Although the
training
at this school was.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v08 - Dah to Dra
So in the entertaining volumes of her let-
ters and pen-portraits of acquaintances, she has left a valuable record.
She takes us back a century, and shows not only how people looked
and what they did, but how they thought and felt.
TO THE DUCHESSE DE CHOISEUL
PARIS, Sunday, December 28th, 1766.
D
o You know, dear Grandmama [a pet name], that you are the
greatest philosopher that ever lived? Your predecessors
spoke equally well, perhaps, but they were less consistent
in their conduct. All your reasonings start from the same senti-
ment, and that makes the perfect accord one always feels be-
tween what you say and what you do. I know very well why,
## p. 4473 (#247) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4473
loving you madly, I am ill at ease with you. It is because I
know that you must pity everybody who is unlike yourself. My
desire to please you, the brief time that I am permitted with
you, and my eagerness to profit by it, all trouble, embarrass,
intimidate me and discompose me.
I exaggerate, I utter platitudes; and end by being disgusted
with myself, and eager to rectify the impression I may have
made upon you.
You wish me to write to M. de Choiseul, and to make my
letter pretty and bright. Ah, indeed! I'm the ruler of my own
imagination, am I! I depend upon chance. A purpose to do or
to say such or such a thing takes away the possibility. I am not
in the least like you. I do not hold in my hands the springs of
my spirit. However, I will write to M. de Choiseul. I will
seize a propitious moment. The surest means of making it come
is to feel hurried.
I am sending you an extract from an impertinent little pam-
phlet entitled 'Letter to the Author of the Justification of Jean
Jacques. ' You will see how it treats our friend. I am not sure
that it should be allowed; whether M. de Choiseul should not
talk to M. de Sartines about it. It is for you to decide, dear
Grandmama, if it is suitable, and if M. de Choiseul ought to
permit licenses so impertinent.
I am dying to see you. In spite of my fear, in spite of my
dreads, I am convinced that you love me because I love you.
TO MR. CRAWFORD
SUNDAY, March 9th, 1766.
I
READ your letter to Madame de Forcalquier, or rather I gave
it to her to read. I thought from her tone that she liked it,
but she will not commit herself. She is more than incom-
prehensible. The Trinity is not more mysterious. She is com-
posed of systems, which she does not understand herself; great
words, great principles, great strains of music, of which nothing
remains. However, I am of your opinion, that she is worth
more than all my other acquaintances. She agrees that it would
be delightful to have you live in this country; but if she were
only to see you en passant, it hardly matters whether you came
or not; that she has not forgotten you, but that she will forget
## p. 4474 (#248) ###########################################
4474
MADAME DU DEFFAND
you. Eh! Why shouldn't she forget you? She does not know
A hundred speeches of the sort which vex me.
you. .
What is certain is, that her
They say of people who have too much vivacity that they
were put in too hot an oven. They might say of her, on the
contrary, that she is underdone. She is the sketch of a beauti-
ful work, but it is not finished.
sentiments, if she has sentiments, are sincere, and that she does
not bore you.
I showed her your letter because I thought that
would give you pleasure; but be sure that no one in the world,
not even she, shall see what you write me in future except
Niart [her secretary], who as you know is a well.
I have just made you a fine promise that I will not show
your letters; perhaps I shall never be able to show them.
Truly, truly, I am like Madame de Forcalquier, and do not know
you!
I spent three hours with Mr. Walpole yesterday, but only half
an hour alone with him. Lord George and his wife returned his
short call, but your Dr. James stayed there all the time. He is
a very gloomy, uninteresting man.
Have you seen Jean Jacques? Is he still in London? Have
you seen your father? Imagine yourself tête-à-tête with me in
the corner of the fireplace, and answer all my questions, but
especially those which concern your health. Have you seen the
doctors? Have they ordered you the waters? And tell me too,
honestly, if I shall ever see you again. Reflect that you are
only twenty-five years old, that I am a hundred, and that it only
requires a brief kindness to put pleasure in my life. No, I will
not assume the pathetic. Do just what pleases you.
TO HORACE WALPOLE
TUESDAY, August 5th, 1766.
I
HAVE received your letter of July 31st-no number, sheets of
different sizes. All these observations mean nothing, unless
it is that a person without anything to do or to think occupies
herself with puerile things. Indeed, I should do very wrong not
to profit by all your lessons, and to persist in the error of believ-
ing in friendship, and regarding it as a good; no, no; I renounce
my errors, and am absolutely persuaded that of all illusions that
is the most dangerous.
## p. 4475 (#249) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4475
You who are the apostle of this wise doctrine, receive my
confession and my vows never to love, never to seek to be loved
by any one; but tell me if it is permitted to desire the return of
agreeable persons; if one may long for news of them, and if to
be interested in them and to let them know it is to lack virtue,
good sense, and proper behavior. I am awaiting enlightenment.
I cannot doubt your sincerity; you have given me too many
proofs of it; explain yourself without reserve.
WEDNESDAY, 6th.
Of all the things in your letter, what struck me the most yes-
terday were your moralizings on friendship, which forced me to
reply at once. I was interrupted by Monsieur and Madame de
Beauvan, who came to take me to supper with them in the
country at the good Duchess of Saint-Pierre's. I returned early.
I did not close my eyes during the night. I woke up Niart [her
secretary] earlier than usual to go on with my letter, and to
re-read me yours.
I am better pleased with it this morning than
I was yesterday. The matter of friendship shocked me less. I
find that the conclusion is-let us be friends without friendship.
Ah well, so be it; I consent. Perhaps it is agreeable; let us
learn by experience, and for that- see each other the oftener! In
truth, you have only a comic actress, a deaf woman,
and some
chickens to leave, as you have only a blind woman and many
goslings to find; but I promise you that the blind woman will
have much to ask and much to tell.
I do not know what to say to you about your ministry. You
have entertained me so little with politics, that if others had not
informed me, all that goes on with you would be less intelligible
to me than the affairs of China. They have told me something
of the character of the count; and as for this certain good com-
rade [Conway], I think I know him perfectly. I am pleased that
he has remained, but not that he does not oppose your philos-
ophy. All your opinions are beautiful and praiseworthy; but if
I were in his place I should certainly hinder you from making
use of them, and not regulate my conduct by your moderation
and disinterestedness. Oh! as for my lord, you cannot keep
him,- that's the public cry. It seems to me that the brother and
sister-in-law are. not pleased. Do you not detest the people?
From the agrarian law to your monument, your lamps, and your
## p. 4476 (#250) ###########################################
4476
MADAME DU DEFFAND
black standard, its joy, its sadness, its applause, its complaints,
are all odious to me. But I am going back to speak to you about
yourself. You say that your fortune, instead of augmenting, will
suffer diminution. I am much afraid of that. No liberty with-
out a competency. Remember that. If your economy falls upon
your trips to France I shall be miserable. But listen to this with-
out getting vexed.
I possess, as you know, a small lodging-room belonging to
me, little worthy of the son of Robert Walpole, but which may
satisfy the philosopher Horace. If he found it convenient, he
could occupy it without incurring the slightest ridicule. He can
consult sensible people, and while waiting, be persuaded that it
is not my personal interest which induces me to offer it to him.
Honestly, my mentor, you could not do better than take it.
You would be near me or a hundred leagues from me if you
liked it better. It would not engage you to any attention nor
any assiduity; we would renew our vows against friendship. It
would even be necessary to render more observance to the Idol
[Comtesse de Boufflers]; for who could be shocked, if not she?
Pont-de-Veyle, who approves and advises this arrangement, claims
that even the Idol would find nothing to oppose. Think of that.
Grandmama returned yesterday morning. My favor with her
is better established. She will take supper with me Friday; and
as the supper was arranged without foreseeing that she would
be there, she will find a company which will not exactly suit
her, among others the Idol, and the Archbishop of Toulouse.
I shall have many things to tell you when I see you.
be that they will hardly interest you, but it will be the world of
my Strawberry Hill.
It may
You agree with me about the letters, which pleases me. I be-
lieve myself a genius when I find myself in agreement with you.
This Prince Geoffrin is excellent. Surely heaven is witness that I
do not love you, but I am forced to find you very agreeable.
Are you waiting until your arrival here to give a jug to the
Maréchale de Luxembourg? I see no necessity of making a
present to the Idol; incense, incense, that is all it wants!
I have a great desire that you should read a Memoir of La
Chalottais; it is very rare, very much "prohibited," but I am
intriguing to get it.
## p. 4477 (#251) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4477
M. de Beauvan begs you to send me a febrifuge for him. It
is from Dr. James, I think. There are two kinds; one is mild
and the other violent. He requires a louis's worth of each.
You are mightily deceiving yourself if you think Voltaire
author of the analysis of the romance of 'Héloise. ' The author
is a man from Bordeaux, a friend of M. de Secondat. Àpropos
of Voltaire, he has had the King of Prussia sounded to know if
he would consent to give him asylum at Wesel in case he were
obliged to leave his abode. This his Majesty has very willingly
granted.
Good-by. I am counting upon being able in future to give
you news of your court and your ministry. I have made a new
acquaintance, who is a favorite of Lord Bute and the most inti-
mate friend of Lord Holderness. I do not doubt that this lord
is aiming at my Lord Rochefort's place, who they say scarcely
troubles himself about the embassy.
Write me, I beg you, at least once a week.
Tell me if M. Crawford is in Scotland.
It is thought that the first news from Rome will inform us of
the death of Chevalier Macdonald.
N°
NOVEMBER, 1765.
I do not want to draw your likeness; nobody knows
you less than I. Sometimes you seem to me what I wish
you were, sometimes what I fear you may be, and per-
haps never what you really are. I know very well that you
have a great deal of wit of all kinds and all styles, and you
must know it better than any one.
O, NO!
PORTRAIT OF HORACE WALPOLE
But your character should be painted, and of that I am not a
good judge. It would require indifference, or impartiality at
least. However, I can tell you that you are a very sincere man,
that you have principles, that you are brave, that you pride
yourself upon your firmness; that when you have come to a
decision, good or bad, nothing induces you to change it, so that
your firmness sometimes resembles obstinacy. Your heart is
good and your friendship strong, but neither tender nor facile.
Your fear of being weak makes you hard. You are on your guard
against all sensibility. You cannot refuse to render valuable
## p. 4478 (#252) ###########################################
4478
MADAME DU DEFFAND
services to your friends; you sacrifice your own interest to them,
but you refuse them the slightest of favors. Kind and humane
to all about you, you do not give yourself the slightest trouble
to please your friends in little ways.
