Part 5

De Foe has not yet outlived his century, though he have outlived most of his contemporaries. Yet the time is come, when he must be acknowledged as one of the ablest, as he is one of the most captivating, writers, of which this island can boast. Before he can be admitted to this pre-eminence, he must be considered distinctly, as a poet, as a novelist, as a polemic, as a commercial writer, and as a grave historian.

As a poet, we must look to the end of his effusions rather than to his execution, ere we can allow him considerable praise. To mollify national animosities, or to vindicate national rights, are certainly noble objects, which merit the vigour and imagination of Milton, or the flow and precision of Pope; but our author's energy runs into harshness, and his sweetness is to be tasted in his prose more than in his poesy. If we regard the Adventures of Crusoe, like The Adventures of Telemachus, as a poem, his moral, his incidents, and his language, must lift him high on the poet's scale. His professed poems, whether we contemplate the propriety of sentiment, or the suavity of numbers, may indeed, without much loss of pleasure or instruction, be resigned to those, who, in imitation of Pope, poach in the fields of obsolete poetry for brilliant thoughts, felicities of phrase, or for happy rhymes.

As a novelist, every one will place him in the foremost rank, who considers his originality, his performance, and his purpose. The Ship of Fools had indeed been launched in early times; but, who like De Foe, had ever carried his reader to sea, in order to mend the heart, and regulate the practice of life, by showing his readers the effect of adversity, or how they might equally be called to sustain his hero's trials, as they sailed round the world. But, without attractions, neither the originality, nor the end, can have any salutary consequence. This he had foreseen; and for this he has provided, by giving his adventures in a style so pleasing, because it is simple, and so interesting, because it is particular, that every one fancies he could write a similar language. It was, then, idle in Boyer formerly, or in Smollett lately, to speak of De Foe as a party writer, in little estimation. The writings of no author since have run through more numerous editions. And he whose works have pleased generally and pleased long, must be deemed a writer of no small estimation; the people's verdict being the proper test of what they are the proper judges.

As a polemic, I fear we must regard our author with less kindness, though it must be recollected, that he lived during a contentious period, when two parties distracted the nation, and writers indulged in great asperities. But, in opposition to reproach, let it ever be remembered, that he defended freedom, without anarchy; that he supported toleration, without libertinism; that he pleaded for moderation even amidst violence. With acuteness of intellect, with keenness of wit, with archness of diction, and pertinacity of design; it must be allowed that nature had qualified, in a high degree, De Foe for a disputant. His polemical treatises, whatever might have been their attractions once, may now be delivered without reserve to those who delight in polemical reading. De Foe, it must be allowed, was a party writer: But, were not Swift and Prior, Steel and Addison, Halifax and Bolingbroke, party writers? De Foe, being a party writer upon settled principles, did not change with the change of parties: Addison and Steel, Prior and Swift, connected as they were with persons, changed their note as persons were elevated or depressed.

As a commercial writer, De Foe is fairly entitled to stand in the foremost rank among his contemporaries, whatever may be their performances or their fame. Little would be his praise, to say of him, that he wrote on commercial legislation like Addison, who when he touches on trade, sinks into imbecility, without knowledge of fact, or power of argument[105]. The distinguishing characteristics of De Foe, as a commercial disquisitor, are originality and depth. He has many sentiments with regard to traffic, which are scattered through his Reviews, and which I never read in any other book. His Giving Alms no Charity, is a capital performance, with the exception of one or two thoughts about the abridgment of labour by machinery, which are either half formed or half expressed. Were we to compare De Foe with D'Avenant, it would be found, that D'Avenant has more detail from official documents; that De Foe has more fact from wider inquiry. D'Avenant is more apt to consider laws in their particular application; De Foe more frequently investigates commercial legislation in its general effects. From the publications of D'Avenant it is sufficiently clear, that he was not very regardful of means, or very attentive to consequences; De Foe is more correct in his motives, and more salutary in his ends. But, as a commercial prophet, De Foe must yield the palm to Child; who foreseeing from experience that men's conduct must finally be directed by their principles, foretold the colonial revolt: De Foe, allowing his prejudices to obscure his sagacity, reprobated that suggestion, because he deemed interest a more strenuous prompter than enthusiasm. Were we however to form an opinion, not from special passages, but from whole performances, we must incline to De Foe, when compared with the ablest contemporary: we must allow him the preference, on recollection, that when he writes on commerce he seldom fails to insinuate some axiom of morals, or to inculcate some precept of religion.

