war, trade, language, poetry, love, marriage, drunkenness, and gaming. Thus it is easy to see that the Review pointed out the way to the Tatlers, Spectators, and Guardians, which may be allowed, however, to have treated these interesting topics with more delicacy of language, more terseness of style, and greater depth of learning: yet has Defoe many passages, both of prose and poetry, which for refinement of wit, neatness of expression, and efficacy of moral, would do honour either to Steele or Addison." (Chalmers.) This periodical was published three times a-week, until May, 1713, when it was brought to a close. Defoe continued in Newgate until August, 1704, when Harley procured his release, and recommended him to Queen Anne, who seems to have thought that he had been hardly used, and contributed generously towards the relief of his family, reduced to poverty by the misfortunes of its head. She employed him, he says, in "several honourable, though secret services ;" and he speaks, in his Appeal to Honour and Justice, of a "special service, in which I ran as much risque of my life as a grenadier upon the counterscarp."

These seem

to have been rewarded by a pension, or by some subordinate office; but the exact nature of the recompense is not known. In October, 1706, he was despatched to Scotland, to assist in promoting the union between the two kingdoms. In addition to his talents and readiness as an author, he possessed great practical knowledge of commerce and matters connected with the revenue: he frequently attended the committees of the Scottish parliament, and made a variety of calculations, relative to trade and taxes, for their use; and he was very serviceable, as a popular writer, in replying to the various attacks which were made upon that hated measure. His intimate acquaintance with the transactions of

this period qualified him well for a work, which now probably is known to few readers, but which contains a great body of minute information concerning the condition and the history of Scotland at that period, -The History of the Union between England and Scotland: of which Mr. Chalmers says, "The minuteness with which he describes what he saw and heard upon that turbulent stage, where he acted a conspicuous part, is extremely interesting to us, who wish to know what actually passed, however this circumstantiality may have disgusted contemporaneous readers. History is chiefly valuable, as it transmits a faithful copy of the manners and sentiments of every age. This narrative of Defoe is a drama, in which he introduces the highest peers and the lowest peasants speaking and acting, according as they were each actuated by their characteristic passions; and while the man of taste is amused by his manner, the man of business may draw instruction from the documents which are appended to the end and interspersed in every page. This publication had alone preserved his name, had his Crusoe pleased us less." Chalmers naturally makes the most of its merits, for his Life of Defoe was originally prefixed to a reprint of it in 1786: but the author would have been little known if his popularity had depended on this work only.

After his return from Scotland, Defoe resided for some time at Newington. He incurred great obloquy, he says, for trying to make the best of the peace of Utrecht after it was concluded, and bore infinite reproaches as having been hired and bribed to defend a bad peace, upon the supposition that he was the author of pamphlets in which he had no share. To escape from this persecution he went to Halifax, in Yorkshire, where he had ample opportunity to observe the confidence of the Jacobite party, and

the success with which they laboured to make converts among the lower ranks. To counteract these plottings, he wrote A Seasonable Caution, Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover, and some other pamphlets with similar titles; intending, he says, by means of their apparent drift, to put them into the hands of persons whom the Jacobites had deluded. But Defoe was unfortunate as an ironical writer: perhaps the same qualities which gave his fictions such an air of truth tended to give his irony too much the appearance of earnest. On this, as on a former occasion, some persons were foolish or malicious enough to misconstrue his meaning, and to accuse him of writing seditious libels in favour of the Pretender. On this frivolous charge an information was filed against him in the spring of 1713, on which he was taken into custody, and obliged to find bail to a large amount; and the consequences might have been still more serious, but for a second intervention of Harley, who procured a free pardon for him in the following November. Speaking of these very publications in his Appeal, he protests that "if the Elector of Hanover had given me a thousand pounds to have written for the interests of his succession, and to expose and render the interest of the Pretender odious and ridiculous, I could have done nothing more effectual to these purposes than these books were."

Well intended and valuable as his labours might be, his only recompense for them was a bare immunity from presecution. After the accession of George I. he was discountenanced and neglected. In 1715 he wrote An Appeal to Honour and Justice, comprising a defence of his character, and a general account of his life, principles, and conduct. He was struck by apoplexy before he had quite completed this work, but recovered the full possession of

his faculties, and lived until April 26, 1731. After this attack, whether from the wish to avoid excitement and anxiety, or from the little advantage which his political writings had produced to him, he almost ceased to handle controversial subjects, and devoted himself with unwearying industry to works of a more popular and lucrative kind. Upon the profits of his pen he seems to have depended for his livelihood; and to the necessity of courting popular favour it may probably be attributed that the subjects of some of his works are vulgar, and the style coarse: but even out of vicious and revolting subjects he had the art of extracting a wholesome moral. The following are the names and dates of the principal productions of his declining years; and it is very remarkable, considering the circumstances in which they were composed, that they should comprise all those fictions to which he owes his imperishable name in British literature :Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719. Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton, 1720. Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, 1721. Religious Courtship; Journal of the Plague Year, 1722. Life of Colonel Jack, 1723. Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, 1724-7. New Voyage round the World, 1725. Political History of the Devil, 1726. Complete English Tradesman, 1727. Plan of English Commerce, 1728. Memoirs of a Cavalier-date uncertain. But, notwithstanding the unceasing industry which enabled him to produce these, and many other works, in the time specified, he appears to have died insolvent, for a creditor took out letters of administration on his effects.

A catalogue of the numerous works known, or confidently believed by the compiler to be Defoe's, and of those also which are attributed to him on

more doubtful evidence, is given by Mr. Chalmers at the end of that edition of his Life which is subjoined to Stockdale's edition of Robinson Crusoe, in 2 vols. 8vo., 1790; hardly one in four of them has been named in this short account. Defoe was a very rapid, as well as a laborious composer: it is said that he once wrote two shilling pamphlets in a single day. His controversial works however have long lost their interest: and his principal historical work, that on the Union, is too prolix and minute to find general acceptation in our days. In his acquaintance with commerce, and insight into the principles by which it is governed, he is entitled to rank with the most skilful of his contemporaries; but the progress of economical science has of course deprived his commercial writings of most of their value, except as records of the past. Of his numerous works of fiction, we may notice the History of the Plague of London in 1665, Memoirs of a Cavalier, and Robinson Crusoe, as the best known and the most deserving. The first, which professes to be the journal of a saddler resident in Whitechapel during the awful visitation which he describes, is said to have been received as genuine even by Dr. Mead, as no doubt it has been by very many of those who are unacquainted with its real history. There is a homely pathos, a minute and scrupulous adherence to verisimilitude in it, which almost irresistibly persuades the reader that none but an eye witness could have written such an account. The Memoirs of a Cavalier possess the same air of truth. They relate the campaigns of a young Englishman of good family, first in Germany under Gustavus Adolphus, afterwards on the royal side in our civil wars; and depict with great vividness and fidelity the principal events of those interesting and stirring times. But, popular as these