dent, and thoughtful character which commerce produces in its sober votaries. By one of those singular anomalies for which it is impossible to account, he appears, whether from consciousness of the plebeian sound of his paternal name, or it may be for some more rational motive, to have early prefixed to it the more aristocratic syllable De-though on no occasion does he seem to have been in the slightest degree tinged with the pride of ancestry. He ever sang, with Béranger, Moi, noble? oh! vraiment, messieurs, non. Je n'ai le brevet sur vélin. It is reasonable to conclude that his father was in good circumstances; as Daniel received a solid education at a Dissenting Academy at Newington, near London-and as he alludes in his writings more than once, to his having been destined to the profession of theology: It was my misfortune," he says, "to be first set apart for, and afterwards set a part from, the ministry: and the description he gives of the acquirements he had made, in a very large circle of Literature and Science, while at school, would lead us to conclude that the education he received was one of a very sound and complete character, even if his works did not abound with sufficient evidence-evidence even more convincing than the assertion of a person as veracious as De Foe could be. He was born in 1661, and appears to have been sent to school in his twelfth year, where he remained till he was sixteen but as he does not seem to have taken part in public affairs till the year 1685, the period of the ill-fated attempt made by the Duke of Monmouth, it is not unreasonable to conclude that he devoted this interval to the accumulation of those stores of useful information, of which his later writings give such abundant proof, and which could not have been amassed, how VOL. III. : 29 ever he might have increased them, amid the agitations and persecutions of a long, busy, and agitated life. In that unfortunate cause De Foe appears to have borne arms, but without incurring the penalties which followed in so many cases the defeat of Monmouth's partizans. In the year 1688 he was made a Liveryman of the City of London, having served his apprenticeship to a hose-factor, as he vehemently repels a charge subsequently made against him by one of his opponents, of having been a manufacturer of stockings, though he confesses that those articles formed the subject of his trade. ་་ : At this time occurred that important and beneficial revolution which placed William of Orange on the throne, so long and so unfortunately occupied by the ill-fated house of Stuart, an event which must have been highly in accordance with the principles and wishes, political as well as religious, of De Foe's party. We are told by Oldmixon, that our citizen, gallantly equipped and well mounted, formed part of the triumphal procession, assembled by the City of London, October 29th 1689, to escort the new king from the palace of Whitehall to the feast offered to celebrate his accession by the Lord Mayor. But from the cold and reserved temper of William neither the enthusiasm nor the gallantry of our Hosier could expect any reward for such holiday loyalty and we find De Foe three years afterwards unable to pay his debts, and obliged to abscond from his creditors, one of whom, more vindictive than the rest, is reported to have taken out a writ of bankruptcy against him, a proceeding which the others, confident, and with reason, of the integrity of their unfortunate debtor, quashed by a petition, and enabled De Foe to come to a composition. Let it be said to his honour, that he afterwards proved the justice of this confidence and forbearance, by punctually discharging the debts for which he was liable. It may be asked how De Foe, whose writings give evidence that he possessed not only the integrity which is so high and indispensable an element in the commercial character, but also, to a remarkable degree, the skill and boldness necessary for successful trade, whose life was stained by no excesses, and even the peculiar nature of whose trade was not of a kind likely to involve him in ruinous speculation, should have been thus unfortunate. The answer will be found if we invert the celebrated and alas, too true aphorism, «La poussière du comptoir est fatale aux lettres. » He was a member of a Society for the cultivation of Polite Learning, and it is but too probable that his endeavour to unite the service of those incompatible divinities, Mercury and the Muses, was not more successful, than such attempts to obey two masters » will, as we are warned by the Scripture, invariably be found. He then engaged in the fabrication of bricks and pantilesthe latter manufactory of an article which till then had been imported from Holland-and this branch of industry, in which he was long engaged, would probably have been profitable but for the frequent distractions produced by the imprisonments and reverses consequent upon his political writings. With untiring energy and exhaustless readiness, De Foe appears, during the course of a long and varied life, to have allowed no subject of either political or commercial interest to arise, without a pamphlet.