As an historian, it will be found, that our author had few equals in the English language, when he wrote. His Memoirs of a Cavalier show how well he could execute the lighter narratives. His History of the Union evinces that he was equal to the higher department of historic composition. This is an account of a single event, difficult indeed in its execution, but beneficial certainly in its consequences. With extraordinary skill and information, our author relates, not only the event, but the transactions which preceded, and the effects which followed. He is at once learned and intelligent. Considering the factiousness of the age, his candour is admirable. His moderation is exemplary. And if he spoke of James I. as a tyrant, he only exercised the prerogative, which our historians formerly enjoyed, of casting obloquy on an unfortunate race, in order to supply deficience of knowledge, of elegance, and of style. In this instance De Foe allowed his prejudice to overpower his philosophy. If the language of his narrative want the dignity of the great historians of the current times, it has greater facility; if it be not always grammatical, it is generally precise; and if it be thought defective in strength, it must be allowed to excel in sweetness.

Such then are the pretensions of De Foe to be acknowledged as one of the ablest and most useful writers of our island. He who still doubts may perhaps satisfy his greatest doubts, by perusing the chronological catalogue of our author's works, which I have compiled, in order to gratify the public curiosity; and which, for the greater distinctness, I have divided into two heads: 1st, Those writings that I think are certainly De Foe's; 2ndly, Those writings that are said to be his. As I do not pretend to perfect accuracy, it would be a favour to the world and to me, if any one, of more knowledge and leisure than I possess, would point out mistakes for the purpose of amendment. The zealous interposition of Mr. Lockyer Davis, and the liberal spirit of the Stationers' company, procured me the perusal of the register of books, which have been entered at Stationers'-hall. I was surprised and disappointed to find so few of De Foe's writings entered as property, and his name never mentioned as an author or a man.

END OF MR. CHALMERS'S LIFE.

* * * * *

In presenting to the public so complete an edition of the works of De Foe, the publishers feel that they are engaged in a truly national undertaking, interesting to all ranks of Englishmen, but peculiarly to the middle classes. De Foe was essentially a practical author, not only as regards his style, but his turn of mind, his choice of subjects, and his mode of handling them. He wrote voluminously, upon all kinds of subjects and for all ranks of men: and by some of his works he has continued from that time to this, to please all classes and ages of people in all the countries of Europe. For many years he took an active part in the political controversies of that troubled time, which were so much embittered by the factious excitement arising from the expulsion of the Stuart dynasty, and placing William III. on the throne; and during the long period of his life in which he engaged in political warfare, he consistently and constantly maintained the principles of the revolution. Many of his pamphlets being directed to passing topics have ceased to possess that general and enduring interest which attaches to his other works, but they are full of manly sentiments, expressed in a plain, racy, English style, and well deserve the attentive perusal of all who may wish thoroughly to understand that period of our history which elapsed between the accession of William III. and the death of queen Anne. His History of the Union is a standard work, and peculiarly valuable as the production of a man who took an active part in the great national event which it commemorates.

Essentially practical, as we have observed, in his mind, De Foe was ever anxious to give useful instructions to his countrymen, for the regulation of their conduct in their homes and their pursuits in life, and embodied the results of an experienced and sagacious mind in the Family Instructor, the Religious Courtship, and the Complete English Tradesman. This last work is one which no young man entering into business should be without. It is an invaluable manual, full of the lessons of instructed prudence and good sense. Even his admirable romances, too, are written in the same spirit. They were not composed in his youth, in the heyday of his imagination, merely to gratify an idle curiosity in the reader, but in the evening of his life when his judgment was matured, and his experience at the full. Some of them were written to show the bitter fruits of a life of vice; and others to display in a vivid manner the importance of self-reliance, based on its proper foundation, a sincere and Christian trust in Providence, under all circumstances; with the inestimable value of a practical education, and a thorough acquaintance with the arts of life, and what too many persons are foolishly apt to despise as common things. That these were the paramount objects De Foe had in view is evident not only from a perusal of these valuable works, but from his own strongly asserted statements in his prefaces both to Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoe. In the former, he says, "as the whole relation is usefully garbled of all the levity and looseness that was in it, so it is applied with the utmost care to virtuous and religious uses. None can, without being guilty of manifest injustice, cast any reproach upon it, or upon our design in publishing it. The advocates of the stage have in all ages made this the great argument, to persuade people that their plays are useful, and that they ought to be allowed in the most civilized, and in the most religious government; namely, that they are applied to virtuous purposes, and that, by the most lively representations, they fail not to recommend virtue and generous principles, and to discourage and expose all sorts of vice and corruption of manners; and were it true that they did so, and that they constantly adhered to that rule, as the test of their acting on the theatre, much might be said in their favour.

