irreconcilable to the rules of honesty and decency. She was neither one of

your precise prudes, nor one of your fantastical old belles, that dress themselves like girls of fifteen; as she neither wore a ruff, forehead cloth, nor high-crowned hat, so she had laid aside feathers, flowers, and crimpt ribbons in her head-dress, fur-below scarfs, and hooped petticoats. She scorned to patch and paint, yet she loved to keep her hands and her face clean. Though she wore no flaunting laced ruffles, she would not keep herself in a constant sweat with greasy flannel; though her hair was not stuck with jewels, she was not ashamed of a diamond cross: she was not, like some ladies, hung about with toys and trinkets, tweezer - cases, pocket glasses, and essence-bottles; she used only a gold watch and an almanac, to mark the hours and the holidays.

Her furniture was neat and genteel, well fancied, with a bon goût. As she affected not the grandeur of a state with a canopy, she thought there was no offence in an elbow-chair; she had laid aside your carving, gilding, and japan work as being too apt to gather dirt; but she never could be prevailed upon to part with plain wainscot and clean hangings. There are some ladies that affect to smell a stink in everything; they are always highly perfumed, and continually burning frankIncense in their rooms; she was above such affectation, yet she never would lay aside the use of brooms and scrubbing-brushes, and scrupled not to lay her linen in fresh lavender. She was no less genteel in her behaviour, well-bred, without affectation, in the due mean between one of your affected courtesying pieces of formality, and your romps that have no regard to the common rules of civility. There are some ladies that affect a mighty regard for their relations: must not eat to-day for my uncle Tom; or my cousin Betty died this time ten years; let's have a ball to-night, it is my neighbour such-a-one's birthday. She looked upon all this as grimace, yet she constantly observed her husband's birthday, her wedding-day, and some few more. Though she was a truly good woman, and had a sincere motherly love for her son John, yet there wanted not those who endeavoured to create a misunderstanding between them, and they had so far prevailed with him once that he turned her out of doors [i.e. in 1643-60], to his great sorrow, as he found afterwards, for his affairs went on at sixes and sevens.

we

She was no less judicious in the turn of her conversation and choice of her studies, in which she far exceeded all her sex; your rakes that hate the company of all sober grave gentlewomen would bear hers; and she would, by her handsome manner of proceeding, sooner reclaim them than some that were more sour and reserved. She was a zealous preacher up of chastity and conjugal fidelity in wives, and by no means a friend to the newfangled doctrine of the indispensable duty of cuckoldom; though she advanced her opinions with a becoming assurance, yet she never ushered them in, as some positive creatures will do, with dogmatical assertions-this is infallible, I cannot be mistaken, none but a rogue can deny it. It has been observed that such people are oftener in the wrong than anybody. Though she had a thousand good qualities, she was not without her faults, amongst which one might perhaps reckon too great lenity to her servants, to whom she always gave good counsel, but often too gentle correction.