Your disposition is very agreeable although not very even.
All your ways are noble, easy, and natural. Your desire to
please does not lead you into affectation. Your knowledge of the
world and your experience have given you a great contempt for
men, and taught you how to live with them. You know that all
their assurances go for nothing. In exchange you give them
politeness and consideration, and all those who do not care about
being loved are content with you.
I do not know whether you have much feeling. If you have,
you fight it as a weakness. You permit yourself only that which
seems virtuous. You are a philosopher; you have no vanity,
although you have a great deal of self-love. But your self-love
does not blind you; it rather makes you exaggerate your faults
than conceal them. You never extol yourself except when you
are forced to do so by comparing yourself with other men. You
possess discernment, very delicate tact, very correct taste; your
tone is excellent.
You would have been the best possible companion in past
centuries; you are in this, and you would be in those to come.
Englishman as you are, your manners belong to all countries.
You have an unpardonable weakness to which you sacrifice
your feelings and submit your conduct-the fear of ridicule. It
makes you dependent upon the opinion of fools; and your friends
not safe from the impressions against them which fools
choose to give you.
Your judgment is easily confused. You are aware of this
weakness, which you control by the firmness with which you pur-
sue your resolutions. Your opposition to any deviation is some-
times pushed too far, and exercised in matters not worth the
trouble.
Your instincts are noble and generous. You do good for the
pleasure of doing it, without ostentation, without claiming grati-
tude; in short, your spirit is beautiful and high.
## p. 4478 (#253) ###########################################
į
## p. 4478 (#254) ###########################################
Grosch
DANIEL DEFOE.
## p. 4478 (#255) ###########################################
* i th
1- by.
## p. 4478 (#256) ###########################################
環と
2
DANIEL DEFOE.
## p. 4479 (#257) ###########################################
4479
DANIEL DEFOE
(1660? -1731)
BY CHARLES FREDERICK JOHNSON
D
ANIEL DEFOE, one of the most vigorous and voluminous writ-
ers of the last decade of the seventeenth and the first
quarter of the eighteenth centuries, was born in St. Giles
parish, Cripplegate, in 1660 or 1661, and died near London in 1731.
His father was a butcher named Foe, and the evolution of the son's
name through the various forms of D. Foe, De Foe, Defoe, to
Daniel Defoe, the present accepted form, did not begin much before
he reached the age of forty. He was educated at the "dissenting
school" of a Mr. Martin in Newington Green, and was intended for
the Presbyterian ministry.
Although the training at this school was.
not inferior to that to be obtained at the universities, and indeed
superior in one respect, since all the exercises were in English,- the
fact that he had never been "in residence" set Defoe a little apart
from the literary society of the day. Swift, Pope, Addison, Arbuth-
not, and the rest, considered him untrained and uncultured, and
habitually spoke of him with the contempt which the regular feels.
for the volunteer. Swift referred to him as "an illiterate fellow
whose name I forget," and Pope actually inserted his name in the
'Dunciad':
"Earless on high stood unabashed De Foe. "
This line is false in two ways, for Defoe's ears were not clipped,
though he was condemned to stand in the pillory; and there can
hardly be a greater incongruity conceived than there is between our
idea of a dunce and the energetic, shifty, wide-awake Defoe,— though
for that matter a scholar like Bentley and a wit like Colley Cibber
are as much out of place in the poet's ill-natured catalogue. Defoe
angrily resented the taunts of the university men and their profes-
sional assumption of superiority, and answered Swift that "he had
been in his time master of five languages and had not lost them
yet," and challenged John Tutchin to "translate with him any Latin,
French, or Italian author, and then retranslate them crosswise, for
twenty pounds each book. ”
Notwithstanding the great activity of Defoe's pen (over two hun-
dred pamphlets and books, most of them of considerable length, are
## p. 4480 (#258) ###########################################
4480
DANIEL DEFOE
known to be his; and it is more than probable that much of his
work was anonymous and has perished, or could be only partly dis-
interred by laborious conjecture) he found time to engage twice in
business, once as a factor in hosiery and once as a maker of tiles.
In each venture he seems to have been unfortunate, and his business
experience is alluded to here only because his practical knowledge
of mercantile matters is evident in all his work. Even his pirates
like Captain Bob Singleton, and adventurers like Colonel Jack, have
a decided commercial flavor. They keep a weather eye on the profit-
and-loss account, and retire like thrifty traders on a well-earned
competency. It is worth mentioning, however, to Defoe's credit,
that in one or two instances at least he paid his debts in full, after
compromising with his creditors.
Defoe's writings, though all marked by his strong but limited per-
sonality, fall naturally into three classes:-
First, his political writings, in which may be included his wretched
attempts at political satire, and most of his journalistic work. This
is included in numberless pamphlets, broad-sheets, newspapers, and
the like, and is admirable expository matter on the public questions
of the day. Second, his fiction, Robinson Crusoe,' 'Captain Sin-
gleton, Colonel Jack,' 'Roxana,' and 'Moll Flanders. ' Third, his
miscellaneous work; innumerable biographies and papers like the
'History of the Plague,' the 'Account of the Great Storm,' 'The
True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal,' etc. Between the
last two classes there is a close connection, since both were written
for the market; and his fictions proper are cast in the autobiographi-
cal form and are founded on incidents in the lives of real persons,
and his biographies contain a large proportion of fiction.
Some knowledge of Defoe's political work is necessary to a com-
prehension of the early eighteenth century. During his life the
power of the people and of the House of Commons was slowly ex-
tended, and the foundations of the modern English Constitution were
laid. The trading and manufacturing classes, especially in the city
of London, increased in wealth and political consequence. The read-
ing public on which a popular writer could rely, widened. With these
changes-partly as cause and purely as consequence-came the
establishment of "News Journals" and "Reviews. " Besides Addison's
Spectator for the more cultured classes, multitudes of periodicals
were founded which aimed to reach a more general public. The
old method of a broad-sheet or the pamphlet, hawked in the streets
or exposed for sale and cried at the book-stalls, was still in use, but
the regular issue of a news-letter was taking its place. Defoe attacked
the public in both ways with unwearied assiduity. His poem The
True-Born Englishman' was sold in the streets to the astonishing
-
## p. 4481 (#259) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4481
number of eighty thousand.
In 1704 he established the Review, a
bi-weekly. It ran to 1713, and Defoe wrote nearly all of each num-
ber. Afterwards he was for eight years main contributor and sub-
stantially manager of Mist's Journal, a Tory organ; and one of the
most serious and well-founded charges against this first great jour-
nalist is, that he was deficient in journalistic honor, and remained in
the pay of the Whig Ministry while attached to the Opposition organ.
During this period he founded and conducted several other journals.
>>
Defoe possessed in a large measure the journalistic sense. No one
ever had a finer instinct in the subtle arts of "working the public
and of advertising. When the notorious Jack Sheppard was con-
demned, he visited him at Newgate, wrote his life, and had the high-
wayman, standing under the gallows, send for a copy and deliver
it as his "last speech and dying confession. " There is a certain
breadth and originality in this stroke, hardly to be paralleled in
modern journalism. Defoe had the knack of singling out from the
mass of passing events whatever would be likely to interest the pub-
lic. He brought out an account in some newspaper, and if successful,
made the occurrence the subject of a longer article in pamphlet or
book form. He was always on the lookout for matter, which he
utilized with a pen of marvelous rapidity. The gazette or embryonic
newspaper was at first confined to a rehearsal of news. Defoe
invented the leading article or "news-letter» of weekly comment,
and the society column of Mercure Scandaleuse.
The list of Defoe's political pamphlets is a large one, but they are
of more interest to the historian than to the general reader. While
they are far inferior in construction and victorious good sense to
Sydney Smith's magazine articles on kindred topics, and to Swift's
'Drapier's Letters' in subtle appeals to the prejudices of the igno-
rant, they show a remarkable command over the method of reaching
the plain people, to use President Lincoln's phrase, and taking it
to mean that great body of quiet persons who desire on the whole
to be fair in their judgments, but who must have their duty made
quite evident before they see it.
is, vituperative for a time when Pope and Swift and Dennis made
their personal invective so much higher flavored than modern taste
He seems to have been tolerant by nature; and although
this proceeds in his case from the fact that his moral enthusiasm
was never very warm, and not from any innate refinement of nature,
he is entitled to the credit of moderation in the use of abusive lan-
He is tolerant, too, of those who differ from him in pol-
Defoe is never vituperative—that
endures.
guage.
itics and religion; and though it is absurd to suppose, as some of
his biographers have done, that he was so far in advance of his
century as to have advocated the political soundness of free trade, he
VIII-281
-
## p. 4482 (#260) ###########################################
4482
DANIEL DEFOE
shows in his treatment of commercial questions the marks of a broad
and comprehensive mind. He speaks of foreigners in a cosmopolitan
spirit, with the exception of the Portuguese, for whom he seems to
feel a lively dislike, founded possibly on some of his early business
experiences. The reader will remember the dignified and courteous
demeanor of the Spaniards in 'Robinson Crusoe'; and although the
violent antipathy of the previous generation to Spanish Romanists
had abated, Defoe's freedom from insular prejudice is noteworthy,
the more so that a "discreet and sober bearing," such as he gives his
Spaniards, seems to have been his ideal of conduct. Defoe is a great
journalist, and although he is a typical hack, writing timely articles.
for pay, he has a touch of genius. He was always successful in
gaining the ear of his public; and in the one instance where he hit
upon a subject of universal interest, the life of the solitary castaway
thrown absolutely on his own resources, he wrote a book, without
any effort or departure from his usual style, which has been as pop-
ular with succeeding generations as it was with his own. It is a
mistake to call 'Robinson Crusoe' a "great boy's book," - unless we
regard the boy nature as persistent in all men, and perhaps it is in
all healthy men,- for. it treats the unaided conflict with nature and
circumstance, which is the essence of adult life, with unequaled
simplicity and force. Crusoe is not merely an adventurer; he is the
human will, courage, resolution, stripped of all the adventitious
support of society. He has the elements of universal humanity,
though in detail he is as distinctly English as Odysseus is Greek.