"Throughout the infinite variety of this book, this fundamental is most strictly adhered to; there is not a wicked action in any part of it, but it is first or last rendered unhappy or unfortunate; there is not a superlative villain brought upon the stage, but he is either brought to an unhappy end, or brought to be a penitent; there is not an ill thing mentioned but it is condemned, even in the relation; nor a virtuous just thing but it carries its praise along with it. What can more exactly answer the rule laid down, to recommend even those representations of things which have so many other just objections lying against them; namely, of example of bad company, obscene language, and the like." And in the preface to Robinson Crusoe he states his object to be "a religious application of events to the uses to which wise men always apply them, viz., to the instruction of others by this example, and to justify and honour the wisdom of Providence in all the variety of our circumstances, let them happen how they will."

The extreme popularity of this justly celebrated work proves the success with which De Foe's labours were crowned. It is a book essentially English, one of which an Englishman only would have conceived the design, and which probably only an Englishman would have been able to execute. The idea of an inhabitant of a solitary island, "far in the melancholy main," subsisting in comparative comfort, might be expected from one of that nautical people whose flag has not only 'braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze,' but floated in triumph on every sea, and waved in the winds of every clime. From such a people the author might expect readers, and he has had them by thousands of every class and of every age. The interest, however, of the story has not confined the reputation and popularity of Robinson Crusoe to this country, but has made it the universal favourite of Europe. The great characteristics of this remarkable book are the vividness with which the imaginary scenes are depicted, so as to make it impossible for the reader to doubt their reality, and the just importance which is given to the knowledge of what a great man called "doing common things in a common way." For his power of imparting reality to his fictions De Foe indeed stands highly distinguished among authors. Dr. Johnson mistook the Life and Piracies of Captain Singleton, for a real history; and lord Chatham fell into a similar mistake about the Memoirs of a Cavalier during the civil wars in England. Dr. Mead quoted the History of the Plague as an authentic detail by an eyewitness. And this quality marks the different fictions, Moll Flanders, &c., which the publishers have collected and reprinted in the present edition. These remarkable tales, it is true, describe the career of loose and immoral characters, but only in a way to disgust and deter. There is never any impropriety in the descriptions of events, however degrading; the nature of De Foe was abhorrent from indecency: but the heroes and heroines, who tell their own stories, instead of dwelling with unction or satisfaction on their past lives, only narrate particular incidents to express their sincere disgust at them, and repentance for the future, and to warn others from a life so fruitful of bitter results. Whilst De Foe was so cruelly and unjustly imprisoned in Newgate for defending the Hanoverian succession! (strange perversion of party spirit!) he employed his active mind in acquiring information relative to its unhappy and guilty inmates; and deeply convinced that mankind would be benefited by an exposure of the sorrow and distresses that invariably accompany and follow a life of crime, he embodied the results of his experience in fictions which we agree with him in thinking to be as useful as they are vivid. Mr. Alexander Chalmers, in his sketch of De Foe[106], says, "these lives are too gross for improvement"; we cannot agree with this opinion of the learned biographer. We hold, that novels, written like De Foe's, not on the base principle of making a market by pandering to the worst passions of the multitude, but where all indecency of expression or even of suggestion, is carefully avoided, and vice is only described as entailing misery, are instructive and beneficial to the people.

The style of De Foe is plain and homely, but expressive, direct, and manly. It may be described as thoroughly English. It reflected the character of his mind, and bespoke the man of firm resolve, and unshaken integrity.

His principles were those of a sincere dissenter, of the whig school. He joined most heartily in the Revolution of 1688, and continued a steadfast friend to its principles and its hero. To William III. De Foe was devotedly attached; and after the death of that great king, vindicated his memory from the poisonous shafts of malice and slander. He was the champion of civil and religious liberty, which he evidently valued as the most precious of earthly things. Of that cause he continued the unflinching advocate, and may be regarded as the most efficient of that day which the press could boast. Through good report and evil report, under the smiles of sovereigns or incarcerated in Newgate, in prosperity or poverty, stung by the malevolence of faction, or by filial ingratitude, in health or in sickness, in gladness or in sorrow, De Foe held by the same sheet anchor of principle, remained incorruptible in his love of liberty, and died as he had lived throughout a long and eventful career, what he so justly felt himself, a "True-born Englishman," and to use his own admirable expression in Robinson Crusoe, a "broadhearted man." Honoured be his memory!

