Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11

by Unknown

DANIEL DEFOE.

aniel Defoe, one of the most vigorous and voluminous writers of the last decade of the seventeenth and the first quarter of the eighteenth centuries, was born in St. Giles parish, Cripplegate, in 1660 or 1661, and died near London in 1731. His father was a butcher named Foe, and the evolution of the son's name through the various forms of D. Foe, De Foe, Defoe, to Daniel Defoe, the present accepted form, did not begin much before he reached the age of forty. He was educated at the "dissenting school" of a Mr. Martin in Newington Green, and was intended for the Presbyterian ministry. Although the training at this school was not inferior to that to be obtained at the universities,—and indeed superior in one respect, since all the exercises were in English,—the fact that he had never been "in residence" set Defoe a little apart from the literary society of the day. Swift, Pope, Addison, Arbuthnot, and the rest, considered him untrained and uncultured, and habitually spoke of him with the contempt which the regular feels for the volunteer. Swift referred to him as "an illiterate fellow whose name I forget," and Pope actually inserted his name in the 'Dunciad':—

"Earless on high stood unabashed De Foe."

This line is false in two ways, for Defoe's ears were not clipped, though he was condemned to stand in the pillory; and there can hardly be a greater incongruity conceived than there is between our idea of a dunce and the energetic, shifty, wide-awake Defoe,—though for that matter a scholar like Bentley and a wit like Colley Cibber are as much out of place in the poet's ill-natured catalogue. Defoe angrily resented the taunts of the university men and their professional assumption of superiority, and answered Swift that "he had been in his time master of five languages and had not lost them yet," and challenged John Tutchin to "translate with him any Latin, French, or Italian author, and then retranslate them crosswise, for twenty pounds each book."

Notwithstanding the great activity of Defoe's pen (over two hundred pamphlets and books, most of them of considerable length, are known to be his; and it is more than probable that much of his work was anonymous and has perished, or could be only partly disinterred by laborious conjecture) he found time to engage twice in business, once as a factor in hosiery and once as a maker of tiles. In each venture he seems to have been unfortunate, and his business experience is alluded to here only because his practical knowledge of mercantile matters is evident in all his work. Even his pirates like Captain Bob Singleton, and adventurers like Colonel Jack, have a decided commercial flavor. They keep a weather eye on the profit-and-loss account, and retire like thrifty traders on a well-earned competency. It is worth mentioning, however, to Defoe's credit, that in one or two instances at least he paid his debts in full, after compromising with his creditors.

Defoe's writings, though all marked by his strong but limited personality, fall naturally into three classes:—

First, his political writings, in which may be included his wretched attempts at political satire, and most of his journalistic work. This is included in numberless pamphlets, broad-sheets, newspapers, and the like, and is admirable expository matter on the public questions of the day. Second, his fiction, 'Robinson Crusoe,' 'Captain Singleton,' 'Colonel Jack,' 'Roxana,' and 'Moll Flanders.' Third, his miscellaneous work; innumerable biographies and papers like the 'History of the Plague,' the 'Account of the Great Storm,' 'The True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal,' etc. Between the last two classes there is a close connection, since both were written for the market; and his fictions proper are cast in the autobiographical form and are founded on incidents in the lives of real persons, and his biographies contain a large proportion of fiction.

Some knowledge of Defoe's political work is necessary to a comprehension of the early eighteenth century. During his life the power of the people and of the House of Commons was slowly extended, and the foundations of the modern English Constitution were laid. The trading and manufacturing classes, especially in the city of London, increased in wealth and political consequence. The reading public on which a popular writer could rely, widened. With these changes—partly as cause and purely as consequence—came the establishment of "News Journals" and "Reviews." Besides Addison's Spectator for the more cultured classes, multitudes of periodicals were founded which aimed to reach a more general public. The old method of a broad-sheet or the pamphlet, hawked in the streets or exposed for sale and cried at the book-stalls, was still in use, but the regular issue of a news-letter was taking its place. Defoe attacked the public in both ways with unwearied assiduity. His poem 'The True-Born Englishman' was sold in the streets to the astonishing number of eighty thousand. In 1704 he established the Review, a bi-weekly. It ran to 1713, and Defoe wrote nearly all of each number. Afterwards he was for eight years main contributor and substantially manager of Mist's Journal, a Tory organ; and one of the most serious and well-founded charges against this first great journalist is, that he was deficient in journalistic honor, and remained in the pay of the Whig Ministry while attached to the Opposition organ. During this period he founded and conducted several other journals.

Defoe possessed in a large measure the journalistic sense. No one ever had a finer instinct in the subtle arts of "working the public" and of advertising. When the notorious Jack Sheppard was condemned, he visited him at Newgate, wrote his life, and had the highwayman, standing under the gallows, send for a copy and deliver it as his "last speech and dying confession." There is a certain breadth and originality in this stroke, hardly to be paralleled in modern journalism. Defoe had the knack of singling out from the mass of passing events whatever would be likely to interest the public. He brought out an account in some newspaper, and if successful, made the occurrence the subject of a longer article in pamphlet or book form. He was always on the lookout for matter, which he utilized with a pen of marvelous rapidity. The gazette or embryonic newspaper was at first confined to a rehearsal of news. Defoe invented the leading article or "news-letter" of weekly comment, and the society column of Mercure Scandaleuse.