The characters of Defoe's other novels - Colonel Jack, Captain
Singleton, Moll Flanders, and Roxana - are so repulsive, and so en-
tirely unaware of their repulsiveness, that we can take little interest
in them. Possibly an exception might be made in favor of Colonel
Jack, who evinces at times an amusing humor. All are criminals, and
the conflict of the criminal with the forces of society may be the sub-
ject of the most powerful fiction. But these books are inartistic in sev-
eral regards. No criminals, even allowing them to be hypocrites, ever
disclose themselves in the open-hearted manner of these autobiogra-
phers. Vice always pays to virtue the homage of a certain reticence
in details. Despite all his Newgate experiences and his acquaintance
with noted felons, Defoe never understood either the weakness or
the strength of the criminal type. So all his harlots and thieves
and outcasts are decidedly amateurish. A serious transgression of
the moral law is to them a very slight matter, to be soon forgotten
after a temporary fit of repentance, and a long course of evil living
in no wise interferes with a comfortable and respectable old age.
His pirates have none of the desperation and brutal heroism of sin.
Stevenson's John Silver or Israel Hands is worth a schooner-load of
## p. 4483 (#261) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4483
them. Neither they nor their author seem to value virtue very
highly, though they are acutely sensitive to the discomfort of an
evil reputation. Possibly such people may be true to a certain type
of humanity, but they are exceedingly uninteresting. A writer who
takes so narrow a view cannot produce a great book, even though
his lack of moral scope and insight is partly compensated by a vivid
presentation of life on the low plane from which he views it.
'Moll Flanders' and 'Roxana' are very coarse books, but it can
hardly be said that they are harmful or corrupting. They are simply
vulgar. Vice has preserved all its evil by preserving all its gross-
ness. Passion is reduced to mere animalism, and is depicted with
the brutal directness of Hogarth. This may be good morals, but it is
unpleasant art. It is true that Defoe's test of a writer was that he
should "please and serve his public," and in providing amusement he
was not more refined nor more coarse than those whom he addressed;
but a writer should look a little deeper and aim a little higher than
the average morality of his day. Otherwise he may please but will
not serve his generation, in any true sense of literary service.
Defoe is sometimes spoken of as the first great realist. In a lim-
ited sense this may be true. No doubt he presents the surface of
a limited area of the eighteenth-century world with fidelity. With
the final establishment of Protestantism, the increase of trade, and
the building of physical science on the broad foundations laid down
by Newton, England had become more mundane than at any other
period. The intense faith and the imaginative quality of the sev-
enteenth century were deadened. The eighteenth century kept its
eyes on the earth, and though it found a great many interesting and
wonderful things there, and though it laid the foundations of Eng-
land's industrial greatness, it was neither a spiritual nor an artistic
age. The novel was in its infancy; and as if a "true story» was
more worthy of respect than an invention, it received from Defoe an
air of verisimilitude and is usually based on some real events. He is
careful to embellish his fictions with little bits of realism. Thus, Moll
Flanders gives an inventory of the goods she took to America, and
in the 'History of the Plague' Defoe adds a note to his description
of a burial-ground: -"N. B. The author of this Journal lies buried
in that very ground, being at his own desire, his sister having been
buried there a few weeks before. " This enumeration of particulars
certainly gives an air of reality, but it is a trick easily caught, and
it is only now and then that he hits as in the above instance - on
the characteristic circumstance which gives life and reality to the
narrative. Except in 'Robinson Crusoe,' much of his detail is irrele-
vant and tiresome. But all the events on the lonely island are
admirably harmonized and have a cumulative effect. The second
―
## p. 4484 (#262) ###########################################
4484
DANIEL DEFOE
part, after the rescue,-
written to take advantage of the popularity
of the first, is vastly inferior. The artistic selective power is not
exercised. This same concrete imagination which sees minute details
is also evident in his contemporary Swift, but with him it works at
the bidding of a far more fervid and emotional spirit.
Defoe is a pioneer in novel-writing and in journalism, and in both
he shows wonderful readiness in appreciating what the public would
like and energy in supplying them with it. To the inventor or dis-
coverer of a new form we cannot deny great credit. Most writers
imitate, but it cannot be said that Defoe founded himself on any
predecessor, while his successors are numbered by hundreds. A cer-
tain relationship could be traced between his work, and the picaresque
tales of France and Spain on the one hand and the contemporary
journals of actual adventure on the other; but not one close enough
to detract from his claim to original power.
-
Some of Defoe's political work, like The True-Born Englishman,'
'The Shortest Way with Dissenters,' 'Reasons against the Succession
of the House of Hanover,' are written in the ironical tone. Mr.
Saintsbury seems to think that Defoe's method is not truly ironical,
because it differs from Swift's; but if we remember that one writer
differeth from another in irony, there is no reason to deny Defoe's
mastery of this penetrating weapon, especially when we find that he
imposed on both parties. The judges told him that "irony of that
sort would bring him to the gallows," but the eighteenth-century
law of libel was more rigid in its constructions than the canons of
literary art.
Or
Defoe made several attempts at poetical satire, which are sufficient
to show that he lacked either the talent or the patience to write
political verse. Compared with Dryden's or Pope's, his work is mere
doggerel, enlivened by occasional vigorous couplets like-
"Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The devil always builds a chapel there:
And 'twill be found upon examination
The latter has the largest congregation. "
"No panegyric needs their praise record—
An Englishman ne'er wants his own good word. »
But an examination will confirm the impression that Defoe was not a
poet, as surely as the re-reading of 'Robinson Crusoe' will strengthen
our hereditary belief that he was a great writer of prose.
ввало буроват
## p. 4485 (#263) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4485
FROM ROBINSON CRUSOE›
CRUSOE'S SHIPWRECK
NOT
can describe the confusion of thought which I felt
when I sunk into the water; for though I swam very
well, yet I could not deliver myself from the waves so as
to draw my breath; till that wave having driven me or rather
carried me a vast way on towards the shore, and having spent
itself, went back, and left me upon the land almost dry, but
half dead with the water I took in. I had so much presence of
mind as well as breath left, that seeing myself nearer the main-
land than I expected, I got upon my feet, and endeavored to
make on towards the land as fast as I could, before another
wave should return and take me up again; but I soon found it
was impossible to avoid it; for I saw the sea coming after me as
high as a great hill, and as furious as an enemy which I had no
means or strength to contend with: my business was to hold my
breath, and raise myself upon the water, if I could; and so by
swimming to preserve my breathing, and pilot myself towards
the shore if possible; my greatest concern now being that the
wave, as it would carry me a great way towards the shore when
it came on, might not carry me back again with it when it gave
back towards the sea.
The wave that came upon me again, buried me at once
twenty or thirty feet deep in its own body; and I could feel
myself carried with a mighty force and swiftness towards the
shore, a very great way; but I held my breath, and assisted
myself to swim still forward with all my might. I was ready to
burst with holding my breath, when, as I felt myself rising up,
so to my immediate relief I found my head and hands shoot
out above the surface of the water; and though it was not two
seconds of time that I could keep myself so, yet it relieved me
greatly, gave me breath and new courage. I was covered again
with water a good while, but not so long but I held it out; and
finding the water had spent itself, and began to return, I struck
forward against the return of the waves, and felt ground again
with my feet. I stood still a few moments to recover breath,
and till the water went from me, and then took to my heels
and ran with what strength I had farther towards the shore.
## p. 4486 (#264) ###########################################
4486
DANIEL DEFOE
But neither would this deliver me from the fury of the sea,
which came pouring in after me again; and twice more I was
lifted up by the waves and carried forward as before, the shore
being very flat.
The last time of these two had well-nigh been fatal to me;
for the sea having hurried me along as before, landed me, or
rather dashed me, against a piece of rock, and that with such
force that it left me senseless, and indeed helpless as to my
own deliverance; for the blow taking my side and breast, beat
the breath as it were quite out of my body, and had it returned
again immediately I must have been strangled in the water; but
I recovered a little before the return of the waves, and seeing
I should again be covered with the water, I resolved to hold fast
by a piece of the rock, and so to hold my breath if possible till
the wave went back. Now, as the waves were not so high as
the first, being nearer land, I held my hold till the wave abated,
and then fetched another run, which brought me so near the
shore, that the next wave, though it went over me, yet did not
so swallow me up as to carry me away; and the next run I took,
I got to the mainland, where to my great comfort I clambered
up the cliffs of the shore, and sat me down upon the grass, free
from danger and quite out of the reach of the water.
I was now landed, and safe on shore; and began to look up
and thank God that my life was saved, in a case wherein there
were, some minutes before, scarce any room to hope. I believe
it is impossible to express, to the life, what the ecstasies and
transports of the soul are when it is so saved, as I may say, out
of the grave: and I did not wonder now at the custom, viz. ,
that when a malefactor who has the halter about his neck is
tied up, and just going to be turned off, and has a reprieve
brought to him, I say I do not wonder that they bring a sur-
geon with it, to let him blood that very moment they tell him
of it; that the surprise may not drive the animal spirits from the
heart and overwhelm him.
"For sudden joys, like griefs, confound at first. "
I walked about the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole
being, as I may say, wrapped up in the contemplation of my
deliverance; making a thousand gestures and motions which I
cannot describe; reflecting upon my comrades that were drowned,
and that there should not be one soul saved but myself; for as
## p. 4487 (#265) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4487
for them, I never saw them afterwards, or any sign of them,
except three of the hats, one cap, and two shoes that were not
fellows.
I cast my eyes to the stranded vessel when the breach and
froth of the sea being so big I could hardly see it, it lay so far
off - and considered, Lord! how was it possible I could get on
shore ?
-
CRUSOE MAKES A NEW HOME
I soon found the place I was in was not for my settlement,
particularly because it was upon a low moorish ground, near the
sea, and I believed it would not be wholesome; and more particu-
larly because there was no fresh water near it; so I resolved
to find a more healthy and more convenient spot of ground.
I consulted several things in my situation which I found
would be proper for me: first, air and fresh water, I just now
mentioned; secondly, shelter from the heat of the sun; thirdly,
security from ravenous creatures, whether men or beasts;
fourthly, a view to the sea, that if God sent any ship in sight, I
might not lose any advantage for my deliverance, of which I
was not willing to banish all my expectation yet.
I searched for a place proper for this. I found a little plain
on the side of a rising hill, whose front towards this little plain
was steep as a house-side, so that nothing could come down upon
me from the top. On the side of this rock there was a hollow
place, worn a little way in, like the entrance or door of a cave;
but there was not really any cave, or way into the rock at all.