The first attempt to do justice to the merits of De Foe, and to rescue the main events of his useful and laborious life from oblivion, was made by the late Mr. George Chalmers, of the Board of Trade, whose biography the present publishers now reprint. Since that period, gentlemen of learning and ability have followed his steps. Dr. Towers, in the Biographia Britannica, has sketched the life of De Foe, and Mr. Alexander Chalmers, in the Biographical Dictionary, has also done justice to his memory. Sir Walter Scott gave the aid of his great name to the same object, by publishing an edition of De Foe. Mr. Walter Wilson, of the Middle Temple, has published lately a long and detailed Life of De Foe, which is by far the most complete yet compiled, and should be consulted by every student desirous of becoming thoroughly acquainted with the events of his chequered career. The present edition of his works will supply a desideratum in English literature, and enable his countrymen to possess, at a small cost, the various productions of his versatile genius, and be instructed by one of the most deservedly popular and really useful authors that has ever adorned the country.

We subjoin the able critiques on De Foe, by the late Charles Lamb, a man exactly qualified to appreciate him, by a writer in the Retrospective Review, and by sir Walter Scott. For the first, the world is indebted to Mr. Wilson[107]. "It has happened not seldom that one work of some author has so transcendently surpassed in execution the rest of his compositions, that the world has agreed to pass a sentence of dismissal upon the latter, and to consign them to total neglect and oblivion. It has done wisely in this, not to suffer the contemplation of excellences of a lower standard to abate or stand in the way of the pleasure it has agreed to receive from the masterpiece.

"Again, it has happened, that from no inferior merit of execution in the rest, but from superior good fortune in the choice of its subject, some single work shall have been suffered to eclipse and cast into shade the deserts of its less fortunate brethren. This has been done with more or less injustice in the case of the popular allegory of Bunyan, in which the beautiful and scriptural image of a pilgrim or wayfarer (we are all such upon earth!) addressing itself intelligibly and feelingly to the bosoms of all, has silenced and made almost to be forgotten, the more awful and scarcely less tender beauties of the Holy War made by Shaddai upon Diabolus, of the same author, a romance less happy in its subject, but surely well worthy of a secondary immortality. But in no instance has this excluding partiality been exerted with more unfairness than against what may be termed the secondary novels or romances of De Foe.

"While all ages and descriptions of people hang delighted over the Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, and shall continue to do so, we trust, while the world lasts, how few, comparatively, will bear to be told that there exist other fictitious narratives by the same author, four of them at least of no inferior interest, except what results from a less felicitous choice of situation. Roxana, Singleton, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack--are all genuine offspring of the same father. They bear the veritable impress of De Foe. An unpractised midwife that would not swear to the nose, lip, forehead, and age of every one of them! They are, in their way, as full of incident, and some of them are every bit as romantic; only they want the uninhabited island, and the charm that has bewitched the world, of the striking solitary situation.

"But are there no solitudes out of the cave and the desert? or cannot the heart in the midst of crowds feel frightfully alone? Singleton, on the world of waters, prowling about with pirates less merciful than the creatures of any prowling wilderness; is he not alone, with the faces of men about him, but without a guide that can conduct him through the mist of educational and habitual ignorance; or a fellow heart that can interpret to him the new-born yearnings and aspirations of unpractised penitence? or when the boy, Colonel Jack, in the loneliness of the heart, (the worst solitude,) goes to hide his ill-purchased treasure in the hollow tree by night, and miraculously loses, and miraculously finds it again; whom hath he there to sympathise with him? or of what sort are his associates?

"The narrative manner of De Foe has a naturalness about it, beyond that of any novel or romance writer. His fictions have all the air of true stories. It is impossible to believe while you are reading them, that a real person is not narrating to you everywhere nothing but what really happened to himself. To this, the extreme homeliness of their style mainly contributes. We use the word in its best and heartiest sense,--that which comes home to the reader. The narrators everywhere are chosen from low life, or have had their origin in it; therefore they tell their own tales, (Mr. Coleridge has anticipated us in this remark,) as persons in their degree are observed to do, with infinite repetition, and an overacted exactness, lest the hearer should not have minded, or have forgotten some things that had been told before. Hence the emphatic sentences, marked in the good old (but deserted) Italic type; and hence, too, the frequent interposition of the reminding old colloquial parenthesis, 'I say,' 'mind,' and the like, when the story-teller repeats what to a practised reader might appear to have been sufficiently insisted upon before. What pirates, what thieves, and what harlots, are the thief, the harlot, and the pirate of De Foe? We would not hesitate to say, that in no other book of fiction, where the lives of such characters are described, is guilt and delinquency made less seductive, or the suffering made more closely to follow the commission, or the penitence more earnest or bleeding, or the intervening flashes of religious visitation, upon the rude and uninstructed soul, more meltingly or fearfully painted. They, in this, come near to the tenderness of Bunyan; while the lively pictures and incidents in them, as in Hogarth, or in Fielding, tend to diminish that fastidiousness to the concerns and pursuits of common life, which an unrestrained passion for the ideal and the sentimental is in danger of producing."