was pilloried, I have forgot his name) is indeed so grave, sententious, dogmatical a rogue, that there is no enduring him.— SWIFT, JONATHAN, 1708, A Letter from a Member of the House of Commons in Ireland to a Member of the House of Commons in England, concerning the Sacramental Test.

I remember an Author in the World some years ago, who was generally upbraided with Ignorance, and called an "Illiterate Fellow," by some of the BeauMonde of the last Age. . I hap

pened to come into this Person's Study once, and I found him busy translating a Description of the Course of the River Boristhenes, out of Bleau's Geography, written in Spanish. Another Time I found him translating some Latin Paragraphs out of Leubinitz Theatri Cometici, being a learned Discourse upon Comets; and that I might see whether it was genuine, I looked on some part of it that he had finished, and found by it that he understood the Latin very well, and had perfectly taken the sense of that difficult Author. In short, I found he understood the Latin, the Spanish, the Italian, and could read the Greek, and I knew before that he spoke French fluently-yet this Man was no Scholar. As to Science, on another Occasion, I heard him dispute (in such a manner as surprised me) upon the motions of the Heavenly Bodies, the Distance, Magnitude, Revolutions, and especially the Influences of the Planets, the Nature and probable Revolutions of Comets, the excellency of the New Philosphy, and the like; but this Man was no Scholar. . . This put me upon wondering, ever so long ago, what this strange Thing called a Man of Learning was, and what is it that constitutes a Scholar? For, said I, here's a man speaks five Languages and reads the Sixth, is a master of Astronomy, Geography, History, and abundance of other useful Knowledge (which I do not mention, that you may not guess at the Man, who is too Modest to desire it), and yet, they say this Man is no Scholar.-DEFOE, DANIEL, 1720-26, Applebee's Journal.

De Foe, a man of talents, but of indifferent character, was the darling of the whig mob, and the contempt of men of genius, because he disgraced himself by every low artfice as a writer. He wrote poetry, and on politics; and was a

plagiary.-NOBLE, MARK, 1806, A Biographical History of England, vol. 11, p. 306.

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 withold from him the praise of . . . integrity, sincerity, and consistency.- BALLANTYNE, JOHN, 1810, ed. De Foe's Novels, Edinburgh ed., Memoir..

When, or upon what occasion it was, that De Foe made the alteration in his name, by connecting with it the foreign prefix, no where appears. His enemies said, he adopted it because he would not be thought an Englishman; but this notion. seems to have no other foundation than the circumstance of his having, in consequence of his zeal for King William, attacked the prejudices of his countrymen, in his well-known satire of "The Trueborn Englishman." Oldmixon intimates, that it was not until after he had stood in the pillory, that he changed his name; and Dr. Browne tells us, that he did it at the suggestion of Harley:

"Have I not chang'd by your advice my name."

But no reliance is to be placed upon the testimony of either of these writers when speaking of De Foe. His motive was, probably, a dislike to his original name, either for its import, or its harshness; or he might have been desirous of restoring it it to its Norman origin. Norman origin. - WILSON, WALTER, 1830, Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel De Foe, vol. 1, p. 231.

the granddaughter of Milton; Mr. Editor, it is in yours, to prop up the last scion of De Foe. If Milton wrote the grandest poem and the most energetic and eloquent prose of any writer in any country; if he stood erect before Tyranny, and covered with his buckler not England only, but nascent nations; if our great prophet raised in vision the ladder that rose from earth to heaven, with angels upon every step of it; lower indeed, but not less useful, were the energies of De Foe. He stimulated to enterprise those colonies of England which extend over every sea, and which carry with them, from him, the spirit and the language that will predominate throughout the world. Achilles and Homer will be forgotten before Crusoe and De Foe.-LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE, 1855? From The Times Newspaper, Life by Forster, p. 593.

Could the life of this extraordinary man be represented in a dramatic form, we should behold him in the utmost extremes of social position, each explicable by his course as an author. He might be seen the familiar and admired habitué of a Puritan coffee-house, ardently discussing the latest news from the seat of war, or the local question of the hour; alternating between his hosier's shop in Cornhill and the Dissenters' chapel at Surrey; in arms for the Duke of Monmouth; one of the handsomely-mounted escort of volunteers who attended William and Mary from Whitehall to the Mansion house; a bankrupt refugee, talking with Selkirk at the Red Lion Tavern in Bristol; the confidential visitor ensconced in the cabinet of William of Orange; the occupant of a cell in Newgate; an honored guest at Edinburgh, promoting the Union; a secret ambassador to the Continent; the delegate of the people, handing to Harley a mammoth petition; the cynosure of a hundred sympathetic and respectful eyes as he stands in the pillory; in comfortable retirement at Newington; and at last a victim of filial ingratitude, his health wasted in noble intellectual toil, dying at the age of seventy. Such are few of the strong contrasts which the mere external drama of De Foe's life presents. While Swift was noting the banquets he attended for the diversion of Stella, Steele dodging bailiffs in his luxurious establishment, Addison, in elegant trim, paying

his court to the Countess of Warwick, and Bolingbroke embodying his heartless philosophy in artificial rhetoric, De Foe was wrestling for truth in Cripplegate. His contemporary authors are known to us through elaborate and loving memoirs; their portraits adorn noble galleries; scholars still emulate their works, and glorify them in reviews; while their monumental effigies are clustered in imposing beauty in the venerable Abbey. Our knowledge of De Foe's appearance is chiefly derived from an advertisment describing him as a fugitive.-TUCKERMAN, HENRY T., 1857, Essays, Biographical and Critical, pp. 286, 288.