On the flat of the green, just before this hollow place, I
resolved to pitch my tent. This plain was not above a hundred
yards broad, and about twice as long, and lay like a green before
my door; and at the end of it descended irregularly every way
down into the low ground by the seaside. It was on the N. N. W.
side of the hill, so that it was sheltered from the heat every day,
till it came to a W. and by S. sun, or thereabouts, which in
those countries is near the setting.
Before I set up my tent I drew a half-circle before the hollow
place, which took in about ten yards in its semi-diameter from
the rock, and twenty yards in its diameter from its beginning
and ending.
In this half-circle I pitched two rows of long stakes, driving
them into the ground till they stood very firm like piles, the
## p. 4488 (#266) ###########################################
4488
DANIEL DEFOE
biggest end being out of the ground about five feet and a half,
and sharpened on the top. The two rows did not stand above
six inches from one another.
Then I took the pieces of cable which I cut in the ship, and
laid them in rows, one upon another, within the circle between
these two rows of stakes, up to the top, placing other stakes in
the inside, leaning against them, about two feet and a half high,
like a spur to a post: and this fence was so strong that neither
man nor beast could get into it or over it. This cost me a
great deal of time and labor, especially to cut the piles in the
woods, bring them to the place, and drive them into the earth.
The entrance into this place I made to be not by a door, but
by a short ladder to go over the top; which ladder, when I was
in, I lifted over after me; and so I was completely fenced in
and fortified, as I thought, from all the world, and consequently
slept secure in the night, which otherwise I could not have
done; though as it appeared afterwards, there was no need of
all this caution against the enemies that I apprehended danger
from.
A FOOTPRINT
It happened one day about noon, going toward my boat, I
was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot
on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. I
stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition.
I listened, I looked about me, but I could hear nothing or see
anything; I went up to a rising ground to look farther; I went
up the shore and down the shore, but it was all one: I could
see no other impression but that one. I went to it again to see
if there were any more, and to observe if it might not be my
fancy; but there was no room for that, for there was exactly
the print of a foot-toes, heel, and every part of a foot. How
it came hither I knew not, nor could I in the least imagine; but
after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly con-
fused and out of myself, I came home to my fortification, not
feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but terrified to the last
degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistak-
ing every bush and tree, and fancying every stump at a distance
to be a man. Nor is it possible to describe how many various
shapes my affrighted imagination represented things to me in,
how many wild ideas were found every moment in my fancy, and
## p. 4489 (#267) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4489
what strange unaccountable whimseys came into my thoughts
by the way. When I came to my castle (for so I think I called
it ever after this) I fled into it like one pursued. Whether I
went over by the ladder, as first contrived, or went in at the
hole in the rock, which I had called a door, I cannot remember;
no, nor could I remember the next morning, for never frightened
hare fled to cover or fox to earth with more terror of mind than
I to this retreat.
FROM HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE IN LONDON >
SUPERSTITIOUS FEARS OF THE PEOPLE
B
Ur I must go back again to the beginning of this surprising
time; while the fears of the people were young, they were
increased strangely by several odd incidents, which put
altogether, it was really a wonder the whole body of the people
did not rise as one man and abandon their dwellings, leaving the
place as a space of ground designed by heaven for an Akeldama
doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth, and that all
that would be found in it would perish with it. I shall name
but a few of these things; but sure they were so many, and so
many wizards and cunning people propagating them, that I have
often wondered there was any (women especially) left behind.
In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for sev-
eral months before the plague, as there did the year after,
another, a little before the fire; the old women, and the phleg-
matic hypochondriac part of the other sex, whom I could almost
call the old women too, remarked, especially afterward, though
not till both those judgments were over, that those two comets
passed directly over the city, and that so very near the houses
that it was plain they imported something peculiar to the city
alone. That the comet before the pestilence was of a faint, dull,
languid color, and its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow; but
that the comet before the fire was bright and sparkling, or as
others said, flaming, and its motion swift and furious; and that
accordingly one foretold a heavy judgment, slow but severe,
terrible, and frightful, as was the plague. But the other foretold
a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, as was the conflagration; nay,
so particular some people were, that as they looked upon that
comet preceding the fire they fancied that they not only saw it
## p. 4490 (#268) ###########################################
4490
DANIEL DEFOE
pass swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the motion with
their eye, but they even heard it, that it made a rushing mighty
noise, fierce and terrible, though at a distance and but just per-
ceivable.
-
――――
I saw both these stars, and I must confess, had had so
much of the common notion of such things in my head that I
was apt to look upon them as the forerunners and warnings of
God's judgments; and especially when the plague had followed
the first, I saw yet another of the like kind, I could not but
say, God had not yet sufficiently scourged the city.
The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely in-
creased by the error of the times, in which I think the people,
from what principle I cannot imagine, were more addicted to
prophecies and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives'
tales, than ever they were before or since: whether this unhappy
temper was originally raised by the follies of some people who
got money by it, that is to say, by printing predictions and prog-
nostications, I know not; but certain it is, books frighted them
terribly; such as 'Lily's Almanack,' 'Gadbury's Astrological Pre-
dictions,' 'Poor Robin's Almanack,' and the like; also several
pretended religious books, one entitled, 'Come out of Her, my
People, lest Ye be Partakers of her Plagues'; another called
'Fair Warning'; another, 'Britain's Remembrancer'; and many
such, all or most part of which foretold, directly or covertly, the
ruin of the city; nay, some were so enthusiastically bold as to
run about the streets with their oral predictions, pretending they
were sent to preach to the city; and one in particular, who like
Jonah to Nineveh, cried in the streets, "Yet forty days, and
London shall be destroyed. " I will not be positive whether he
said forty days or yet a few days. Another ran about naked,
except a pair of drawers about his waist, crying day and night,
like a man that Josephus mentions, who cried, "Woe to Jerusa-
lem! " a little before the destruction of that city; so this poor
naked creature cried, "Oh! the great and the dreadful God! " and
said no more, but repeated those words continually, with a voice.
and countenance full of horror, a swift pace; and nobody could
ever find him to stop, or rest, or take any sustenance, at least
that ever I could hear of. I met this poor creature several
times in the streets, and would have spoken to him, but he would
not enter into speech with me or any one else, but kept on his
dismal cries continually.
## p. 4491 (#269) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4491
These things terrified the people to the last degree; and
especially when two or three times, as I have mentioned already,
they found one or two in the hills, dead of the plague at St.
Giles's.
Next to these public things were the dreams of old women;
or I should say, the interpretation of old women upon other
people's dreams; and these put abundance of people even out of
their wits. Some heard voices warning them to be gone, for
that there would be such a plague in London, so that the living
would not be able to bury the dead; others saw apparitions in
the air; and I must be allowed to say of both, I hope without
breach of charity, that they heard voices that never spake, and
saw sights that never appeared; but the imagination of the peo-
ple was really turned wayward and possessed; and no wonder if
they who were poring continually at the clouds saw shapes and
figures, representations and appearances, which had nothing in
them but air and vapor. Here they told us they saw a flaming
sword held in a hand, coming out of a cloud, with a point
hanging directly over the city. There they saw hearses and
coffins in the air carrying to be buried. And there again, heaps
of dead bodies lying unburied and the like; just as the imagina-
tion of the poor terrified people furnished them with matter to
work upon.
"So hypochondriac fancies represent
Ships, armies, battles in the firmament;
Till steady eyes the exhalations solve,
And all to its first matter, cloud, resolve. »
I could fill this account with the strange relations such people
give every day of what they have seen; and every one was so
positive of their having seen what they pretended to see, that
there was no contradicting them without breach of friendship, or
being accounted rude and unmannerly on the one hand and pro-
fane and impenetrable on the other. One time before the plague
was begun, otherwise than as I have said in St. Giles's,—I think
it was in March,- seeing a crowd of people in the street I joined
with them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all staring up
into the air to see what a woman told them appeared plain to
her, which was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in
his hand, waving it or brandishing it over his head. She
described every part of the figure to the life, showed them the
## p. 4492 (#270) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4492
motion and the form, and the poor people came into it so
eagerly and with so much readiness: "Yes! I see it all plainly,"
says one, "there's the sword as plain as can be;" another saw
the angel; one saw his very face, and cried out what a glorious
creature he was! One saw one thing, and one another. I looked
as earnestly as the rest, but perhaps not with so much willing-
ness to be imposed upon; and I said indeed that I could see
nothing but a white cloud, bright on one side by the shining of
the sun upon the other part. The woman endeavored to show
it me, but could not make me confess that I saw it, which
indeed if I had, I must have lied; but the woman turning to me
looked me in the face and fancied I laughed, in which her imagi-
nation deceived her too, for I really did not laugh, but was
seriously reflecting how the poor people were terrified by the
force of their own imagination. However, she turned to me,
called me a profane fellow and a scoffer, told me that it was a
time of God's anger, and dreadful judgments were approaching,
and that despisers such as I should wander and perish.
The people about her seemed disgusted as well as she, and I
found there was no persuading them that I did not laugh at
them, and that I should be rather mobbed by them than be able
to undeceive them. So I left them, and this appearance passed
for as real as the blazing star itself.
Another encounter I had in the open day also; and this was
in going through a narrow passage from Petty France into
Bishopsgate Churchyard, by a row of almshouses. There are two
churchyards to Bishopsgate Church or parish; one we go over to
pass from the place called Petty France into Bishopsgate Street,
coming out just by the church door; the other is on the side of
the narrow passage where the almshouses are on the left, and a
dwarf wall with a palisade on it on the right hand, and the city
wall on the other side more to the right.
In this narrow passage stands a man looking through the
palisades into the burying-place, and as many people as the nar-
rowness of the place would admit to stop without hindering the
passage of others; and he was talking mighty eagerly to them,
and pointing now to one place, then to another, and affirming
that he saw a ghost walking upon such a gravestone there: he
described the shape, the posture, and the movement of it so
exactly, that it was the greatest amazement to him in the world
that everybody did not see it as well as he. On a sudden he
## p. 4493 (#271) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4493
would cry, "There it is! Now it comes this way! " then, «Tis
turned back! " till at length he persuaded the people into so firm
a belief of it, that one fancied he saw it; and thus he came
every day making a strange hubbub, considering it was so nar-
row a passage, till Bishopsgate clock struck eleven, and then the
ghost would seem to start, and as if he were called away, dis-
appear on a sudden.
ters and pen-portraits of acquaintances, she has left a valuable record.
