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.