DANIEL DE FOE: A Biography. CHAPTER I. HIS EARLY YEARS. N the preface to the third part of his immortal fiction ("Serious Reflections on Morals and Religion "), Daniel De Foe bids the reader trace a parallelism between the fiction and the biography of its author. There is a man alive, he says, and well known too, the actions of whose life are the first subject of these volumes, and to whom all or most part of the story most directly alludes; this, he adds, may be depended upon for truth. In a word, there's not a circumstance in the imaginary story but has its just allusion to a real story, and chimes part for part, and step for step, with the inimitable "Life of Robinson Crusoe." Notwithstanding this assertion, I am inclined to think that much of the pretended allegory was an after-thought of De Foe's, and that between his active career and that of the solitary in the wave-washed island there exists no more resemblance than between Macedon and Monmouth in Fluellen's famous comparison. We may see, perhaps, some degree of likeness in the loneliness of De Foe in the world which he buffeted so stoutly, and the caged condition of the castaway may remind us of his creator's imprisonment; but we refuse to carry the allegory any further, or to identify every incident in the romance with every event in the real life. For the rest, De Foe was a greater, a braver, and a more self-controlled man than "Robinson Crusoe," as the following brief biographical sketch will, I hope, abundantly prove. Daniel Defoe, or De Foe, was born in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, in 1660; the son of James Foe, citizen and butcher, of London; and the 10 HIS EARLY YEARS AND EDUCATION. grandson of Daniel Foe, a gentleman of good estate in Northamptonshire, who kept a pack of hounds. Nothing more than this can be said of Daniel De Foe's grandfather; of his father some particulars are recorded. That he was an excellent father," says Mr. Lee,* “ may be concluded from the affectionate reverence with which his son alludes to him; that he was prosperous is evident from his ability to give that son the best education then open to Dissenters. No doubt can be entertained that he was a good man, and a sincere Christian. He had, in all probability, been a constant attendant at his parish church during the ministry of the pious and reverend Samuel Annesley, LL.D.; and when that divine was ejected, under the Act of Uniformity, James Foe accompanied his beloved pastor, and became a Nonconformist. He died about 1706-7, full of years, and the last act recorded of him (though not by his son) is his giving a testimonial to the character of a female domestic who had formerly lived two years in his service. He says he should not have recommended her to Mr. Cave, that godly minister, had not her conversation been becoming the gospel.'' Under such auspices passed the earliest years of the life of De Foe, and his mind seems to have been carefully imbued with religious sentiments. He was a bold, generous, vivacious boy, who, as he himself tells us, never struck an enemy when he was down. His perseverance was of no ordinary description, and when the poor Nonconformists had reason to fear that the Government would deprive them of their printed copies of the Bible, he set to work on the difficult task of transcribing the Old Testament, and never abandoned it until he had completed the whole of the Pentateuch. At the age of fourteen this bright, enthusiastic boy-whom his parents designated for the ministry-was sent to the celebrated Dissenting Academy at Newington Green, kept by a ripe scholar and able man, the Rev. Charles Morton. Here he made rapid progress in the various departments of learning; and here, too, as his mind developed and his intellect matured, his moral sense of responsibility grew stronger, so that he was induced to ask himself whether he was suited for a clerical career, and whether it was suited for him, replying to both questions in the negative. Nevertheless, he went through a course of theology, which, in truth, was incumbent on all Mr. Morton's pupils; he also studied the rudiments of political science; he acquired a satisfactory knowledge of mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, history, geography; something considerable he knew, too, of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Italian; and-not least useful accomplishment-he learned to write his mother tongue with ease, accuracy, and vigour. That he profited by his studies at school, and that he afterwards improved to the uttermost the scanty leisure of a busy life, is abundantly proved by the variety and erudition of his writings. Soon after he had completed his education, he was placed in the warehouse of a wholesale hose-factor, to be instructed, perhaps, in book-keeping * Lee, "Daniel De Foe, his Life," &c., vol. i. p. 5. A CHARACTERISTIC ANECDOTE, 11 and business management. Such details were little in accordance with his tastes, and we do not wonder that, with his strong Protestant principles and enlarged sympathies, he early plunged into the fierce joys of political contest. He was no bigot, however-no fanatical exponent of his own views; and though a sound Protestant, he was little inclined to join in the unreasoning persecution of Roman Catholics which characterized the closing years of Charles the Second's reign. At a later time he wrote: "I never blame men who, professing principles destructive of the Constitution they live under, and believing it their just right to supplant it, act in conformity to the principles they profess. I believe, if I were a Papist, I should do the same. Believing the merit of it would carry me to heaven, I doubt not I should go as far as another. But when we ran up that plot to general massacres, fleets of pilgrims, bits and bridles, knives, handcuffs, and a thousand such things, I confess, though a boy, I could not then, nor can now, come up to them. And my reasons were, as they still are, because I see no cause to believe the Papists to be fools, whatever else we had occasion to think them. A general massacre, truly! when the Papists are not five to a hundred, in some countries not one, and within the city hardly one to a thousand!" This liberal and tolerant spirit De Foe preserved throughout his career, and few of his contemporaries, if any, more thoroughly comprehended the true principles of civil and religious freedom. For bigotry, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, he had a great contempt. On one occasion he entered a crowd of listeners who, with mouths and ears open, were devouring the latest scandal against "the Papishes." An itinerant spouter was retailing an invention in reference to the newly-erected Monument. "Last night," said he, unblushingly, "six Frenchmen came up and stole it away; and but for the watch, who stopped them as they went over the bridge, and made them carry it back again, they might, for aught we know, have carried it over into France. These Papishes will never have done." Some of the bystanders looked incredulous at this very bold assertion, and Mr. Daniel Foe stepped forward, with grave satirical air, to clench the monstrous absurdity. He repeated the story, but added a touch of characteristic realism; for, said he, if you do but hasten to the spot, you will see the workmen employed in making all fast again!