She takes us back a century, and shows not only how people looked
and what they did, but how they thought and felt.
TO THE DUCHESSE DE CHOISEUL
PARIS, Sunday, December 28th, 1766.
D
o You know, dear Grandmama [a pet name], that you are the
greatest philosopher that ever lived? Your predecessors
spoke equally well, perhaps, but they were less consistent
in their conduct. All your reasonings start from the same senti-
ment, and that makes the perfect accord one always feels be-
tween what you say and what you do. I know very well why,
## p. 4473 (#247) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4473
loving you madly, I am ill at ease with you. It is because I
know that you must pity everybody who is unlike yourself. My
desire to please you, the brief time that I am permitted with
you, and my eagerness to profit by it, all trouble, embarrass,
intimidate me and discompose me.
I exaggerate, I utter platitudes; and end by being disgusted
with myself, and eager to rectify the impression I may have
made upon you.
You wish me to write to M. de Choiseul, and to make my
letter pretty and bright. Ah, indeed! I'm the ruler of my own
imagination, am I! I depend upon chance. A purpose to do or
to say such or such a thing takes away the possibility. I am not
in the least like you. I do not hold in my hands the springs of
my spirit. However, I will write to M. de Choiseul. I will
seize a propitious moment. The surest means of making it come
is to feel hurried.
I am sending you an extract from an impertinent little pam-
phlet entitled 'Letter to the Author of the Justification of Jean
Jacques. ' You will see how it treats our friend. I am not sure
that it should be allowed; whether M. de Choiseul should not
talk to M. de Sartines about it. It is for you to decide, dear
Grandmama, if it is suitable, and if M. de Choiseul ought to
permit licenses so impertinent.
I am dying to see you. In spite of my fear, in spite of my
dreads, I am convinced that you love me because I love you.
TO MR. CRAWFORD
SUNDAY, March 9th, 1766.
I
READ your letter to Madame de Forcalquier, or rather I gave
it to her to read. I thought from her tone that she liked it,
but she will not commit herself. She is more than incom-
prehensible. The Trinity is not more mysterious. She is com-
posed of systems, which she does not understand herself; great
words, great principles, great strains of music, of which nothing
remains. However, I am of your opinion, that she is worth
more than all my other acquaintances. She agrees that it would
be delightful to have you live in this country; but if she were
only to see you en passant, it hardly matters whether you came
or not; that she has not forgotten you, but that she will forget
## p. 4474 (#248) ###########################################
4474
MADAME DU DEFFAND
you. Eh! Why shouldn't she forget you? She does not know
A hundred speeches of the sort which vex me.
you. .
What is certain is, that her
They say of people who have too much vivacity that they
were put in too hot an oven. They might say of her, on the
contrary, that she is underdone. She is the sketch of a beauti-
ful work, but it is not finished.
sentiments, if she has sentiments, are sincere, and that she does
not bore you.
I showed her your letter because I thought that
would give you pleasure; but be sure that no one in the world,
not even she, shall see what you write me in future except
Niart [her secretary], who as you know is a well.
I have just made you a fine promise that I will not show
your letters; perhaps I shall never be able to show them.
Truly, truly, I am like Madame de Forcalquier, and do not know
you!
I spent three hours with Mr. Walpole yesterday, but only half
an hour alone with him. Lord George and his wife returned his
short call, but your Dr. James stayed there all the time. He is
a very gloomy, uninteresting man.
Have you seen Jean Jacques? Is he still in London? Have
you seen your father? Imagine yourself tête-à-tête with me in
the corner of the fireplace, and answer all my questions, but
especially those which concern your health. Have you seen the
doctors? Have they ordered you the waters? And tell me too,
honestly, if I shall ever see you again. Reflect that you are
only twenty-five years old, that I am a hundred, and that it only
requires a brief kindness to put pleasure in my life. No, I will
not assume the pathetic. Do just what pleases you.
TO HORACE WALPOLE
TUESDAY, August 5th, 1766.
I
HAVE received your letter of July 31st-no number, sheets of
different sizes. All these observations mean nothing, unless
it is that a person without anything to do or to think occupies
herself with puerile things. Indeed, I should do very wrong not
to profit by all your lessons, and to persist in the error of believ-
ing in friendship, and regarding it as a good; no, no; I renounce
my errors, and am absolutely persuaded that of all illusions that
is the most dangerous.
## p. 4475 (#249) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4475
You who are the apostle of this wise doctrine, receive my
confession and my vows never to love, never to seek to be loved
by any one; but tell me if it is permitted to desire the return of
agreeable persons; if one may long for news of them, and if to
be interested in them and to let them know it is to lack virtue,
good sense, and proper behavior. I am awaiting enlightenment.
I cannot doubt your sincerity; you have given me too many
proofs of it; explain yourself without reserve.
WEDNESDAY, 6th.
Of all the things in your letter, what struck me the most yes-
terday were your moralizings on friendship, which forced me to
reply at once. I was interrupted by Monsieur and Madame de
Beauvan, who came to take me to supper with them in the
country at the good Duchess of Saint-Pierre's. I returned early.
I did not close my eyes during the night. I woke up Niart [her
secretary] earlier than usual to go on with my letter, and to
re-read me yours.
I am better pleased with it this morning than
I was yesterday. The matter of friendship shocked me less. I
find that the conclusion is-let us be friends without friendship.
Ah well, so be it; I consent. Perhaps it is agreeable; let us
learn by experience, and for that- see each other the oftener! In
truth, you have only a comic actress, a deaf woman,
and some
chickens to leave, as you have only a blind woman and many
goslings to find; but I promise you that the blind woman will
have much to ask and much to tell.
I do not know what to say to you about your ministry. You
have entertained me so little with politics, that if others had not
informed me, all that goes on with you would be less intelligible
to me than the affairs of China. They have told me something
of the character of the count; and as for this certain good com-
rade [Conway], I think I know him perfectly. I am pleased that
he has remained, but not that he does not oppose your philos-
ophy. All your opinions are beautiful and praiseworthy; but if
I were in his place I should certainly hinder you from making
use of them, and not regulate my conduct by your moderation
and disinterestedness. Oh! as for my lord, you cannot keep
him,- that's the public cry. It seems to me that the brother and
sister-in-law are. not pleased. Do you not detest the people?
From the agrarian law to your monument, your lamps, and your
## p. 4476 (#250) ###########################################
4476
MADAME DU DEFFAND
black standard, its joy, its sadness, its applause, its complaints,
are all odious to me. But I am going back to speak to you about
yourself. You say that your fortune, instead of augmenting, will
suffer diminution. I am much afraid of that. No liberty with-
out a competency. Remember that. If your economy falls upon
your trips to France I shall be miserable. But listen to this with-
out getting vexed.
I possess, as you know, a small lodging-room belonging to
me, little worthy of the son of Robert Walpole, but which may
satisfy the philosopher Horace. If he found it convenient, he
could occupy it without incurring the slightest ridicule. He can
consult sensible people, and while waiting, be persuaded that it
is not my personal interest which induces me to offer it to him.
Honestly, my mentor, you could not do better than take it.
You would be near me or a hundred leagues from me if you
liked it better. It would not engage you to any attention nor
any assiduity; we would renew our vows against friendship. It
would even be necessary to render more observance to the Idol
[Comtesse de Boufflers]; for who could be shocked, if not she?
Pont-de-Veyle, who approves and advises this arrangement, claims
that even the Idol would find nothing to oppose. Think of that.
Grandmama returned yesterday morning. My favor with her
is better established. She will take supper with me Friday; and
as the supper was arranged without foreseeing that she would
be there, she will find a company which will not exactly suit
her, among others the Idol, and the Archbishop of Toulouse.
I shall have many things to tell you when I see you.
be that they will hardly interest you, but it will be the world of
my Strawberry Hill.
It may
You agree with me about the letters, which pleases me. I be-
lieve myself a genius when I find myself in agreement with you.
This Prince Geoffrin is excellent. Surely heaven is witness that I
do not love you, but I am forced to find you very agreeable.
Are you waiting until your arrival here to give a jug to the
Maréchale de Luxembourg? I see no necessity of making a
present to the Idol; incense, incense, that is all it wants!
I have a great desire that you should read a Memoir of La
Chalottais; it is very rare, very much "prohibited," but I am
intriguing to get it.
## p. 4477 (#251) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4477
M. de Beauvan begs you to send me a febrifuge for him. It
is from Dr. James, I think. There are two kinds; one is mild
and the other violent. He requires a louis's worth of each.
You are mightily deceiving yourself if you think Voltaire
author of the analysis of the romance of 'Héloise. ' The author
is a man from Bordeaux, a friend of M. de Secondat. Àpropos
of Voltaire, he has had the King of Prussia sounded to know if
he would consent to give him asylum at Wesel in case he were
obliged to leave his abode. This his Majesty has very willingly
granted.
Good-by. I am counting upon being able in future to give
you news of your court and your ministry. I have made a new
acquaintance, who is a favorite of Lord Bute and the most inti-
mate friend of Lord Holderness. I do not doubt that this lord
is aiming at my Lord Rochefort's place, who they say scarcely
troubles himself about the embassy.
Write me, I beg you, at least once a week.
Tell me if M. Crawford is in Scotland.
It is thought that the first news from Rome will inform us of
the death of Chevalier Macdonald.
N°
NOVEMBER, 1765.
I do not want to draw your likeness; nobody knows
you less than I. Sometimes you seem to me what I wish
you were, sometimes what I fear you may be, and per-
haps never what you really are. I know very well that you
have a great deal of wit of all kinds and all styles, and you
must know it better than any one.
O, NO!
PORTRAIT OF HORACE WALPOLE
But your character should be painted, and of that I am not a
good judge. It would require indifference, or impartiality at
least. However, I can tell you that you are a very sincere man,
that you have principles, that you are brave, that you pride
yourself upon your firmness; that when you have come to a
decision, good or bad, nothing induces you to change it, so that
your firmness sometimes resembles obstinacy. Your heart is
good and your friendship strong, but neither tender nor facile.
Your fear of being weak makes you hard. You are on your guard
against all sensibility. You cannot refuse to render valuable
## p. 4478 (#252) ###########################################
4478
MADAME DU DEFFAND
services to your friends; you sacrifice your own interest to them,
but you refuse them the slightest of favors. Kind and humane
to all about you, you do not give yourself the slightest trouble
to please your friends in little ways.
