"Memoir of the House of Orange," and "The Life of Alderman Barber." The daughters managed to recover their property from their despicable brother, and settled comfortably in life-Hannah as a maiden lady, Henrietta as the wife of a gentleman of condition. Sophia's (Mrs. Baker's) son lived to be the author of "The Companion to the Play-house." A great grandson of De Foe was hanged at Tyburn, Jan. 2, 1771; and another great-grandson was, in 1787, cook on the Savage, sloop-of-war. These two last, we may presume, were the descendants of the wretch who, whilst "living in a profusion of plenty," allowed his mother and sisters to be in want! From this branch came "the poor descendant from De Foe," to support whose old age there has lately been an appeal to the charitable in the columns of the Times.

In what estimation are we to hold De Foe as a writer of fiction? And for what is the English novel indebted to him? The latter question can be answered in a few words and with great precision. De Foe brought into the domain of imaginative prose-writing graphic description of scenes, events, and mental emotions, and quick-pointed conversation.

Of "Robinson Crusoe," what necessity is there to speak ? Who is not familiar with its pages? What school-boy has not undergone a whipping for leaving his lessons unstudied while he has been sitting in the Solitary's hut, or spending an afternoon with "man Friday?" How many in the decline of life have over the leaves of that wonderful book grown young again! Charles Lamb says, "Next to the Holy Scriptures, it may be safely asserted that this delightful romance has, ever since it was written, excited the first and most powerful influence upon the juvenile mind of England, nor has its popularity been much less among any of the other nations of Christendom." He might have added, "and out of Christendom too." It has been trans

lated into Arabic; and Burckhart "heard it read aloud among the wandering tribes in the cool hours of evening." "That island," a beautiful writer has observed, "placed 'far amidst the melancholy main' and remote from the track of human wanderings, remains to the last the greenest spot in memory. At whatever distance of time, the scene expands before us as clearly and distinctly as when we first beheld it; we still see the green savannahs and silent woods, which mortal footstep had never disturbed; its birds of strange wing, that had never heard the report of a gun; its goats browsing securely in the vale, or peeping over the heights, in alarm at the first sight of man. We can yet follow its forlorn inhabitant on tiptoe with suspended breath, prying curiously into every recess, glancing fearfully at every shade, starting at every sound, and then look forth with him upon the lone and boisterous ocean with the sickening feeling of an exile cut off for ever from all human intercourse. Our sympathy is more truly engaged by the poor shipwrecked mariner, than by the great, the lovely, and the illustrious of the earth. We find a more effectual wisdom in its homely reflections than is to be derived from the discourses of the learned and the eloquent. The interest with which we converse with him in the retirement of his cave, or go abroad with him on the business of the day, is as various and powerful as the means by which it is kept up are simple and inartificial. So true is everything to nature, and such reality is there in every particular, that the slightest circumstance creates a sensation, and the print of a man's foot or shoe is the source of more genuine terror than all the strange sights and odd noises in the romances of Mrs. Radcliffe."

Children are charmed with the story of "Robinson Crusoe;" men of thought are not less delighted with the narrative; but they have recourse to it also as a book instructing them in some of the most valuable truths of philosophy. He must possess a far lower than a merely ordinary-mind who leaves the perusal of this wonderful book without having acquired from it a new insight into his own nature, the means of avoiding the evil, and attaining to the good, without having perceived how many infant faculties of his being might by training be made to assume grand proportions, and be endowed with vast strength. It is a great religious poem. It is "the drama of solitude;" the object of which is to show that in the most wretched state of desertion there still remains within the human breast a power of life independent of external circumstances; and that where man is not, there God especially abides.

