reliefe by proclamation for the country to come in and refresh them with provisions."

The death of his little boy of five years old wrung from Evelyn one of the most beautiful laments in all literature. I quote some portions of it:

"1657-8. 27. Jan.-After six fits of a quartan ague with which it pleased God to visite him, died my dear son Richard, to our inexpressible griefe and affliction, 5 years and 3 days old only, but of that tender age a prodigy for witt and understanding; for beauty of body a very angel; for endowment of mind of incredible and rare hopes.

"To give onely a little taste of them, and thereby glory to God, sense to God; he had learned all his catechisme, who out of the mouths of babes and infants does sometimes perfect his praises; at 2 years and a half old he could. perfectly reade any of ye English, Latin, French, or Gothic letters, pronouncing the three first languages exactly.

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The number of verses he could recite was prodigious and what he remembered of the parts of playes, which he would also act and when seeing a Plautus in one's hand, he asked what booke it was, and being told it was comedy, and too difficult for him, he wept for sorrow. He had learned by heart divers sentences in Latin and Greeke, which on occasion he would produce even to wonder.

"He was all life, all prettinesse, far from morose, sullen, or childish in anything he said or did.

The last time he had been at church, which was at Greenwich, I asked him, according to custome, what he remembered of ye sermon; two good things, Father, said he, bonum gratiae and bonum gloriae, with a just account of what ye preacher said.

"The day before he died he call'd to me, and in a more serious manner than usual told me that for all I loved him so dearly I should give my house, land and all my fine things, to his brother Jack, he should have none of them; and next morning when he found himself ill, and that I persuaded him to keepe his hands in bed, he demanded whether he might pray to God with his hands un-joyned; and a little after whilst in greate agonie, whether he should not offend God by using his holy name so often calling for What shall I say of his frequent pathetical ejacula

ease.

tions utter'd of himselfe : 'Sweete Jesus, save me, deliver me, pardon my sins, let thine angels receive me!' So early knowledge, so much piety and perfection!

But thus God having dress'd up a Saint fit for himself, would not longer permit him with us, unworthy of ye future fruits of this incomparable hopeful blossom. Such a child I never saw for such a child I blesse God in whose bosome he is! May I and mine become as this little child, who now follows the Child Jesus that Lamb of God, in a white robe whithersoever he goeth; even so, Lord Jesus, fiat voluntas tua! Thou gavest him to us, Thou hast taken him from us, blessed be ye name of ye Lord! That I had anything acceptable to Thee was from Thy grace alone, since from me he had nothing but sin, but that Thou hast pardon'd! blessed be my God for ever. The Lord Jesus sanctify this and all other my afflictions, Amen! Here ends the joy of my life, and for which I go even mourning to the grave. ́

It is difficult not to feel irresistibly drawn towards a man who can write with such unaffected resignation and humility as this. Had not these writers of old something infinitely precious which we have lost? All our increased knowledge does not make us better men. It has taken from us the childlike simplicity and purity of heart that speaks to us in every line of this cry of sorrow, and I know of nothing it has given us in recompense.

Three more quotations from this wonderful diary I will now cite :

"22 Nov. 1658.-Saw ye superb funerall of ye Protector. He was carried from Somerset House in a velvet bed of State drawn by six horses, houssed with the same; the pall held by his new Lords: Oliver lying in effigie in royal robes, and crowned with a crown, sceptre, and globe like a king."

"29 May 1660.-This day his Majesty Charles the Second came to London after a sad and long exile and calamitous suffering both of the King and Church being 17 years.

"This was also his birthday, and a triumph of above

20,000 horse and foote, brandishing of swords and shouting with inexpressible joy; the ways strewed with flowers, the bells ringing, the streetes hung with tapissry, fountains running with wine; the maior, aldermen, and all the companies in their liveries, chains of gold and banners; Lordes and Nobles clad in cloth of silver, gold, and velvet; the windows and balconies all set with ladies; trumpets, music, and myriads of people flocking, even so far as from Rochester, so as they were seven hours in passing the citty, even from 2 in ye afternoon till 9 at night.

