The Sun.
London, England, 1869-08-23 00:00:00

The "Life" is a straightforward narrative, without any
attempt at literary perfection. Defoe was essentially a
public man, a politician ; and, therefore, a biography of
him is necessarily to a great extent a history of England
during the time that he lived. It may interest our
readers to condense the main facts of his career.
Daniel Defoe was born in the parish of St. Giles, Crip-
plegate, 16C1. His father, James Foe, was a butcher.
Mr. Lee conjectures that the prefix "De" arose by acci-
dent rather than by design, and•probably had its origin in
the fact that the son signed himself " D. Foe," and was so
called to distinguish him from his father. Certainly so
sturdy a Puritan as Daniel was not likely to be influenced
by any snobbish desire to claim Norman descent. He
went to a Dissenters' school at Newington, and did well
there. His Puritanism induced him to join the
Duke of Monmouth, the " Protestant hero." For-
tunately, the young butcher's son was not known
in the West of England, and so he escaped out of the jaws
of Kirke's lambs back to London.
His first published work was written to warn his
fellow religionists not to trust to James's offers. This
counsel was not well received. Immense was his joy
when William landed. At that time Defoe was a hosier,
but he had a soul verily, and indeed, above trade. He got
into difficulties, and would have been made bankrupt but
that his bond was deemed sufficient. It was faithfully
discharged, though he had to toil hard to fulfil the obliga-
tion. But this was not his last attempt at business. He
opened a tilery near Tilbury Fort, and Mr. Lee had the
pleasure of seeing it unearthed some nine years ago, when
the Tilbury and Southend Railway was made. This
business prospered until Defoe got thrown into prison.
The misadventure happened in this wise. The High
Church and Tory party, of whom Dr. Sacheverell was the
idol, were for making very short work with Dissenters.
For instance, it had been customary for Nonconformists
to resort to " occasional conformity" in order that they
might fill certain civic and public offices. In that way—
by attending church once on a Sunday—a Dissenter some-
times obtained the mayoralty. But the bigots
were determined to put a stop to this. They
did not want to see Dissenters at church, they
wanted only to keep them out of the State.
So a bill was brought in by the Commons to prohibit
" occasional conformity." The Lords were at that time
the upholders of civil and • religious liberty, and they
rejected the bill. The Commons reintroduced it ,• the
Lords again rejected it. The Commons then tacked it on
to a money bill, but still the Lords held firm. During
this controversy Defoe, who did not approve of occasional
conformity, but still less approved of the bigotry of the
Sacheverell party, wrote a pamphlet called " The Shortest
Way with Dissenters." It purported to come from the
pen of a Tory, and it set forth all the most extravagant
ideas of the party in words just such as they were accus-
tomed to use, but carried to logical results which they
had not hitherto ventured to suggest. The boldness of
this anonymous writer delighted them. Here was
a true man, here was one ready to go all lengths.
A Cambridge Fellaw declared of the pamphlet "that next
to the Holy Bible and the Sacred Commandments I take it
for the most valuable piece. I have, I pray God, put it
into her Majesty's heart to put what is there proposed
into execution." That is to exterminate them all. But
after a time it became rumoured that the tract was written
by a Dissenter, and was intended as a satire on the Tory
party, whereupon they were furious, and the Govern.
