a thing as a retail dealer, but a negociator between the manufacturer and the small merchant." "Just hearken to him," exclaimed the gentlemen, who a day before had said anybody ought to blush to deal in stockings, &c., "just hearken to him! The man is ashamed of his calling." It was also about this time De Foe put the prefix of De before his name. What led him to do so it would be hard to say. Probably he fancied De made Foe sound prettier. This step again brought on him a vast amount of ridicule; although it was then the custom for gentlemen to alter the spelling of their names, to put in an a or take it out, just as the whim took them. We could point to many unaffected and honourable gentlemen of that time, who changed from one mode of spelling their names to another, much in the same way as they might take a new wine into favour for habitual drinking. In 1688, he becomes a liveryman of London. In 1688 also, other events, almost as important, take place. William the Third lands, and James, king of England, jure divino, runs away. The young London trader was up again. On to the death for freedom of thought! He was one of those who guarded William at Henley, and in 1689 he rode amongst the guard of honour who surrounded William and Mary, when they paid a visit to the city. The great William had a cordial admiration for his sagacious, active, and truly noble subject. The hose-factor participated largely in the secret councils of his sovereign, and was honoured with employment on more than one important service. Just about, and for some time after, the revolution, De Foe resided at Tooting, where he was surrounded with the signs of prosperity, and moreover kept his coach. At Tooting he exerted himself successfully to bring the dissenters of the place into a regular congregation. At this period of his life he was involved in commercial affairs-as a city-man on Cornhill, as a Spanish merchant (or peddler, as his opponents suggested), and as a large proprietor in the tilekiln and brick-kiln works at Tilbury, Essex. The exact points of time when he entered into these two latter speculations cannot be fixed. Severe reverses in business soon befell him from what cause it cannot be said, but certainly not from want of industry on his part. In 1692, he failed; and retired to Bristol to be for a while out of the way of his creditors. It is by the world's treatment of a man when in adversity that we best see some features of his character. Creditors neither are nor ever have been a very merciful class of men; but De Foe's, so high a sense had they of his honour, took his personal security for the amount of composition on his debts. But being legally freed from liabilities was with De Foe very different from being morally liberated. A large portion of his laborious existence was devoted to discharging debts from which his composition had in the eye of the law absolved him. No less a sum than 12,0001, earned by continued labour, did he thus pay away. From 1695 to 1699 he had the post of accountant to the Commissioners of the Glass Duty. In the January of 1701 appeared one of his most famous productions, "The True-born Englishman," a satire of the first order of merit. Rugged the verse is without doubt, but the language is as manly as the sentiment, and the sarcasm is sharp as a needle, pierces to the marrow, and then burns like caustic. It has been said that the two first lines of a poem will usually show whether it is worth reading. The two first of "The True-born Englishman," are Wherever God erects a house of prayer, Let the reader continue, or rather, with the poem before him, let him discontinue reading it if he can. Many couplets will cling to the least tenacious memory:----such as Great families of yesterday we show, And lords whose parents were, the Lord knows who. The poem sold rapidly. The author published nine editions, and it was issued to the world twelve times without his concurrence. Of the cheaper numbers 80,000 were sold. Englishmen learned, and with fair grace acknowledged the truth of the lesson, that their national extraction instead of being pure, was obscure and confused in the extreme. Never again were Dutchmen sneered at for not being trueborn Englishmen. In March, 1702, the great King William died. Times were now to change. Intolerant churchmen were to gain a passing ascendancy, and conscientious dissenters were to be persecuted. At this crisis De Foe sent forth his most notorious, and, perhaps, his most brilliant political pamphlet-the "Shortest Way with the Dissenters; a Proposal for the establishment of the church. London: 1702." Those who have studied the powers of irony displayed in this and other