LITMIR.BIZ

      THE

      LIFE

       Table of Contents

      OF

      DE FOE.

       Table of Contents

      Daniel De Foe was descended from a respectable family in the county of Northampton, and born in London, about the year 1663. His father, James Foe, was a butcher, in the parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, and a protestant dissenter. Why the subject of this memoir prefixed the De to his family name cannot now be ascertained, nor did he at any period of his life think it necessary to give his reasons to the public. The political scribblers of the day, however, thought proper to remedy this lack of information, and accused him of possessing so little of the amor patriae, as to make the addition in order that he might not be taken for an Englishman; though this idea could have had no other foundation than the circumstance of his having, in consequence of his zeal for King William, attacked the prejudices of his countrymen in his "True-born Englishman."

      After receiving a good education at an academy at Newington, young De Foe, before he had attained his twenty-first year, commenced his career as an author, by writing a pamphlet against a very prevailing sentiment in favour of the Turks who were at that time laying siege to Vienna. This production, being very inferior to those of his maturer years, was very little read, and the indignant author, despairing of success with his pen, had recourse to the sword; or, as he termed it, when boasting of the exploit in his latter years, "displayed his attachment to liberty, and protestantism," by joining the ill-advised insurrection under the Duke of Monmouth, in the west. On the failure of that unfortunate enterprise, he returned again to the metropolis; and it is not improbable, but that the circumstance of his being a native of London, and his person not much known in that part of the kingdom where the rebellion took place, might facilitate his escape, and be the means of preventing his being brought to trial for his share in the transaction. With the professions of a writer and a soldier, Mr. De Foe, in the year 1685, joined that of a trader; he was first engaged as a hosier, in Cornhill, and afterwards as a maker of bricks and pantiles, near Tilbury Fort, in Essex; but in consequence of spending those hours in the hilarity of the tavern which he ought to have employed in the calculations of the counting-house, his commercial schemes proved unsuccessful; and in 1694 he was obliged to abscond from his creditors, not failing to attribute those misfortunes to the war and the severity of the times, which were doubtless owing to his own misconduct. It is much to his credit however, that after having been freed from his debts by composition, and being in prosperous circumstances from King William's favour, he voluntarily paid most of his creditors both the principal and interest of their claims. This is such an example of honesty as it would be unjust to De Foe and to the world to conceal. The amount of the sums thus paid must have been very considerable, as he afterwards feelingly mentions to Lord Haversham, who had reproached him with covetousness; "With a numerous family, and no helps but my own industry, I have forced my way through a sea of misfortunes, and reduced my debts, exclusive of composition, from seventeen thousand to less than five thousand pounds."

      At the beginning of the year 1700, Mr. De Foe published a satire in verse, which excited very considerable attention, called the "True-born Englishman." Its purpose was to furnish a reply to those who were continually abusing King William and some of his friends as foreigners, by shewing that the present race of Englishmen was a mixed and heterogeneous brood, scarcely any of which could lay claim to native purity of blood. The satire was in many parts very severe; and though it gave high offence, it claimed a considerable share of the public attention. The reader will perhaps be gratified by a specimen of this production, wherein he endeavours to account for--

      "What makes this discontented land appear

       Less happy now in times of peace, than war;

       Why civil feuds disturb the nation more,

       Than all our bloody wars had done before:

       Fools out of favour grudge at knaves in place,

       And men are always honest in disgrace:

       The court preferments make men knaves in course,

       But they, who would be in them, would be worse.

       'Tis not at foreigners that we repine,

       Would foreigners their perquisites resign:

       The grand contention's plainly to be seen,

       To get some men put out, and some put in."

      It will be immediately perceived that De Foe could have no pretentious to the character of a poet; but he has, notwithstanding, some nervous and well-versified lines, and in choice of subject and moral he is in general excellent. The True-born Englishman concludes thus:

      Could but our ancestors retrieve their fate,

       And see their offspring thus degenerate;

       How we contend for birth and names unknown,

       And build on their past actions, not our own;

       They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface,

       And openly disown the vile, degenerate race.

       For fame of families is all a cheat;

       'TIS PERSONAL VIRTUE ONLY MAKES

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