Bull's Sister Peg (the Scottish Nation and Church). John had a sister, a poor girl that had been starved at nurse; anybody would have guessed miss to have been bred up under the influence of a cruel stepdame, and John to be the fondling of a tender mother. John looked ruddy and plump, with a pair of cheeks like a trumpeter; miss looked pale and wan, as if she had the green-sickness; and no wonder, for John was the darling; he had all the good bits, was crammed with good pullet, chicken, pig, goose, and capon, while miss had only a little oatmeal and water, or a dry crust without butter. John had his golden pippins, peaches, and nectarines; poor miss a crab-apple, sloe, or a blackberry. Master lay in the best apartment, with his bed-chamber towards the south sun; miss lodged in a garret, exposed to the north wind, which shrivelled her countenance. However, this usage, though it stunted the girl in her growth, gave her a hardy constitution; she had life and spirit in abundance, and knew when she was ill-used: now and then she would seize upon John's commons, snatch a leg of a pullet, or a bit of good beef, for which they were sure to go to fisticuffs. Master was indeed too strong for her; but miss would not yield in the least point, but even when master had got her down, she would scratch and bite like a tiger; when he gave her a cuff on the ear, she would prick him with her knitting-needle. John brought a great chain one day to tie her to the bed-post, for which affront miss aimed a penknife at his heart. In short, these quarrels grew up to rooted aversions; they gave one another nicknames; she called him Gundyguts, and he called her Lousy Peg, though the girl was a tight clever wench as any was; and through her pale looks you might discern spirit and vivacity, which made her not, indeed, a perfect beauty, but something that was agreeable. It was barbarous in parents not to take notice of these early quarrels, and make them live better together, such domestic feuds proving afterwards the occasion of misfortunes to them both. Peg had, indeed, some odd humours and comical antipathy, for which John would jeer her. 'What think you of my sister Peg,' says he, 'that faints at the sound of an organ, and yet will dance and frisk at the noise of a bagpipe?' 'What's that to you, Gundy-guts?' quoth Peg; everybody's to choose their own music.' Then Peg had taken a fancy not to say her paternoster, which made people imagine strange things of her. Of the three brothers that have made such a clutter in the world, Lord Peter, Martin, and Jack [the Pope, Luther, and Calvin], Jack had of late been her inclination: Lord Peter she detested; nor did Martin stand much better in her good graces; but Jack had found the way to her heart.

The Celerity and Duration of Lies.

As to the celerity of their motion, the author says it is almost incredible. He gives several instances of lies that have gone faster than a man can ride post. Your terrifying lies travel at a prodigious rate, above ten miles an hour. Your whispers move in a narrow vortex, but very swiftly. The author says it is impossible to explain several phenomena in relation to the celerity of lies, without the supposition of synchronism and combination. As to the duration of lies, he says there are of all sorts, from hours and days to ages; that there are some which, like insects, die and revive again in a different

The properest contradiction to a lie is another lie. For example, if it should be reported that the Pretender was in London, one would not contradict it by saying he never was in England; but you must prove by eye-witnesses that he came no further than Greenwich, and then went back again. Thus, if it be spread about that a great person were dying of some disease, you must not say the truth, that they are in health and never had such a disease, but that they are slowly recovering of it. So there was not long ago a gentleman who affirmed that the treaty with France, for bringing popery and slavery into England, was signed the 15th of September; to which another answered very judiciously, not by opposing truth to his lie, that there was no such treaty; but that to his certain knowledge there were many things in that treaty not yet adjusted.

Letter to Pope.

I little doubt of your kind concern for me, nor of that of my Lord Bathurst. I have nothing to repay my friends with at present but prayers and good wishes. I have the satisfaction to find that I am as officiously served by my friends as he that has thousands to leave in legacies, besides the assurance of their sincerity. God Almighty has made my bodily disease as easy as a thing of that nature can be. I have found relief sometimes from the air of this place; my nights are bad, but many poor creatures are worse. As for you, my good friend, I think since our first acquaintance there has not been any of those little suspicions or jealousies which often affect the sincerest friendship, I am sure not on my side. I must be so sincere as to own that though I could not help valuing you for those talents which the world praises, yet they were not the foundation of my friendship: They were quite of another sort; nor will I at present offend you by enumerating them. And I make it my last request, that you will continue that noble disdain and abhorrence of vice which you seem naturally endued with, but still with regard to your own safety, and study more to reform than chastise, though the one cannot be effected without the other.

Lord Bathurst I have always honoured for every good quality that a person of his rank ought to have. Pray give my respects and kindest wishes to the family. My venison stomach is gone, but I have those about me, and often with me, who will be very glad of his present. If it is left at my house, it will be transmitted safe to me.

A recovery in my case, and at my age, is impossible : The kindest wishes of my friends is an Euthanasia. Living or dying I shall be Yours.