On my visiting that sacred spot of departed patriotism-the last solemn resting-place of the mortal remains of Daniel De Foe, Bunhill Fields CemeteryI was struck with the condition of the tombstone, which was broken, and the inscriptions, two or three, obliterated by nelgect and the corrosive influence of time and atmosphere. I pointed this grave

stone to the sexton:-"That tombstone is broken, and the inscriptions are worn off through the corrosive influence of the atmosphere." "Yes sir, the lightning did it," was the reply. Lightning did it

impossible! The tomb of De Foe requiring lightning from heaven to destroy it! This truly is one way of obliterating the memorial of departed greatness; for De Foe was both great and good-yes, he was a good man. What!-the white reeky haze of the sulphurous exhalations of the vale of Sodom and Gomorrah here? Forbid it, Heaven! Daniel De Foe's last resting-place to be torn up by fire from heaven!-he; one of the first writers on free trade and political economy, and every branch of civil and religious liberty, in all seasons of prosperity or national danger-he; not only statesman but philanthropist-be torn up or disturbed, in his last resting-place, by fire from heaven! Impossible! The tomb is broken of that man, who dared to show to arbitrary powers in church and in state; how to pull their house about their ears-THE SHORTEST WAY.-CHADWICK, WILLIAM, 1859, The Life and Times of Daniel De Foe, p. 463.

He was a great, a truly great liar, perhaps the greatest liar that ever lived. His dishonesty went too deep to be called

superficial, yet, if we go deeper still in his rich and strangely mixed nature, we come upon stubborn foundations of conscience. Shifty as Defoe was,

and admirably as he used his genius for circumstantial invention to cover his designs, there was no other statesman of his generation who remained more true to the principles of the Revolution, and to the cause of civil and religious freedom. No other public man saw more clearly what was for the good of the country, or pursued it more steadily. De

foe cannot be held up as an exemplar of moral conduct, yet if he is judged by the measures that he laboured for and not by the means that he employed, few Englishmen have lived more deserving than he of their country's gratitude. He may have been self-seeking and vain-glorious, but in his political life self-seeking and vainglory were elevated by their alliance with higher and wider aims. Defoe was a wonderful mixture of knave and patriot. Sometimes pure knave seems to be uppermost, sometimes pure patriot; but the mixture is so complex, and the energy of the man so restless, that it almost passes human skill to unravel the two elements. The author of "Robinson Crusoe," is entitled to the benefit of every doubt. MINTO, WILLIAM, 1879, Daniel Defoe (English Men of Letters), pp. 165, 166, 167.

His fate he has earned,
His book we have burned,
That its soul may fly free!
One and all, come and see
Great London's brave show!
Here's to Daniel Defoe!

On to the Pillory, ho!

To punish rogue Daniel Defoe!
Pelt him, maidens and men!
For he thinks with a pen,
And his thought is too free!
God bless him! See! See!!
Fill glasses! Fill, ho!

Here's to Daniel Defoe!
-VENABLE, WILLIAM HENRY, 1885, De-
foe in the Pillory; Melodies of the Heart,
Songs of Freedom and Other Poems, p. 132.

The names of Dryden, Addison, Steele, Pope, Johnson conjure up before us the groups of friends which surrounded them, the clubs which they frequented, the disciples who sat admiringly at their feet. But Defoe strides through the press a solitary figure sternly selfreliant, friendless, uncompanioned-always alone, but

always sufficient to himself-less fortunate than the cast-away of his own creation, for he, at least, possessed the affection of a faithful attendant-active with a ceaseless activity, vigorous with a manly strength, but, from first to last, a lonely Man of Letters.-ADAMS, W. H. DAVENPORT, 1886, Good Queen Anne, vol. II, p. 230.

His connection with Mist forced him to pass himself off as one of the Jacobites, "a generation who, I profess," as he says in his letter in the State Paper Office of 26 April 1718, "my very soul abhores." He had, therefore, to abandon his claims to integrity, and submit to pass for a traitor. No man has a right to make such a sacrifice; and if not precisely a spy, Mist and Mist's friend would hardly draw the distinction.-STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1888, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XIV, p. 288.

His fame is world-wide, yet all that is known of him is one or two of his least productions, and his busy life is ignored in the permanent place in literary history which he has secured. His characteristics, as apart from his conduct, are all those of an honest man; but when that most important part of him is taken into the question, it is difficult to pronounce him anything but a knave. His distinguishing literary quality is a minute truth

fulness to fact which makes it almost impossible not to take what he says for gospel; but his constant inspiration is fiction-not to say, in some circumstances, falsehood. He spent his life in the highest endeavors that a man can engage in, -in the work of persuading and influencing his country, chiefly for her good, -and he is remembered by a boys' book, which is, indeed, the first of boys' books, yet not much more. Through these contradictions we must push our way before we can reach any clear idea of Defoe, the London tradesman, who, by times, composed almost all the newspapers in London, wrote all the pamphlets, had his finger in every pie, and a share in all that was done, yet brought nothing out of it but a damaged reputation and an unhonored end.-OLIPHANT, M. O. W., 1893, The Author of "Robinson Crusoe," The Century, vol. 46, p. 740.

It would not be fair to judge Defoe altogether by the moral standard of our