I stood in the Strand and beheld it, and blessed God."

"30 January 1660-1.-This day,-O stupendious and inscrutable judgments of God !—were the carcasses of those arch rebells, Cromwell, Bradshaw the Judge who condemned his Majestie, and Ireton soun-in-law to ye usurper, dragged out of their superb tombs in Westminster among the Kings to Tyburne, and hanged on the gallows there from 9 in ye morning till 6 at night, and then buried under that fatal and ignominious monument in a deepe pitt: thousands of people who had seen them in all their pride being spectators.

66 Looke back at Nov. 22, 1658-Oliver's funeral—and be astonished! and fear God and honour ye King; but meddle not with them who are given to change ! "

Evelyn's diary shows that outside the Court and the King's immediate surroundings gentlemen in the country lived their fine blameless lives, altogether unsullied by the royal licentiousness.

I think this has always been so in England; a small, conspicuous and well-advertised group of blatant people in London may think that they are setting the fashion for married infidelity and unmarried dissoluteness, but all the while the great mass of the upper classes continue to live their lives in the country with serene and dignified virtue, continuing from generation to generation "a vigorous race of men, firm in their bodies, and moral from early habits."

These men, their wives, sons, and daughters, truly represent the sterling qualities of the English race.

CHAPTER XXIII

DANIEL DEFOE

DANIEL DEFOE is chiefly remembered to-day by his Robinson Crusoe, and of all story-tellers he must be recognised as the most convincing in his methods. Every subtle art was employed by him to give a verity to his stories; and the daily diary kept by Crusoe, his devices to keep his calendar correct, and the ingenious simplicity of the narration make it quite difficult to believe the whole to be mere invention.

The same extreme adroitness is shown in his description of the plague of London, which he published under the title of A Journal of the Plague Year. This was written so naturally that on its publication it was generally accepted as an authentic account by an eye-witness, whereas Defoe cannot have been above three years old at the date of the plague. One of his pamphlets, entitled "Reformation of Manners," a satire on his times, contains, what I imagine must have been, the first public denunciation of the slave trade.

A very fine flight of biting irony was his paper, "The Shortest Way with Dissenters," gravely advocating that they should be exterminated once and for all, if they would not return to the fold of the Church, and it so incensed the Church party by the laughter it raised against their persecutions of Nonconformists that Defoe was at the instance of that party prosecuted, convicted, sent to prison, and made to stand in the pillory. But the brave fellow was so little

crushed by this treatment that he came out with a "Hymn to the Pillory," written in his cell.

The solemn banter of "The Shortest Way with Dissenters for a little time deceived the Church party, which simplicity aggravated their rage when they subsequently apprehended the jest.

"If men," he wrote, "disobey the precepts of their superiors, let them suffer as such capital crimes deserve; so will religion flourish, and this divided nation be once again united."

Working on the universal detestation of Popery, he exclaims :

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Why should the Papist with his seven sacraments be worse than the Quaker with no sacraments at all?

Why should religious houses be more intolerable than meeting-houses? Alas! the Church of England! What with Popery on one hand, and schismatics on the other, how has she been crucified between two thieves !

'Now let us crucify the thieves. Let her foundations be established upon the destruction of her enemies, the doors of mercy being always open to the returning part of the deluded people; let the obstinate be ruled with the rod of iron. Let all true sons of so holy and oppressed a mother, exasperated by her afflictions, harden their hearts against those who have oppressed her, and may God Almighty put it into the hearts of all the friends of truth to lift up a standard against pride and Antichrist, that the posterity of the sons of error may be rooted out from the face of this land for ever."

Defoe has a very copious vocabulary, was extremely fluent, and is always easy and intelligible. But something is wanting to make him a great writer. He totally lacks distinction and elevation. Though he is a master of a style of simple piety, as exhibited in Robinson Crusoe.

It has never been explained how or why he added the prefix De to his name, for he was undoubtedly the son of James Foe, a butcher of Newington Green.