Arbuthnot's Miscellaneous Works were, with a Life, published in 1770. There is a good Life of him by G. A. Aitken (1892). John Bull and The Art of Political Lying are included in the earlier collected editions of Swift.

John Strype (1643-1737), the son of John van Strijp, a religious refugee from Brabant, was born in London, was educated at St Paul's School and Cambridge, and became incumbent of Low Leyton, Essex, but was known to the world as an ecclesiastical historian and biographer. His prolix and illarranged, but honest and invaluable, works (27 vols.,

Clar. Press ed., 1821-43) include Memorials of Cranmer (1694); Lives of Sir Thomas Smith (1698), Bishop Aylmer (1701), Sir John Cheke (1705), Archbishop Grindal (1710), Archbishop Parker (1711), and Archbishop Whitgift (1718); Annals of the Reformation (1709–31); and the Ecclesiastical Memorials, 1513-58 (1721)—his best work. He also edited Stow's Survey of London (1720). The following letter to his mother from Cambridge sets the life of a university man about that period in a vivid light:

Good Mother,

Yours of the 24th instant I gladly received, expecting indeed one a week before, but I understand both by Waterson and yourself of your indisposednesse then to write. The reason you receive this no sooner is, because I had a mind (knowing of this honest woman's setting out so suddenly for London from hence, and her businesse laying so neer to Petticote Lane) that she should deliver it into your hands, that so you may the better and more fully heare of me, and know how it fareth with me. She is my laundresse; make her welcome, and tell her how you would have my linen washed, as you were saying in your letter. I am very glad to hear that you and my brother Johnson do agree so well, that I believe you account an unusual courtesie that he should have you out to the cake-house. However, pray mother, be careful of yourself and do not over-walke yourself, for that is wont to bring you upon a sick bed. I hear also my brother Sayer is often a visitor: truly I am glad of it. I hope your children may be comforts to you now you are growing old. Remember me back again most kindly to my brother Sayer.

Concerning the taking up of my things, 'tis true I gave one shilling too much in the hundred: but why I gave so much, I thought indeed I had given you an account in that same letter: but it seems I have not. The only reason is, because they were a scholar's goods: it is common to make them pay one shilling more than the town's people. Dr Pearson himself payed so, and several other lads in this college and my tutor told me they would expect so much of me, being a scholar and I found it so.

:

Do not wonder so much at our commons: they are more than many colleges have. Trinity itself (where Herring and Davies are), which is the famousest college in the University, have but three half-pence. We have roast meat, dinner and supper, throughout the weeke; and such meate as you know I not use to care for; and that is veal: but now I have learnt to eat it. Sometimes, neverthelesse, we have boiled meat, with pottage; and beef and mutton, which I am glad of; except Fridays and Saturdays, and sometimes Wednesdays; which days we have fish at dinner, and tansy or pudding for supper. Our parts then are slender enough. But there is this remedy; we may retire unto the butteries, and there take a half-penny loafe and butter or cheese; or else to the kitchen, and take there what the cook hath. But, for my part, I am sure, I never visited the kitchen yet, since I have been here, and the butteries but seldom after meals; unlesse for a ciza, that is for a farthing-worth of smallbeer so that lesse than a peny in beer doth serve me a whole day. Neverthelesse sometimes we have exceedings then we have two or three dishes (but that is very rare): otherwise never but one: so that a cake and a

cheese would be very welcome to me; and a neat's tongue, or some such thing, if it would not require too much money. If you do intend to send me any thing, do not send it yet, until you hear further of me: for I have many things to send for, which may all, I hope, be put into that box you have at home: but what they are, I shall give you an account of hereafter, when I would have them sent: and that is, when I have got me a chamber: for as yet, I am in a chamber that doth not at all please me. I have thoughts of one, which is a very handsome one, and one pair of stairs high, and that looketh into the master's garden. The price is but 20s. per annum, ten whereof a knight's son, and lately admitted into this college, doth pay though he did not come till about midsummer, so that I shall have but 10s. to pay a year: besides my income, which may be about 40s. or thereabouts. Mother, I kindly thank you for your orange pills you sent me. If you are not too straight of money, send me some such thing by the woman, and a pound or two of almonds and raisons. But first ask her if she will carry them, or if they be not too much trouble to her. I do much approve of your agreeing with the carrier quarterly: he was indeed telling me of it, that you had agreed with him for it and I think he means both yours and mine. Make your bargain sure with him.

