Of fictitious biography it is equally true, that by matchless art it may be made more instructive than a real life. Few of our writers have excelled De Foe in this kind of biographical narration, the great qualities of which are, to attract by the diversity of circumstances, and to instruct by the usefulness of examples.
He published, in 1720, The History of Duncan Campbell. Of a person who was born deaf and dumb, but who himself taught the deaf and dumb to understand, it is easy to see that the life would be extraordinary. It will be found, that the author has intermixed some disquisitions of learning, and has contrived that the merriest passages shall end with some edifying moral[90]. The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders were made to gratify the world, in 1721. De Foe was aware, that in relating a vicious life, it was necessary to make the best use of a bad story; and he artfully endeavours, that the reader shall be more pleased with the moral than the fable; with the application than the relation; with the end of the writer than the adventures of the person. There was published in 1721, a work of a similar tendency, The Life of Colonel Jack, who was born a gentleman but was bred a pickpocket. Our author is studious to convert his various adventures into a delightful field, where the reader might gather herbs, wholesome and medicinal, without the incommodation of plants, poisonous or noxious. In 1724 appeared The Life of Roxana. Scenes of crimes can scarcely be represented in such a manner, says De Foe, but some make a criminal use of them; but when vice is painted in its low-prized colours, it is not to make people love what from the frightfulness of the figures they ought necessarily to hate. Yet, I am not convinced, that the world has been made much wiser, or better, by the perusal of these lives; they may have diverted the lower orders, but I doubt if they have much improved them; if however they have not made them better, they have not left them worse. But they do not exhibit many scenes which are welcome to cultivated minds. Of a very different quality are the Memoirs of a Cavalier, during the civil wars in England, which seem to have been published without a date. This is a romance the likest to truth that ever was written[91]. It is a narrative of great events, which is drawn with such simplicity, and enlivened with such reflections, as to inform the ignorant and entertain the wise.
The moralities of De Foe, whether published in single volumes, or interspersed through many passages, must at last give him a superiority over the crowd of his contemporaries[92]. The approbation which has been long given to his Family Instructor, and his Religious Courtship, seem to contain the favourable decision of his countrymen[93]. But there are still other performances of this nature, which are now to be mentioned, of not inferior merit.
De Foe published, in 1722, A Journal of the Plague in 1665. The author's artifice consists in fixing the reader's attention by the deep distress of fellow-men; and, by recalling the reader's recollection to striking examples of mortality, he endeavours to inculcate the uncertainty of life, and the usefulness of reformation. In 1724, De Foe published The great Law of Subordination. This is an admirable commentary on the Unsufferable Behaviour of Servants. Yet, though he interest by his mode, inform by his facts, and convince by his argument, he fails at last, by expecting from law what must proceed from manners[94]. Our author gave The Political History of the Devil, in 1726. The matter and the mode conjoin to make this a charming performance. He engages poetry and prose, reasoning and wit, persuasion and ridicule, on the side of religion and morals, with wonderful efficacy. De Foe wrote A System of Magic in 1726[95]. This may be properly regarded as a supplement to the History of the Devil. His end and his execution are exactly the same. He could see no great harm in the present pretenders to magic, if the poor people would but keep their money in their pockets; and that they should have their pockets picked by such an unperforming, unmeaning, ignorant crew as these are, is the only magic De Foe could see in the whole science. But the reader will discover in our author's system, extensive erudition, salutary remark, and useful satire. De Foe published in 1727, his Treatise on the Use and Abuse of the Marriage-Bed. The author had begun this performance thirty years before; he delayed the publication, though it had been long finished, in hopes of reformation. But being now grown old, and out of the reach of scandal, and despairing of amendment from a vicious age, he thought proper to close his days with this satire. He appealed to that judge, before whom he expected soon to appear, that as he had done it with an upright intention, so he had used his utmost endeavour to perform it in a manner which was the least liable to reflection, and the most answerable to the end of it—the reformation of the guilty. After such an appeal, and such asseverations, I will only remark, that this is an excellent book with an improper title-page.
We are now to consider our author's Tours. He published his Travels through England, in 1724 and 1725; and through Scotland, in 1727. De Foe was not one of those travellers who seldom quit the banks of the Thames. He had made wide excursions over all those countries, with observant eyes and a vigorous intellect. The great artifice of these volumes consists in the frequent mention of such men and things, as are always welcome to the reader's mind[96].
De Foe's Commercial Tracts are to be reviewed lastly. Whether his fancy gradually failed, as age hastily advanced, I am unable to tell. He certainly began, in 1726, to employ his pen more frequently on the real business of common life. He published, in 1727, The Complete English Tradesman; directing him in the several parts of trade. A second volume soon after followed, which was addressed chiefly to the more experienced and more opulent traders. In these treatises the tradesman found many directions of business, and many lessons of prudence[97]. De Foe was not one of those writers, who consider private vices as public benefits: God forbid, he exclaims, that I should be understood to prompt the vices of the age, in order to promote any practice of traffic: trade need not be destroyed though vice were mortally wounded. With this salutary spirit he published, in 1728, A Plan of the English Commerce[98]. This seems to be the conclusion of what he had begun in 1713. In 1728, Gee printed his Trade and Navigation considered. De Foe insisted, that our industry, our commerce, our opulence, and our people, had increased and were increasing. Gee represented that our manufactures had received mortal stabs; that our poor were destitute, and our country miserable. De Foe maintained the truth, which experience has taught to unwilling auditors. Gee asserted the falsehood, without knowing the fact: yet Gee is quoted, while De Foe with all his knowledge of the subject, as a commercial writer, is almost forgotten. The reason may be found perhaps in the characteristic remark with which he opens his plan: Trade, like religion, is what everybody talks of, but few understand.
When curiosity has contemplated such copiousness, such variety, and such excellence, it naturally inquires which was the last of De Foe's performances? Were we to determine from the date of the title page, the Plan of Commerce must be admitted to be his last. But if we must judge from his prefatory declaration, in The Abuse of the Marriage-Bed, where he talks of closing his days with this satire, which he was so far from seeing cause of being ashamed of, that he hoped he should not be ashamed of it where he was going to account for it, we must finally decide, that our author closed his career "with this upright intention for the good of mankind[99]."
De Foe, after those innumerable labours, which I have thus endeavoured to recall to the public recollection, died in April, 1731, within the parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, London, at an age, if he were born in 1663, when it was time to prepare for his last voyage. He left a widow, Susannah, who did not long survive him, and six sons and daughters, whom he boasts of having educated as well as his circumstances would admit. His son Daniel is said to have emigrated to Carolina; of Benjamin, his second son, no account can be given[100]. His youngest daughter Sophia, married Mr. Henry Baker, a person more respectable as a philosopher than a poet, who died in 1774, at the age of seventy. His daughter Maria married one Langley; but Hannah and Henrietta probably remained unmarried, since they were heiresses only of a name, which did not recommend them. With regard to