Your disposition is very agreeable although not very even.
All your ways are noble, easy, and natural. Your desire to
please does not lead you into affectation. Your knowledge of the
world and your experience have given you a great contempt for
men, and taught you how to live with them. You know that all
their assurances go for nothing. In exchange you give them
politeness and consideration, and all those who do not care about
being loved are content with you.
I do not know whether you have much feeling. If you have,
you fight it as a weakness. You permit yourself only that which
seems virtuous. You are a philosopher; you have no vanity,
although you have a great deal of self-love. But your self-love
does not blind you; it rather makes you exaggerate your faults
than conceal them. You never extol yourself except when you
are forced to do so by comparing yourself with other men. You
possess discernment, very delicate tact, very correct taste; your
tone is excellent.
You would have been the best possible companion in past
centuries; you are in this, and you would be in those to come.
Englishman as you are, your manners belong to all countries.
You have an unpardonable weakness to which you sacrifice
your feelings and submit your conduct-the fear of ridicule. It
makes you dependent upon the opinion of fools; and your friends
not safe from the impressions against them which fools
choose to give you.
Your judgment is easily confused. You are aware of this
weakness, which you control by the firmness with which you pur-
sue your resolutions. Your opposition to any deviation is some-
times pushed too far, and exercised in matters not worth the
trouble.
Your instincts are noble and generous. You do good for the
pleasure of doing it, without ostentation, without claiming grati-
tude; in short, your spirit is beautiful and high.
## p. 4478 (#253) ###########################################
į
## p. 4478 (#254) ###########################################
Grosch
DANIEL DEFOE.
## p. 4478 (#255) ###########################################
* i th
1- by.
## p. 4478 (#256) ###########################################
環と
2
DANIEL DEFOE.
## p. 4479 (#257) ###########################################
4479
DANIEL DEFOE
(1660? -1731)
BY CHARLES FREDERICK JOHNSON
D
ANIEL DEFOE, one of the most vigorous and voluminous writ-
ers of the last decade of the seventeenth and the first
quarter of the eighteenth centuries, was born in St. Giles
parish, Cripplegate, in 1660 or 1661, and died near London in 1731.
His father was a butcher named Foe, and the evolution of the son's
name through the various forms of D. Foe, De Foe, Defoe, to
Daniel Defoe, the present accepted form, did not begin much before
he reached the age of forty. He was educated at the "dissenting
school" of a Mr. Martin in Newington Green, and was intended for
the Presbyterian ministry.
Although the training at this school was.
not inferior to that to be obtained at the universities, and indeed
superior in one respect, since all the exercises were in English,- the
fact that he had never been "in residence" set Defoe a little apart
from the literary society of the day. Swift, Pope, Addison, Arbuth-
not, and the rest, considered him untrained and uncultured, and
habitually spoke of him with the contempt which the regular feels.
for the volunteer. Swift referred to him as "an illiterate fellow
whose name I forget," and Pope actually inserted his name in the
'Dunciad':
"Earless on high stood unabashed De Foe. "
This line is false in two ways, for Defoe's ears were not clipped,
though he was condemned to stand in the pillory; and there can
hardly be a greater incongruity conceived than there is between our
idea of a dunce and the energetic, shifty, wide-awake Defoe,— though
for that matter a scholar like Bentley and a wit like Colley Cibber
are as much out of place in the poet's ill-natured catalogue. Defoe
angrily resented the taunts of the university men and their profes-
sional assumption of superiority, and answered Swift that "he had
been in his time master of five languages and had not lost them
yet," and challenged John Tutchin to "translate with him any Latin,
French, or Italian author, and then retranslate them crosswise, for
twenty pounds each book. ”
Notwithstanding the great activity of Defoe's pen (over two hun-
dred pamphlets and books, most of them of considerable length, are
## p. 4480 (#258) ###########################################
4480
DANIEL DEFOE
known to be his; and it is more than probable that much of his
work was anonymous and has perished, or could be only partly dis-
interred by laborious conjecture) he found time to engage twice in
business, once as a factor in hosiery and once as a maker of tiles.
In each venture he seems to have been unfortunate, and his business
experience is alluded to here only because his practical knowledge
of mercantile matters is evident in all his work. Even his pirates
like Captain Bob Singleton, and adventurers like Colonel Jack, have
a decided commercial flavor. They keep a weather eye on the profit-
and-loss account, and retire like thrifty traders on a well-earned
competency. It is worth mentioning, however, to Defoe's credit,
that in one or two instances at least he paid his debts in full, after
compromising with his creditors.
Defoe's writings, though all marked by his strong but limited per-
sonality, fall naturally into three classes:-
First, his political writings, in which may be included his wretched
attempts at political satire, and most of his journalistic work. This
is included in numberless pamphlets, broad-sheets, newspapers, and
the like, and is admirable expository matter on the public questions
of the day. Second, his fiction, Robinson Crusoe,' 'Captain Sin-
gleton, Colonel Jack,' 'Roxana,' and 'Moll Flanders. ' Third, his
miscellaneous work; innumerable biographies and papers like the
'History of the Plague,' the 'Account of the Great Storm,' 'The
True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal,' etc. Between the
last two classes there is a close connection, since both were written
for the market; and his fictions proper are cast in the autobiographi-
cal form and are founded on incidents in the lives of real persons,
and his biographies contain a large proportion of fiction.
Some knowledge of Defoe's political work is necessary to a com-
prehension of the early eighteenth century. During his life the
power of the people and of the House of Commons was slowly ex-
tended, and the foundations of the modern English Constitution were
laid. The trading and manufacturing classes, especially in the city
of London, increased in wealth and political consequence. The read-
ing public on which a popular writer could rely, widened. With these
changes-partly as cause and purely as consequence-came the
establishment of "News Journals" and "Reviews. " Besides Addison's
Spectator for the more cultured classes, multitudes of periodicals
were founded which aimed to reach a more general public. The
old method of a broad-sheet or the pamphlet, hawked in the streets
or exposed for sale and cried at the book-stalls, was still in use, but
the regular issue of a news-letter was taking its place. Defoe attacked
the public in both ways with unwearied assiduity. His poem The
True-Born Englishman' was sold in the streets to the astonishing
-
## p. 4481 (#259) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4481
number of eighty thousand.
In 1704 he established the Review, a
bi-weekly. It ran to 1713, and Defoe wrote nearly all of each num-
ber. Afterwards he was for eight years main contributor and sub-
stantially manager of Mist's Journal, a Tory organ; and one of the
most serious and well-founded charges against this first great jour-
nalist is, that he was deficient in journalistic honor, and remained in
the pay of the Whig Ministry while attached to the Opposition organ.
During this period he founded and conducted several other journals.
>>
Defoe possessed in a large measure the journalistic sense. No one
ever had a finer instinct in the subtle arts of "working the public
and of advertising. When the notorious Jack Sheppard was con-
demned, he visited him at Newgate, wrote his life, and had the high-
wayman, standing under the gallows, send for a copy and deliver
it as his "last speech and dying confession. " There is a certain
breadth and originality in this stroke, hardly to be paralleled in
modern journalism. Defoe had the knack of singling out from the
mass of passing events whatever would be likely to interest the pub-
lic. He brought out an account in some newspaper, and if successful,
made the occurrence the subject of a longer article in pamphlet or
book form. He was always on the lookout for matter, which he
utilized with a pen of marvelous rapidity. The gazette or embryonic
newspaper was at first confined to a rehearsal of news. Defoe
invented the leading article or "news-letter» of weekly comment,
and the society column of Mercure Scandaleuse.
The list of Defoe's political pamphlets is a large one, but they are
of more interest to the historian than to the general reader. While
they are far inferior in construction and victorious good sense to
Sydney Smith's magazine articles on kindred topics, and to Swift's
'Drapier's Letters' in subtle appeals to the prejudices of the igno-
rant, they show a remarkable command over the method of reaching
the plain people, to use President Lincoln's phrase, and taking it
to mean that great body of quiet persons who desire on the whole
to be fair in their judgments, but who must have their duty made
quite evident before they see it.
is, vituperative for a time when Pope and Swift and Dennis made
their personal invective so much higher flavored than modern taste
He seems to have been tolerant by nature; and although
this proceeds in his case from the fact that his moral enthusiasm
was never very warm, and not from any innate refinement of nature,
he is entitled to the credit of moderation in the use of abusive lan-
He is tolerant, too, of those who differ from him in pol-
Defoe is never vituperative—that
endures.
guage.
itics and religion; and though it is absurd to suppose, as some of
his biographers have done, that he was so far in advance of his
century as to have advocated the political soundness of free trade, he
VIII-281
-
## p. 4482 (#260) ###########################################
4482
DANIEL DEFOE
shows in his treatment of commercial questions the marks of a broad
and comprehensive mind. He speaks of foreigners in a cosmopolitan
spirit, with the exception of the Portuguese, for whom he seems to
feel a lively dislike, founded possibly on some of his early business
experiences. The reader will remember the dignified and courteous
demeanor of the Spaniards in 'Robinson Crusoe'; and although the
violent antipathy of the previous generation to Spanish Romanists
had abated, Defoe's freedom from insular prejudice is noteworthy,
the more so that a "discreet and sober bearing," such as he gives his
Spaniards, seems to have been his ideal of conduct. Defoe is a great
journalist, and although he is a typical hack, writing timely articles.
for pay, he has a touch of genius. He was always successful in
gaining the ear of his public; and in the one instance where he hit
upon a subject of universal interest, the life of the solitary castaway
thrown absolutely on his own resources, he wrote a book, without
any effort or departure from his usual style, which has been as pop-
ular with succeeding generations as it was with his own. It is a
mistake to call 'Robinson Crusoe' a "great boy's book," - unless we
regard the boy nature as persistent in all men, and perhaps it is in
all healthy men,- for. it treats the unaided conflict with nature and
circumstance, which is the essence of adult life, with unequaled
simplicity and force. Crusoe is not merely an adventurer; he is the
human will, courage, resolution, stripped of all the adventitious
support of society. He has the elements of universal humanity,
though in detail he is as distinctly English as Odysseus is Greek.