:

I understand by your letter that you are very inquisitive to know how things stand with me here. I believe you may be well enough satisfied by the woman. My breakings-out are now all gone. Indeed I was afraid at my first coming it would have proved the itch: but I am fairly rid on it but I fear I shall get it, let me do what I can for there are many here that have it cruelly. Some of them take strong purges that would kill a horse, weeks together for it, to get it away, and yet are hardly rid of it. At my first coming I laid alone: but since, my tutor desired me to let a very clear lad lay with me, and an alderman's son of Colchester, which I could not deny, being newly come: he hath laid with me now for almost a fortnight, and will do till he can provide himself with a chamber. I have been with all my acquaintance, who have entreated me very courteously, especially Jonathan Houghton. I went to his chamber the Friday right I first came, and there he made me stay and sup with him, and would have had me laid with him that night, and was extraordinary kind to me. Since, we have been together pretty often. He excused himselfe that he did not come to see me before he went, and that he did not write to me since he had been come. He hath now, or is about obtaining, 10 more from the college. We go twice a day to Chapel; in the morning about 7, and in the evening about 5. After we come from Chapel in the morning, which is towards 8, we go to the butteries for our breakfast, which usually is five farthings; an halfepenny loaf and butter, and a cize of beer. But sometimes I go to an honest house near the college, and have a pint of milk boiled for my breakfast.

Truly I was much troubled to hear that my letter for Ireland is not yet gone. I wish if Mr Jones is not yet gone, that it might be sent some other way. Indeed I wish I could see my cousin James Bonnell here within three or four years: for I believe our University is less strict to observe lads that do not in every point conforme han theirs at Dublin: though ours be bad enough. Pray remember me to my uncle, and all my friends there, when you write. Remember me to my cousin James Knox. I am glad he is recovered from his dangerous sickness,

whatsoever it is; for I cannot make any thing of it, as you have written it. And thus, for want of paper, I end, desiring heartily to be remembered to all my friends. Excuse me to my brother and sister that they have not heard from me yet. Next week I hope to write to them both. Excuse my length, I thought I would answer your letter to the full. I remaine your dutiful son,

J. STRIJP.

These for his honoured Mother
Mrs. Hester Stryp widdow,

dwelling in Petticoat Lane, right over against the
Five Ink-Hornes, without Bishops-Gate, in London.

This letter was printed by Sir Henry Ellis for the Camden Society in a series of Original Letters of Eminent Literary Men (1843).

Daniel Defoe,

the author of Robinson Crusoe, was born towards the close of 1659 in the London parish of St Giles, Cripplegate. His father, James Foe, was a butcher there; his grandfather was a yeoman of Etton near Peterborough; and the change to De Foe or Defoe was made by Daniel about 1697. He was educated for the Nonconformist ministry at a Stoke Newington academy, learning Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, and, above all, English; but by 1683 he was in business as a hose-factor. He was apparently out with Monmouth, joined King William at Henley in 1688, travelled in Scotland, France, and Spain, and went bankrupt in 1692; his debts he scrupulously paid up later. He next became accountant to the glass-duty commissioners and secretary and owner of a Tilbury tile factory. His Essay upon Projects appeared in 1698, and he became noted as an able pamphleteer in support of the king's policy-e.g. in his vigorous poem, The True-born Englishman (1701). Its success was prodigious; eighty thousand copies sold upon the streets. Defoe was no poet, but he could reason in verse, and had an unlimited command of homely, forcible language. The satire opens with a paraphrase of Burton (see Vol. I. P. 440):

Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found upon examination,

The latter has the larger congregation.

