The Book of the Feet: A History of Boots and Shoes

by Joseph Sparkes Hall

His own description of his mode of study at this period of his life is as follows: “During my literary pursuits, I regularly and constantly attend on my business, and do not recollect that one customer was ever disappointed through these means. My mode of writing and study may have in them perhaps something peculiar. Immersed in the common concerns of life, I endeavor to lift my thoughts to objects more sublime than those with which I am surrounded; and while attending to my trade, I sometimes catch the fibres of an argument, which I endeavor to note, and keep a pen and ink by me for that purpose. In this state, what I can collect through the day, remains on any paper which I have at hand, till the business of the day is despatched, and my shop shut, when, in the midst of my family, I endeavor to analyze, in the evening, such thoughts as had crossed my mind during the day. I have no study—I have no retirement—I write amid the cries and cradles of my children; and frequently, when I review what I have written, endeavor to cultivate ‘the art to blot.’ Such are the methods which I have pursued, and such the disadvantages under which I write.”

The circumstances which led to his becoming an author, are these: A young gentleman with whom he was intimate, by profession a surgeon, put into his hands the first part of Paine’s Age of Reason, thinking to bring him over to the principles of infidelity. The sophistry of Paine’s book, Mr. Drew readily detected; and committing his thoughts to writing in the form of notes, by the advice of two methodist preachers, to whom he showed them, he was induced to publish them in a pamphlet entitled, “Remarks on Paine’s Age of Reason,” in September, 1799. This little work was favorably received by the public; and it procured for its author, the steady friendship of the Rev. John Whitaker, a clergyman of high literary reputation.

Upon the Remarks on Paine’s Age of Reason, which first brought Mr. Drew before the public as an author, a writer in the Anti-Jacobin Review, of April, 1801, observes, “We here see a shoemaker of St. Austell, encountering a staymaker of Deal, with the same weapons of unlettered reason, tempered, indeed, from the armory of God, yet deriving their principal power from the native vigor of the arm that wields them. Samuel Drew, however, is greatly superior to Thomas Paine, in the justness of his remarks, in the forcibleness of his arguments, and in the pointedness of his refutations.” Mr. Drew had the satisfaction of knowing, that his “Remarks” were the means of leading the young man who put the Age of Reason into his hands, to renounce his deistical principles, and to embrace, with full conviction the doctrines of Christianity. The Remarks on Paine, having been several years out of print, were republished, in duodecimo, with the author’s corrections and additions, in 1820.

The appearance in 1802, of the “Essay on the Immateriality and Immortality of the Soul,” to which Mr. Drew is chiefly indebted for his reputation as a metaphysician, brought him into honorable notice beyond his native county. This book was dedicated to the Rev. John Whitaker, whose patronage had, in a great measure, drawn him forth from obscurity. The work has since gone through several editions in England and America, and has been translated into the French language, and published in France.

Encouraged by the favorable reception of this work by the public, Mr. Drew continued his literary labors. His next important attempt in metaphysics, was an investigation of the evidences of a general resurrection. From this investigation, the subject of personal identity was inseparable; and on these topics he recorded his thoughts till the close of the year 1805. At that time he took a survey of his work, but was so much dissatisfied with it, that he threw the whole aside as useless, and half resolved to touch it no more; nor did it appear in print (after being revised by the author) until 1809. It was then, like the Essay on the Soul, published by subscription, and the copyright sold to a London publisher. Fifteen hundred copies were printed, and a second edition appeared in 1822. This work on the Resurrection has also been republished in the United States.

In 1805, Mr. Drew entered into an engagement with the late Doctor Thomas Cope, one of the founders of the Wesleyan methodist missions, to assist him in his literary labors, which wholly detached him from the pursuits of trade. From this time literature became his occupation. About two years previously to this, Mr. Drew had undertaken, in a course of familiar lectures, to instruct a class of young persons and adults, in English grammar and composition. A similar course of lectures, with the addition of geography and astronomy, was delivered by him, in 1811.

Mr. Drew’s various works introduced to the notice, and procured for him the friendship, of several distinguished individuals. His intimacy with Doctor Adam Clarke continued through many years, and with him he long maintained a correspondence. In 1819, at the recommendation of Doctor Clarke, Mr. Drew was engaged as editor of the Imperial Magazine. This led to his removal to Liverpool, and thence to London, where he continued to discharge the duties of editor until 1833. Besides the editorship of the Magazine, he had the superintendence of all the works issued from the Caxton press.

In consequence of symptoms of rapidly declining health, Mr. Drew left London for his native place in Cornwall, in March, 1833, where he died on the 29th of the same month, at the age of sixty-eight.

Besides the works already mentioned, Mr. Drew was the author of a life of his friend Doctor Coke, a History of Cornwall, Essays on the Divinity of Christ and the Necessity of his Atonement, and several other religious works, of a high character. He was also associated with Doctor Coke in writing several important works bearing the name of Doctor Coke as author.

Mr. Drew was an acute reasoner and a close and laborious thinker. He always discovered where truth lay; sophistry rarely escaped his detection; and to his habit of persevering and patient investigation, we are indebted for his most elaborate and convincing arguments. He has been called the “Locke of the nineteenth century.”