similar writings of De Foe, will not, however much they continue to admire Gulliver's Travels, be inclined to rate the Dean's irony as pre-eminent for originality. But irony is a dangerous weapon to use. What with fools who cannot, and rogues who will not understand, it too frequently wounds him who wields it not less than those against whom it is employed. "But consider, my dear lad, that fools cannot distinguish this, and that knaves will not," said Eugenius to Yorick. Sound churchmen were delighted with the barbarous proposals, found in "the shortest way," for the treatment of non-conformists; grave clergymen said the book ought to be bound with the sacred Scriptures. The dissenters were not less affected-but in a different way: in the anonymous author of the tract they saw only a blood-thirsty foe. At last the secret was discovered ;the churchmen were furious at the blow they had received, so deeply humiliating to them as Christians and people of intelligence; the dissenters were far from being pleasedthey could not forgive their advocate the possession of talents so superior to their own; and they never ceased to remember with bitterness the ridicule they had incurred by being hoaxed by their own hoax. But though the churchmen were the laughing stock of all but their own partisans, they were powerful, and had the means of vengeancein their hands. Let us read the London Gazette, Jan. 10th, 1702-3: "Whereas Daniel De Foe, alias De Fooe, is charged with writing a scandalous and seditious pamphlet, entitled "The Shortest Way with the Dissenters;" he is a middle-sized, spare man, about forty years old; of a brown complexion, and dark brown-coloured hair, but wears a wig; a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes, and a large mole near his mouth ; was born in London, and for many years was a hose-factor, in Freeman's Yard, in Corn Hill, and now is owner of the brick and pantile works near Tilbury Fort, in Essex; whoever shall discover the said Daniel De Foe to one of her Majesty's principal secretaries of state, or any one of her Majesty's justices of the peace, so as he may be apprehended, shall have a reward of fifty pounds, which her Majesty has ordered immediately to be paid on such discovery." De Foe having disappeared from the storm, the bookseller and printer were taken into custody. On this, the author surrendered himself into the hands of the Philistines. On February 24th, 1703, he was indicted for libelling the Tory party, and he was tried at the Old Bailey in the following July; he was found guilty; and the sentence was, that he should pay 200 marks to the Queen; stand three times in the pillory; be imprisoned during the Queen's pleasure; and find sureties for his good behaviour for seven years. It may not be omitted, moreover, that the House of Commons, February 25th, 1702-3, resolved with regard to "The Shortest Way," "that this book, being full of false and scandalous reflections on this parliament, and tending to promote sedition, be burnt by the hands of the common hangman, to-morrow, in New Palace-yard." Poor book! Poor honourable members! They little thought what was the principal thing that fire destroyed! Let us now read the London Gazette, No. 3,936, Thursday, July 29th, to Monday, August 2nd, 1703 :-" London, July 31st. On the 29th instant, Daniel Foe, alias, De Foe, stood in the pillory before the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, as he did yesterday near the conduit in Cheapside, and this day at Temple-bar," &c., &c. But to the great mortification of enthusiastic admirers of religious intolerance, the mob did not annoy this hose-factor when exposed in the pillory, but closing round him protected him from all annoyance, sang his songs in compliment to him, drank his health, and pelted him-not with rotten eggs, but with flowers. Really and truly, the House of Commons, and all the bigoted ecclesiastics of the kingdom, were the ones pilloried, and not the courageous writer. Pope wrote in the Dunciad : "Fearless on high stood unabashed De Foe." But the poet lived to repent the line, and to learn (to use the happy words of an eminent author) that in attempting to murder he had committed suicide. Swift spoke of De Foe as "the fellow that was pilloried: I forget his name:" but a cruel punishment was in store for that selfish, bad, dishonest man. The martyr himself wrote, while in Newgate, an ode to the pillory, containing the following lines : Hail! hi'roglyphick state machine, Men, that are men, can in thee feel no pain, Contempt, that false, new word for shame, A shadow to amuse mankind, But never frights the wise or well-fixed mind : And scandals innocence adorn. |