* Seven years later, De Foe, or Foe, as he then called himself, started in business on his own account. He became a liveryman of London, and established himself as hose-factor in Freeman's Court, Cornhill. His interest in politics, however, was of so deep and absorbing a kind that his commercial speculations must greatly have suffered by it. He could not serve twc masters he was too earnest a patriot to attain success as a man of business. Now-a-days, it is quite possible for any one of us to combine both capacities. The political questions which demand attention may well be considered in * Forster, "Historical and Biographical Essays," ii. 8. 12 DE FOE AS A POLITICIAN. the intervals of our leisure, and they are seldom of that order on which the safety of an empire depends. But in De Foe's time it was quite otherwise. He who plunged into the raging strife was compelled to throw aside every impediment, and to fight, if he fought at all, with arms and hands unencumbered. The seven years of his apprenticeship had been seven most eventful years, and De Foe, with his far-seeing sagacity, could not but rightly estimate the importance of the issue. He was too courageous and too wise to fear that issue. As Mr. Forster eloquently and truly says, hope would brighten in his sensible, manly heart, when it most deserted weaker men's. When the King, alarmed at last for the safety of the crown he dishonoured, flung off his licentious negligence for crueller enjoyments; when the street ballads and lampoons against his shameless court grew daily bitterer and more daring; when a Sidney and a Russell were brought to the block for advocating such a measure of liberty as would now-a-days be considered moderate by the most slavish partisan of Cæsarism; no alarm was likely to depress De Foe's clear, calm, and unshaken intellect. And the end of that Saturnalia of license and shame, of foul cruelty, of fouller luxuriousness, of tyranny at home and disgrace abroad, which we call the reign of Charles II., came at length-Charles II. was dead, and caps were thrown in the air for James II. This is not the place for an historical summary, and yet in the history of his time De Foe played so prominent a part that an occasional glance at its leading events must be permitted us. The intentions of James II. he fully understood and appreciated. He saw that he aimed at the establishment of Popery as his end in religion, and the absolutism of the Crown as the goal of his policy. He heard bishops preach of the divine right and infallibility of Kings; he heard it publicly asserted, that if the King commanded his head, and sent his messengers to fetch it, he was bound to submit, and stand still while it was cut off. We need not wonder that, under such circumstances, De Foe gladly hailed the so-called rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth as affording a prospect of deliverance for his country. Its religion and its freedom seemed to him to be intimately bound up with the success of the Duke's expedition; and mounting his horse, he rode away to enlist under his standard. He was with the invaders at Bath and Bristol; but-how or why I know not-he was absent from the great fight at Sedgemoor, when the King's cause was so nearly lost. On learning of Monmouth's disastrous defeat, he would seem to have gained the sea-shore and taken ship to the Continent. With his usual energy he turned his self-banishment to advantage, traversing Spain, and Germany, and France, and gathering a vast fund of experience and information, which in due time proved to him of the highest value. It was probably in the following year that he returned to Freeman's Court, Cornhill. Thenceforth he wrote himself De Foe. Whether, says Mr. Forster, the change was a piece of innocent vanity picked up in his WHAT'S IN A NAME? 13 travels, or had any more serious motive, it would now be idle to inquire. He was known both as Foe and De Foe to the last; but it is the latter name which he inscribed on the title-page of almost every one of his books, and it is the name by which he has become immortal. Mr. Lee, De Foe's latest biographer, differs from all preceding authorities in dating the change of name as late as 1703. "I am inclined to think," he says, "it began accidentally, or was adopted for convenience, to distinguish him from his father." But surely such a distinction was unnecessary, when the son was called Daniel and the father James! I think the change far more likely to have been a foreign affectation, adopted during the exile's Continental travels, and afterwards persevered in from habit; but the reader shall have an opportunity of following up the chain of Mr. Lee's reasoning, which is ingenious, if unsatisfactory. "The father," he says, "from his age and experience, and the son from his commanding ability, were both influential members of the Dissenting interest in the city. They would respectively be spoken of and addressed, orally, as Mr. Foe, and Mr. D. Foe. The name as spoken would in writing become Mr. De Foe,* and thus what originated in accident might be used for convenience, and become more or less settled by time. This simple explanation is favoured by the following proofs of De Foe's indifference in the matter. His initials and name appear in various forms in his works, subscribed to dedications, prefaces, &c., and this may be presumed to have been done by himself. Before 1703 I find only D. F. In that year Mr. De Foe, and Daniel De Foe. In the following year, D. D. F.; De Foe; and Daniel De Foe. In 1705, D. F.; and three autograph letters, all addressed to the Earl of Halifax, are successively signed D. Foe; De Foe; Daniel De Foe. In 1706, D. F.; D. Foe; De Foe; Daniel De Foe. And in 1709, D. F.; De Foe; and Daniel De Foe." The first printed production from De Foe's pen was a political pamphlet, the precursor of a legion of similar writings, entitled "A Letter, containing some Reflections on His Majesty's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience," dated the 4th of April 1687. In the following year William of Orange landed at Torbay, and De Foe, zealous as ever in the noble cause of civil and religious liberty, hastened to welcome "The Deliverer," in whose success lay the only hope of the release of England from the thraldom of bigotry and absolutism. Armed, and on horseback, he joined the second line of William's army at Henley-on-Thames. He probably accompanied the Prince on his entry into London. At the stirring debates of the Convention he was unquestionably present, and his heart must have leaped with joy when he heard the famous resolution passed, on the 13th of February, that no King had reigned in England since the day of James's flight. Gallantly mounted and accoutred, he was one of "the Surely not! There is a great difference in sound between the English D. and the French De. |