The characters of Defoe's other novels - Colonel Jack, Captain
Singleton, Moll Flanders, and Roxana - are so repulsive, and so en-
tirely unaware of their repulsiveness, that we can take little interest
in them. Possibly an exception might be made in favor of Colonel
Jack, who evinces at times an amusing humor. All are criminals, and
the conflict of the criminal with the forces of society may be the sub-
ject of the most powerful fiction. But these books are inartistic in sev-
eral regards. No criminals, even allowing them to be hypocrites, ever
disclose themselves in the open-hearted manner of these autobiogra-
phers. Vice always pays to virtue the homage of a certain reticence
in details. Despite all his Newgate experiences and his acquaintance
with noted felons, Defoe never understood either the weakness or
the strength of the criminal type. So all his harlots and thieves
and outcasts are decidedly amateurish. A serious transgression of
the moral law is to them a very slight matter, to be soon forgotten
after a temporary fit of repentance, and a long course of evil living
in no wise interferes with a comfortable and respectable old age.
His pirates have none of the desperation and brutal heroism of sin.
Stevenson's John Silver or Israel Hands is worth a schooner-load of
## p. 4483 (#261) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4483
them. Neither they nor their author seem to value virtue very
highly, though they are acutely sensitive to the discomfort of an
evil reputation. Possibly such people may be true to a certain type
of humanity, but they are exceedingly uninteresting. A writer who
takes so narrow a view cannot produce a great book, even though
his lack of moral scope and insight is partly compensated by a vivid
presentation of life on the low plane from which he views it.
'Moll Flanders' and 'Roxana' are very coarse books, but it can
hardly be said that they are harmful or corrupting. They are simply
vulgar. Vice has preserved all its evil by preserving all its gross-
ness. Passion is reduced to mere animalism, and is depicted with
the brutal directness of Hogarth. This may be good morals, but it is
unpleasant art. It is true that Defoe's test of a writer was that he
should "please and serve his public," and in providing amusement he
was not more refined nor more coarse than those whom he addressed;
but a writer should look a little deeper and aim a little higher than
the average morality of his day. Otherwise he may please but will
not serve his generation, in any true sense of literary service.
Defoe is sometimes spoken of as the first great realist. In a lim-
ited sense this may be true. No doubt he presents the surface of
a limited area of the eighteenth-century world with fidelity. With
the final establishment of Protestantism, the increase of trade, and
the building of physical science on the broad foundations laid down
by Newton, England had become more mundane than at any other
period. The intense faith and the imaginative quality of the sev-
enteenth century were deadened. The eighteenth century kept its
eyes on the earth, and though it found a great many interesting and
wonderful things there, and though it laid the foundations of Eng-
land's industrial greatness, it was neither a spiritual nor an artistic
age. The novel was in its infancy; and as if a "true story» was
more worthy of respect than an invention, it received from Defoe an
air of verisimilitude and is usually based on some real events. He is
careful to embellish his fictions with little bits of realism. Thus, Moll
Flanders gives an inventory of the goods she took to America, and
in the 'History of the Plague' Defoe adds a note to his description
of a burial-ground: -"N. B. The author of this Journal lies buried
in that very ground, being at his own desire, his sister having been
buried there a few weeks before. " This enumeration of particulars
certainly gives an air of reality, but it is a trick easily caught, and
it is only now and then that he hits as in the above instance - on
the characteristic circumstance which gives life and reality to the
narrative. Except in 'Robinson Crusoe,' much of his detail is irrele-
vant and tiresome. But all the events on the lonely island are
admirably harmonized and have a cumulative effect. The second
―
## p. 4484 (#262) ###########################################
4484
DANIEL DEFOE
part, after the rescue,-
written to take advantage of the popularity
of the first, is vastly inferior. The artistic selective power is not
exercised. This same concrete imagination which sees minute details
is also evident in his contemporary Swift, but with him it works at
the bidding of a far more fervid and emotional spirit.
Defoe is a pioneer in novel-writing and in journalism, and in both
he shows wonderful readiness in appreciating what the public would
like and energy in supplying them with it. To the inventor or dis-
coverer of a new form we cannot deny great credit. Most writers
imitate, but it cannot be said that Defoe founded himself on any
predecessor, while his successors are numbered by hundreds. A cer-
tain relationship could be traced between his work, and the picaresque
tales of France and Spain on the one hand and the contemporary
journals of actual adventure on the other; but not one close enough
to detract from his claim to original power.
-
Some of Defoe's political work, like The True-Born Englishman,'
'The Shortest Way with Dissenters,' 'Reasons against the Succession
of the House of Hanover,' are written in the ironical tone. Mr.
Saintsbury seems to think that Defoe's method is not truly ironical,
because it differs from Swift's; but if we remember that one writer
differeth from another in irony, there is no reason to deny Defoe's
mastery of this penetrating weapon, especially when we find that he
imposed on both parties. The judges told him that "irony of that
sort would bring him to the gallows," but the eighteenth-century
law of libel was more rigid in its constructions than the canons of
literary art.
Or
Defoe made several attempts at poetical satire, which are sufficient
to show that he lacked either the talent or the patience to write
political verse. Compared with Dryden's or Pope's, his work is mere
doggerel, enlivened by occasional vigorous couplets like-
"Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The devil always builds a chapel there:
And 'twill be found upon examination
The latter has the largest congregation. "
"No panegyric needs their praise record—
An Englishman ne'er wants his own good word. »
But an examination will confirm the impression that Defoe was not a
poet, as surely as the re-reading of 'Robinson Crusoe' will strengthen
our hereditary belief that he was a great writer of prose.
ввало буроват
## p. 4485 (#263) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4485
FROM ROBINSON CRUSOE›
CRUSOE'S SHIPWRECK
NOT
can describe the confusion of thought which I felt
when I sunk into the water; for though I swam very
well, yet I could not deliver myself from the waves so as
to draw my breath; till that wave having driven me or rather
carried me a vast way on towards the shore, and having spent
itself, went back, and left me upon the land almost dry, but
half dead with the water I took in. I had so much presence of
mind as well as breath left, that seeing myself nearer the main-
land than I expected, I got upon my feet, and endeavored to
make on towards the land as fast as I could, before another
wave should return and take me up again; but I soon found it
was impossible to avoid it; for I saw the sea coming after me as
high as a great hill, and as furious as an enemy which I had no
means or strength to contend with: my business was to hold my
breath, and raise myself upon the water, if I could; and so by
swimming to preserve my breathing, and pilot myself towards
the shore if possible; my greatest concern now being that the
wave, as it would carry me a great way towards the shore when
it came on, might not carry me back again with it when it gave
back towards the sea.
The wave that came upon me again, buried me at once
twenty or thirty feet deep in its own body; and I could feel
myself carried with a mighty force and swiftness towards the
shore, a very great way; but I held my breath, and assisted
myself to swim still forward with all my might. I was ready to
burst with holding my breath, when, as I felt myself rising up,
so to my immediate relief I found my head and hands shoot
out above the surface of the water; and though it was not two
seconds of time that I could keep myself so, yet it relieved me
greatly, gave me breath and new courage. I was covered again
with water a good while, but not so long but I held it out; and
finding the water had spent itself, and began to return, I struck
forward against the return of the waves, and felt ground again
with my feet. I stood still a few moments to recover breath,
and till the water went from me, and then took to my heels
and ran with what strength I had farther towards the shore.
## p. 4486 (#264) ###########################################
4486
DANIEL DEFOE
But neither would this deliver me from the fury of the sea,
which came pouring in after me again; and twice more I was
lifted up by the waves and carried forward as before, the shore
being very flat.
The last time of these two had well-nigh been fatal to me;
for the sea having hurried me along as before, landed me, or
rather dashed me, against a piece of rock, and that with such
force that it left me senseless, and indeed helpless as to my
own deliverance; for the blow taking my side and breast, beat
the breath as it were quite out of my body, and had it returned
again immediately I must have been strangled in the water; but
I recovered a little before the return of the waves, and seeing
I should again be covered with the water, I resolved to hold fast
by a piece of the rock, and so to hold my breath if possible till
the wave went back. Now, as the waves were not so high as
the first, being nearer land, I held my hold till the wave abated,
and then fetched another run, which brought me so near the
shore, that the next wave, though it went over me, yet did not
so swallow me up as to carry me away; and the next run I took,
I got to the mainland, where to my great comfort I clambered
up the cliffs of the shore, and sat me down upon the grass, free
from danger and quite out of the reach of the water.
I was now landed, and safe on shore; and began to look up
and thank God that my life was saved, in a case wherein there
were, some minutes before, scarce any room to hope. I believe
it is impossible to express, to the life, what the ecstasies and
transports of the soul are when it is so saved, as I may say, out
of the grave: and I did not wonder now at the custom, viz. ,
that when a malefactor who has the halter about his neck is
tied up, and just going to be turned off, and has a reprieve
brought to him, I say I do not wonder that they bring a sur-
geon with it, to let him blood that very moment they tell him
of it; that the surprise may not drive the animal spirits from the
heart and overwhelm him.
"For sudden joys, like griefs, confound at first. "
I walked about the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole
being, as I may say, wrapped up in the contemplation of my
deliverance; making a thousand gestures and motions which I
cannot describe; reflecting upon my comrades that were drowned,
and that there should not be one soul saved but myself; for as
## p. 4487 (#265) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4487
for them, I never saw them afterwards, or any sign of them,
except three of the hats, one cap, and two shoes that were not
fellows.
I cast my eyes to the stranded vessel when the breach and
froth of the sea being so big I could hardly see it, it lay so far
off - and considered, Lord! how was it possible I could get on
shore ?
-
CRUSOE MAKES A NEW HOME
I soon found the place I was in was not for my settlement,
particularly because it was upon a low moorish ground, near the
sea, and I believed it would not be wholesome; and more particu-
larly because there was no fresh water near it; so I resolved
to find a more healthy and more convenient spot of ground.
I consulted several things in my situation which I found
would be proper for me: first, air and fresh water, I just now
mentioned; secondly, shelter from the heat of the sun; thirdly,
security from ravenous creatures, whether men or beasts;
fourthly, a view to the sea, that if God sent any ship in sight, I
might not lose any advantage for my deliverance, of which I
was not willing to banish all my expectation yet.
I searched for a place proper for this. I found a little plain
on the side of a rising hill, whose front towards this little plain
was steep as a house-side, so that nothing could come down upon
me from the top. On the side of this rock there was a hollow
place, worn a little way in, like the entrance or door of a cave;
but there was not really any cave, or way into the rock at all.