Defoe's restless pen was active throughout the bitter struggle under Anne between the HighChurch party and the Dissenters; and his famous treatise, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1703), first deceived and then infuriated his opponents. The House of Commons ordered the pamphlet to be burned; and, when tried at the Old Bailey in July, he was sentenced to pay a fine of 200 marks, to stand thrice in the pillory, to find sureties for his good behaviour during seven years, and to be imprisoned during the queen's pleasure. On the first day he suffered appeared his Hymn to the Pillory, and that portion of his penalty was converted into a Whig triumph. During his imprisonment in Newgate he continued an incessant literary activity upon 'occasional conformity' and other

controversies, and started his Review (February 1704-June 1713), at first a weekly, then a bi-weekly, and finally a tri-weekly newspaper. This was his largest, if not his most important, work, embracing in over five thousand pages essays on almost every branch of human knowledge. During the same nine years he published eighty distinct works, with 4727 pages. His 'Scandal Club' was the forerunner of the Tatlers and Spectators.

In August 1704 Defoe was released from prison through Harley, who further procured him employment. Giving Alms no Charity (1704) was a masterly denunciation of indiscriminate charity and national workshops. In 1705 appeared The Consolidator: or Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon, a political satire, which perhaps supplied a hint for Gulliver's Travels; and in 1706 The True Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs Veal, which Mr Aitken has proved to be founded on fact or supposed fact. Jure Divino was a tedious political satire in twelve books of poor verse. In 1705 Defoe was sent by Harley on a secret mission to the west of England; in 1706-7 he was in Scot

ever, of Harley, now Lord Oxford, Defoe obtained a pardon under the Great Seal, confuting the charges brought against him, and exempting him from any consequences thereafter on account of those publications. In his Review he had striven in vain to preserve the semblance of consistency; and, playing a dubious part in the intrigues that preceded and attended the accession of the House of Hanover, he found himself in a general discredit which his Appeal to Honour and Justice (1715) did not remove. In 1718 he was in equivocal government service, too ingeniously sub-editing Jacobite

land as a secret agent to promote the Union. His History of the Union appeared in 1709. After Harley's fall (1708) he found himself able to be a staunch Whig under Godolphin; but on Harley's return to power (1710) he once more supported a Tory Ministry. In 1713 Defoe again tried his hand at political irony, and issued three pamphlets Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover; What if the Pretender should Come? and What if the Queen should Die? Neither Whig nor Tory could understand Defoe's ironical writings. He was taken into custody, and had to find bail, himself in £800, and two friends in £400 each, to answer for the alleged libels. Through the influence, how

and High-Church organs. Defoe was not scrupulous in his point of honour; still, it is certain he never was a Tory, but always at heart devoted to the glorious Revolution and the Protestant succession. None the less, it is amazing to find Mr Thomas Wright thus vindicating his conduct: 'If it is dishonourable to be a spy, Defoe's conduct cannot be defended; if it is not dishonourable, let no stones be cast at him.' In 1715 appeared the first volume of the Family Instructor, and on 25th April 1719 the first volume of the immortal Robinson Crusoe, founded partly on

Dampier's Voyage (see page 103 above), but mainly on the adventures of Alexander Selkirk, which were described at length in Woodes Rogers's Cruising Voyage round the World and Captain Cooke's Voyage (both published in 1712), and were made more accessible in Steele's Englishman (see the article on Steele in this volume) in 1713, from Selkirk's own narration. Perhaps no man in the whole history of literature ever devised at fifty-nine a more splendid masterpiece of creative imagination. The same year appeared the second volume, and in 1720 the unreadable Serious Reflections during the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, according to which the original story was an allegory of the novelist's own life. In this his most prolific