-His laborious biographer Wilson has collected the titles of above 200 works of various extent, and is convinced that this list, long as it is, is far from being a complete one. The consideration of his principal writings will form the subject for another notice; but in mentioning them here it will be sufficient to remark, that in all of them are to be found the same peculiarities which we have assigned as the characteristic of his style. The same extreme plainness―nay, even homeliness of expression-the same vigorous and idiomatic, though occasionally incorrect diction-the same cogent logic, the more cogent perhaps from the absence, if we may so express it, of scholastic skill-the same wonderful power of conceiving and picturing the manner in which a common mind would act and feel under any imaginary circumstances. He wrote upon the monetary system, he projected Banks and Factories for goods, he proposed a commission of enquiry into bankrupts' estates, he planned a Pension-office for the relief of the poor, and finished by a long essay upon Projects themselves. It appears more than probable, that in the course of his trade in wool he made at least one voyage to Spain; and thus practically made himself acquainted with the commercial character of that nation, a character which he seems to have taken many opportunities of representing in a very attractive light-it will be sufficient to allude to the description, in Robinson Crusoe, of the manners and virtues of the Spaniards who colonized his island. In 1695 his indefatigable endeavours at last attracted the notice of the Court, and he was appointed Secretary to a Commission for managing the duties on glass. His usual ill luck attended him here also, for the tax being abolished four years after he had entered upon an employment for which it cannot be doubted he was admirably calculated, he was deprived of his situation. It was however at the close of this year that De Foe was destined to lay the first foundation of that fame which his name afterwards acquired, and by a work whose reputation has survived to the present day, though written for a temporary purpose, to give as it were a foretaste or earnest of his powers, and at the same time to perform good service to the Court. " "At the end of 1699, there was published,» writes De Foe; an horrid pamphlet, in very ill verse, written by one Tutchin, and called The Foreigners; in which the author fell personally upon the King, then upon the Dutch Nation; and, after having reproached his majesty with crimes, that his « worst enemies could not think of without horror, he sums up all in the odious name of Foreigner. Foreigner.' This filled me with rage against the book, and gave birth to a trifle which I never could hope should have met with so general an ac " ceptation. " : The Trifle to which De Foe alludes, was a poetical satire on Tutchin's work, and a defence of King William the vigorous and manly thoughts, which exhibit in this, as in his other writings the plain sense and masculine reasoning of the author, are perhaps deprived of none of their effect by the rough, harsh, and inharmonious verse in which they are embodied. Dryden was one of the few poets who can reason in verse: and the earnest and homely invective of « The True-born Englishman, for so was this satire called, remind the reader much more frequently of the grating measures of Hall and the Older Satirists, though without their gorgeous prodigality of illustration, than of the rich and varied music of the « Hind and Panther, or of the Mac Flecknoe. » In consequence of the extraordinary success of this work, De Foe was honoured with an audience of the Sovereign whom he had so powerfully defended, and of whom he had been so long a devoted partisan. He afterwards wrote The Original Power of the collective body of the People of England examined and asserted; and An Argument to prove that a standing Army, with consent of Parliament, was not inconsistent with a free Government, and a number of other political works, which in the present slight sketch we do not consider that it would be interesting to our readers, even were it possible, to specify. But whatever advancement he might have expected from the gratitude or the policy of government, his hopes were now to be destroyed by the death of King William, which took place March 8th, 1702, and the consequent restoration of the line of Stuart in the person of Anne. De Foe, whose politics were naturally in the highest degree obnoxious to the present possessors of power, was by this event reduced to distress. and probably obliged to subsist by the literary labour of the day we shall see that his activity did not cease, and that he «bated no jot of heart or hope, but steered right on, encompassed, as he was, with evil days and evil tongues. » And perhaps this is the most infallible criterion of the higher order of minds, whether the arena of their trials, or the scene of their triumphs be the council-chamber, the battle-field, or the closet. This irrepressible energy, equally active and equally hopeful amid the storms of fate and misfortune is an energy which the sunshine of success seems almost to deprive of that atmosphere of difficulty and danger in which it appears to live. Nor can |