On the flat of the green, just before this hollow place, I
resolved to pitch my tent. This plain was not above a hundred
yards broad, and about twice as long, and lay like a green before
my door; and at the end of it descended irregularly every way
down into the low ground by the seaside. It was on the N. N. W.
side of the hill, so that it was sheltered from the heat every day,
till it came to a W. and by S. sun, or thereabouts, which in
those countries is near the setting.
Before I set up my tent I drew a half-circle before the hollow
place, which took in about ten yards in its semi-diameter from
the rock, and twenty yards in its diameter from its beginning
and ending.
In this half-circle I pitched two rows of long stakes, driving
them into the ground till they stood very firm like piles, the
## p. 4488 (#266) ###########################################
4488
DANIEL DEFOE
biggest end being out of the ground about five feet and a half,
and sharpened on the top. The two rows did not stand above
six inches from one another.
Then I took the pieces of cable which I cut in the ship, and
laid them in rows, one upon another, within the circle between
these two rows of stakes, up to the top, placing other stakes in
the inside, leaning against them, about two feet and a half high,
like a spur to a post: and this fence was so strong that neither
man nor beast could get into it or over it. This cost me a
great deal of time and labor, especially to cut the piles in the
woods, bring them to the place, and drive them into the earth.
The entrance into this place I made to be not by a door, but
by a short ladder to go over the top; which ladder, when I was
in, I lifted over after me; and so I was completely fenced in
and fortified, as I thought, from all the world, and consequently
slept secure in the night, which otherwise I could not have
done; though as it appeared afterwards, there was no need of
all this caution against the enemies that I apprehended danger
from.
A FOOTPRINT
It happened one day about noon, going toward my boat, I
was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot
on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. I
stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition.
I listened, I looked about me, but I could hear nothing or see
anything; I went up to a rising ground to look farther; I went
up the shore and down the shore, but it was all one: I could
see no other impression but that one. I went to it again to see
if there were any more, and to observe if it might not be my
fancy; but there was no room for that, for there was exactly
the print of a foot-toes, heel, and every part of a foot. How
it came hither I knew not, nor could I in the least imagine; but
after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly con-
fused and out of myself, I came home to my fortification, not
feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but terrified to the last
degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistak-
ing every bush and tree, and fancying every stump at a distance
to be a man. Nor is it possible to describe how many various
shapes my affrighted imagination represented things to me in,
how many wild ideas were found every moment in my fancy, and
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DANIEL DEFOE
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what strange unaccountable whimseys came into my thoughts
by the way. When I came to my castle (for so I think I called
it ever after this) I fled into it like one pursued. Whether I
went over by the ladder, as first contrived, or went in at the
hole in the rock, which I had called a door, I cannot remember;
no, nor could I remember the next morning, for never frightened
hare fled to cover or fox to earth with more terror of mind than
I to this retreat.
FROM HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE IN LONDON >
SUPERSTITIOUS FEARS OF THE PEOPLE
B
Ur I must go back again to the beginning of this surprising
time; while the fears of the people were young, they were
increased strangely by several odd incidents, which put
altogether, it was really a wonder the whole body of the people
did not rise as one man and abandon their dwellings, leaving the
place as a space of ground designed by heaven for an Akeldama
doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth, and that all
that would be found in it would perish with it. I shall name
but a few of these things; but sure they were so many, and so
many wizards and cunning people propagating them, that I have
often wondered there was any (women especially) left behind.
In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for sev-
eral months before the plague, as there did the year after,
another, a little before the fire; the old women, and the phleg-
matic hypochondriac part of the other sex, whom I could almost
call the old women too, remarked, especially afterward, though
not till both those judgments were over, that those two comets
passed directly over the city, and that so very near the houses
that it was plain they imported something peculiar to the city
alone. That the comet before the pestilence was of a faint, dull,
languid color, and its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow; but
that the comet before the fire was bright and sparkling, or as
others said, flaming, and its motion swift and furious; and that
accordingly one foretold a heavy judgment, slow but severe,
terrible, and frightful, as was the plague. But the other foretold
a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, as was the conflagration; nay,
so particular some people were, that as they looked upon that
comet preceding the fire they fancied that they not only saw it
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DANIEL DEFOE
pass swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the motion with
their eye, but they even heard it, that it made a rushing mighty
noise, fierce and terrible, though at a distance and but just per-
ceivable.
-
――――
I saw both these stars, and I must confess, had had so
much of the common notion of such things in my head that I
was apt to look upon them as the forerunners and warnings of
God's judgments; and especially when the plague had followed
the first, I saw yet another of the like kind, I could not but
say, God had not yet sufficiently scourged the city.
The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely in-
creased by the error of the times, in which I think the people,
from what principle I cannot imagine, were more addicted to
prophecies and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives'
tales, than ever they were before or since: whether this unhappy
temper was originally raised by the follies of some people who
got money by it, that is to say, by printing predictions and prog-
nostications, I know not; but certain it is, books frighted them
terribly; such as 'Lily's Almanack,' 'Gadbury's Astrological Pre-
dictions,' 'Poor Robin's Almanack,' and the like; also several
pretended religious books, one entitled, 'Come out of Her, my
People, lest Ye be Partakers of her Plagues'; another called
'Fair Warning'; another, 'Britain's Remembrancer'; and many
such, all or most part of which foretold, directly or covertly, the
ruin of the city; nay, some were so enthusiastically bold as to
run about the streets with their oral predictions, pretending they
were sent to preach to the city; and one in particular, who like
Jonah to Nineveh, cried in the streets, "Yet forty days, and
London shall be destroyed. " I will not be positive whether he
said forty days or yet a few days. Another ran about naked,
except a pair of drawers about his waist, crying day and night,
like a man that Josephus mentions, who cried, "Woe to Jerusa-
lem! " a little before the destruction of that city; so this poor
naked creature cried, "Oh! the great and the dreadful God! " and
said no more, but repeated those words continually, with a voice.
and countenance full of horror, a swift pace; and nobody could
ever find him to stop, or rest, or take any sustenance, at least
that ever I could hear of. I met this poor creature several
times in the streets, and would have spoken to him, but he would
not enter into speech with me or any one else, but kept on his
dismal cries continually.
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DANIEL DEFOE
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These things terrified the people to the last degree; and
especially when two or three times, as I have mentioned already,
they found one or two in the hills, dead of the plague at St.
Giles's.
Next to these public things were the dreams of old women;
or I should say, the interpretation of old women upon other
people's dreams; and these put abundance of people even out of
their wits. Some heard voices warning them to be gone, for
that there would be such a plague in London, so that the living
would not be able to bury the dead; others saw apparitions in
the air; and I must be allowed to say of both, I hope without
breach of charity, that they heard voices that never spake, and
saw sights that never appeared; but the imagination of the peo-
ple was really turned wayward and possessed; and no wonder if
they who were poring continually at the clouds saw shapes and
figures, representations and appearances, which had nothing in
them but air and vapor. Here they told us they saw a flaming
sword held in a hand, coming out of a cloud, with a point
hanging directly over the city. There they saw hearses and
coffins in the air carrying to be buried. And there again, heaps
of dead bodies lying unburied and the like; just as the imagina-
tion of the poor terrified people furnished them with matter to
work upon.
"So hypochondriac fancies represent
Ships, armies, battles in the firmament;
Till steady eyes the exhalations solve,
And all to its first matter, cloud, resolve. »
I could fill this account with the strange relations such people
give every day of what they have seen; and every one was so
positive of their having seen what they pretended to see, that
there was no contradicting them without breach of friendship, or
being accounted rude and unmannerly on the one hand and pro-
fane and impenetrable on the other. One time before the plague
was begun, otherwise than as I have said in St. Giles's,—I think
it was in March,- seeing a crowd of people in the street I joined
with them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all staring up
into the air to see what a woman told them appeared plain to
her, which was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in
his hand, waving it or brandishing it over his head. She
described every part of the figure to the life, showed them the
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DANIEL DEFOE
4492
motion and the form, and the poor people came into it so
eagerly and with so much readiness: "Yes! I see it all plainly,"
says one, "there's the sword as plain as can be;" another saw
the angel; one saw his very face, and cried out what a glorious
creature he was! One saw one thing, and one another. I looked
as earnestly as the rest, but perhaps not with so much willing-
ness to be imposed upon; and I said indeed that I could see
nothing but a white cloud, bright on one side by the shining of
the sun upon the other part. The woman endeavored to show
it me, but could not make me confess that I saw it, which
indeed if I had, I must have lied; but the woman turning to me
looked me in the face and fancied I laughed, in which her imagi-
nation deceived her too, for I really did not laugh, but was
seriously reflecting how the poor people were terrified by the
force of their own imagination. However, she turned to me,
called me a profane fellow and a scoffer, told me that it was a
time of God's anger, and dreadful judgments were approaching,
and that despisers such as I should wander and perish.
The people about her seemed disgusted as well as she, and I
found there was no persuading them that I did not laugh at
them, and that I should be rather mobbed by them than be able
to undeceive them. So I left them, and this appearance passed
for as real as the blazing star itself.
Another encounter I had in the open day also; and this was
in going through a narrow passage from Petty France into
Bishopsgate Churchyard, by a row of almshouses. There are two
churchyards to Bishopsgate Church or parish; one we go over to
pass from the place called Petty France into Bishopsgate Street,
coming out just by the church door; the other is on the side of
the narrow passage where the almshouses are on the left, and a
dwarf wall with a palisade on it on the right hand, and the city
wall on the other side more to the right.
In this narrow passage stands a man looking through the
palisades into the burying-place, and as many people as the nar-
rowness of the place would admit to stop without hindering the
passage of others; and he was talking mighty eagerly to them,
and pointing now to one place, then to another, and affirming
that he saw a ghost walking upon such a gravestone there: he
described the shape, the posture, and the movement of it so
exactly, that it was the greatest amazement to him in the world
that everybody did not see it as well as he. On a sudden he
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DANIEL DEFOE
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would cry, "There it is! Now it comes this way! " then, «Tis
turned back! " till at length he persuaded the people into so firm
a belief of it, that one fancied he saw it; and thus he came
every day making a strange hubbub, considering it was so nar-
row a passage, till Bishopsgate clock struck eleven, and then the
ghost would seem to start, and as if he were called away, dis-
appear on a sudden.