ment proclaimed a reward in the London Gazette for his
capture. He surrendered himself voluntarily, was tried,
sentenced to a heavy fine, exposure in the pillory three
times, and imprisonment at the Queen's pleasure. The
exposure in the pillory was a triumph for Defoe. The
peaple came round and cheered him, and handed up garlands
to him, and sang verses in his honour. The other part of the
sentence had to be borne alone. During his imprisonment
his business at Tilbury was utterly ruined, and he had
to support his wife and six children as best he could. He
turned to literature, wrote pamphlets, and then published
his famous paper, The _Review. His imprisonment lasted
more than eighteen months, and he obtained his release
only through the exertions of Harley. From that time
forward his position improved. The death of William had
blighted all his hopes of State advancement, and for five
years he was under a cloud. But in 1707 he was employed
officially in Scotland to carry out the arrangements
for the union between Scotland and England. Even when
his patron Harley fell from power Defoe contrived to
remain in the good graces of Queen Anne, and was
sent a second time to Scotland. Then, as always,
he was an advocate for peace. A senseless war had
been raging for years, and the nation was quite
intoxicated by the successes of Marlborough. But
Defoe saw the huge burden of debt which they were
heaping upon the nation. A panic came in 1710, and he
wrote " An Essay upon Public Credit," which did much to
restore confidence. He still urged peace, and at last saw
the Treaty of Utrecht signed April 11, 1713. There was
another question to which he directed attention. The
Queen had no children who were to succeed her. He
wrote strongly against the Pretender. Nevertheless,
there were persons who purposely misunderstood him,
and legal proceedings were instituted against him for sup-
porting the Pretender. The Queen, however, interposed,
and stopped the prosecution, declaring that it had been
instigated only by private malice. On the death of the
Queen he got into trouble with the Lords Regent, and
soon afterwards had a shock of apoplexy, from which,
however, he recovered. This brings us to the period at
which he entered upon the questionable engagement men-
tioned at the outset. There had been a quarrel between
Defoe and the Whigs, and this enabled him to conduct the
Tory journals with the greater ease, it being thought but
natural that he shouldwrite against those who had ill-used
him. In reality the quarrel had been made up, and while the
Tories thought he had been driven over to them, he was
in reality betraying them. It was in 1719, just 150 years
ago, that "R. obinson Crusoe " was written, and, if
Chalmers be correct, the MS. went the round of the pub-
lishers before one would undertake it. Yet four editions
were sold almost immediately, and Taylor, who undertook
the publication of it, made his fortune. Defoe himself
now began to amass money, and looked on calmly while
his countrymen were being ruined by John Law. A little
later he had a violent quarrel with Mist, his colleague in
some of the Tory papers. Mist had discovered Defoe's
trick, and gttempted to assassinate him. After that he
wrote some strange books. One of them, at least,had a title so
eccentric that " decency forbids " us to name it. He hesitated
for some time before publishing it, and when at last
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the 71st year of his age. He was buried the Dissenting
and he died at a lodging Moorfields,A. April 26, 1731 in
Campo Santo and Walhalla, Bunhill

OBITUARY.—CoIoneI Thomas P. August died in
Richmond, Virginia, on the 31st ult. He was the son of
Mr. Philip August, and was born in Richmond, 1822.
—Mr. Emerson, of the Jaw firm of Emerson and
Woodrich, No. 34, Wall-street, in New York, died
suddenly of congestion of the lungs, at Mr. Harring-
ton's residence, Throgg's-neck, on Monday, August 2.
General Milton Stapp, for many years a leading politician
in Indiana, and ex-Mayor of Madison, died at Galveston,
Texas, on Monday, Aug. 2. He was Collector of Internal
Revanno in that State dining President Johnson's ad-
ministration.—Henry Keep the well-known financier and
railroad director died in New York July 30, aged 51. The
following biography of him appears in the Springfield
RepuLlican:—" His early, years were passed in a poor
house. Taken from that institution at the age of 10 years
and 'bound out,' he ran away from his master, several
ears later, and was advertised as a runaway, with one
cent reward for his capture. He was not brought back,
however, and soon turned up as a teamster, at Watertown,
N.Y. Then ho became hackman. In those days Canada
shillings were plenty and current in
,the states at 20 cents,
whileeyeg
s over t he
cboarnd
ce
efo a v
r they
n broughto,l b
2uatf
cents.s u e ce
sYs oaul
ng.ke p '
financials
scheme. Carpet bag iu hand, ho journeyed about gathering
up the coins and taking them to the lured of the Canucks,
where ho made the profitable exchange. There were no
duties. No one had previously thought of this itinerating
brokerage business, and he made handsomely by it. After
a time ho settled in business, no to speak, and opened a
note-shaving office in a small way at Watertown. A citi-
zen of that tows, rich in goods and daughters, was very
much opposed to Henry, but one of the daughters wasn't.
This old man, whose name was Woodruff, swore ho would
shoot Keep, but he didn't—act even after the elopement
and marriage of the couple. The young woman, now a
widow, has her millions from the estate accumulated by
the man with whom she ran away by night to get married:"
—Mr. W. H. Sylvis, the indefatigable champion of the
working classes and President of the Labour Union of the
United States, died on the '27th of July at Philadelphia.—
The Hon. Charles Allen, formerly a member of Congress,
and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachu-
setts, died iu Worcester, Aug. 6, aged 72 years.