Why did not De Foe, with such an unexampled capability as a writer of fiction, occupy himself earnestly in his art? Why did he not expend thought, toil, and long years, in elaborating two such works as "Robinson Crusoe," or the commencement of “ Colonel Jack," instead of scribbling page after page, without consideration enough to avoid dulness, stories replete with obscenities he must have disapproved, and nonsense that he must have grinned at with contempt even while the pen was in his hand? Foster, in his graphic and fascinating sketch of De Foe and his times, bids us remember, when judging of "Moll Flanders" and "Roxana," the tone of society at the time of their appear

Without a doubt, measured by the standard of the vicious literature of the Restoration and the two succeeding ages, they do not especially sin against purity of morals. But in this we cannot find a valid apology for De Foe, who, in composing them, put his hand to works that all serious. men of his own religious views must have regarded with warm disapproval. De Foe was not by profession amongst the frivolous or godless of his generation; he was loud in his condemnation of the stage, of gambling, and of debauchery; he not only knew that voluptuous excess was criminal, but he raised his voice to shame it out of society,

and yet he exercised his talents in depicting scenes of sensual enjoyment, which no virtuous nature can dwell on without pain-no vicious one without pleasure. What was his motive? Money.

Drelincourt's book of "Consolations against the fears of Death," one of the heaviest pieces of literature religion has given to the world (and that is saying no little)-hung on hand, so that the publisher, much downcast, informed De Foe he should lose a considerable sum. "Don't fear!I'll make the edition go off," said De Foe; and sitting down he wrote " A True Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs. Veal, the next day after her death, to one Mrs. Bargrave, at Canterbury, the 8th of September, 1705, which apparition recommends the perusal of Drelincourt's book of 'Consolations against the fears of Death." The ghost story startled and took captive the silly people the author intended, and he knew so well how, to hoax. A true, bona fide ghost of a respectable Mrs. Veal had urged on mankind the study of Drelincourt. Forthwith the publisher's shop was crowded with purchasers, and the edition rapidly left his shelves. It is strange how De Foe's biographers and admirers delight in this story. It may show De Foe to advantage in an intellectual point of view, leading a crowd of John Bulls astray, and all the while laughing at them; but as a proof of his mental power such testimony is valueless, because unnecessary. That Mrs. Veal's apparition was ingeniously told, no one will deny; but then it was a wilful falsehood, all the same for its cunning construction, and was framed to puff a bad book. Such a deed would aid the "Woolly Horse" and "Fejee Mermaid" in giving grace to a Barnum's life; but to think that De Foe could tell lies for a trade purpose is more than common pain.

And here we find the secret of this great man's shame. He was a man of somewhat expensive habits, continually entering into rash monetary speculations, and burdened

VOL. I.

G

with debts, which in honour he felt himself bound to discharge. Of all men he was just the one to be called upon for large sums of wealth, and to have little in hand to meet such demands. His pen was a ready one at earning money; he could turn off any composition with facility: and as, just then, tales (highly seasoned) met with the best prices in the market, he wrote them as fast as his pen could run over the paper, and spiced them up to the palates of his employers. And what trash (dishonest quack gibberish to get pennies from the crowd) poured in unceasing flow from him, it grieves one to reflect. "The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell; a gentleman who, though deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight; with their future contingencies of fortune. Now living in Exeter-Court, over against the Savoy in the Strand." Mr. Duncan Campbell was the arch-impostor in the magic line of his day. All that table-turning, hat-spinning, spirit-rapping, and Mormonism are to us, was Mr. Duncan Campbell to the addled-pates of his generation. At every drum in the fashionable world ladies spoke in ecstacies of "that duck of a Mr. Duncan Campbell," how he knew everything, was a medium, and a gentleman by birth; and how no one of ordinary sagacity doubted his powers. De Foe, in his "Life and Adventures," of course declared his belief in the fellow; a book exposing the man's tricks would not have sold. Steele mentioned this Campbell in "the Tatler;" and Eliza Heywood (the authoress of "Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy," "The Fruitless Enquiry," and "Betsey Thoughtless,") wrote a work similar to De Foe's, called "A Spy on the Conjuror; Memoirs of the Famous Mr. Duncan Campbell." By the way, have any of the readers of these pages perused Eliza Heywood's other works-her "Letters on all occasions lately passed between persons of distinction," of which Letter IV. is entitled "Sarpedon to the ever-upbraiding Myrtilla," and XI., "The repenting