The Sun.
London, England, 1845-10-11 00:00:00

LL 1
SHIPPING-(THIS DAY.)
)N1)()Ii, OCT. 11.—Wind S.S.W., light airs and cloudy.
A `'Lr, OM JO. —Wind W. to W.S.W., squally.—Arrd.
t,i!Eaufot 'Regina,
f'111:1,-, White Saldanha Bay ; Eliza Johnson, Grayson, Port
t
Foreman, Trinidad ; Glaphyra, Queleb,
Galway Lass, West Indies ; Edina, Burger,
tQuebec ; Susannah Wood, Montreal. Arrd. from the River
i,Resolution, Park, South Seas; Humayoon, Cameron,
l; Romeo, Pollock, Calcutta ; Rosalind, Hipplewhite,
ialParaiso •
116 Westminster, Hoary, New York ; Feliciar,
in1:81,'", d'itto ; Harmony, Hunter, St. John's, New Bruns-
; Marchioness of Queensberry, WCullum, ditto ; St.
Vaughan, ditto; William Ward, ditto; Advocate,
nett, Cadiz and Calcutta.
iloarsAtoull' Ocr.lo.—Wind W. to S.W.—Arrd. Morning-
Lodott Clark, SaguenaY•
OCT. 10.—Wind S.W.—Arrd. Henry Bell, Hood,
1.,..mer OC
ncer. 10. —Wind S. W., moderate.—Arrd. Glenelg,
St. Vint
"umritms, OCT. 9 —Arrd. Diana, Cowan, St. John's, New
r;olswick ; John Hill, Nova Scoti.
IWATERFORD, ()cr. 9.—Wind Sato W.N.W.—Arrd.' se
erwm, Power Quebec.
iitirEitbEE-N, OCT. B.—Sld. Valiant, Merchant, Ichaboe.
mirk. OCT. s.—Sld. Ann Louisa, Keil, St. John's, New
Brun 14, 9.—Wind W.S.W
/ ~ moderate.—Arrd. Wolga,
A, Richibucto ; Rolla, Keighly, Quebec.
OCT. 10.--The Charon, from Newport to Altona,
Put in here leaky.

LITERATURE.

THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. No. CLXVL

The number for the present month is graced by one of
those splendid articles which have given an unfading
character to this celebrated Review. It is the simple
biography of a great man—obscure in regard to his
birth, persecuted during his whole life, the sport of for-
tune, the terror of priests and hypocrites and time-serv-
ing patriots ; alternately the idol and the bugbear of
statesmen; hated at one time by those whose interests he
served best and at another extolled to the skies by blind
bigots who could not understand him; but amiist all the
vicissitudes of fate never swerving from his great pur-
pose—the reformation of his race, and the establish-
ment of the liberty, independence, and honour of his
native land. It would be difficult to find among all the
illustrious men whom this island has produced
a more sincere and successful patriot than
Daniel De Foe, and he has been fortunate at last, if pos-
thumous fame can serve any man, in having his life,
history, and works delineated by one of the first orators
aid most celebrated writers of the nineteenth century.
There can be no mistake about the authorship of this
splendid tale—we should rather say this faithful narra-
tive ; it bears all the characteristic features of the only
man who could write such a biography, and who has
here added another laurel to those which he has justly
acquired in the more refined paths of literature. Almost
every work which De Foe wrote is faithfully and strik-
ingly laid before the reader; his appearance, his manner,
his dress, his independence of wind, his never-fading
patriotism, his struggles in adversity, whether in
prison or on the pillory, or in a hiding-place ;
his incessant labours to benefit mankind ; his con-
ferences with William of Orange, and afterwards
with Harley, in the succeeding reign ; his battles with
the Dissenters, with the Catholics, and the high-flying
Churchmen; the way in which he employed the tedious
hours of his long imprisonment, the freaks of fortune
which at one time raised him to the highest pitch of
eminence, and almost unbounded wealth, and at another
reduced him to a condition in which most other men
v. ould have died of despair—are all described with the
hand of a master, and with such truth, such a glowing
unction, and, such a congeniality of feeling, that every
reader will only regret that the article did not extend to
twice its length, though comprising not fewer than one
hundred pages. But the affairs of De Foe are not the
only ones that find a place in this narrative. We have
an insight into the wise and manly policy of William
111., a lively description of the motley crew of states-
men and place-hunters with whom he had to deal, and
a vivid picture of the serenity of mind which that illus-
trious personage possessed—the man who would not
reign, but as an independent Sovereign, who would not
hold his crown by the apron-strings of his wife, and
who among all, the disgraceful wrangles of Whigs and
Tories, and Churchmen, and Dissenters, and infidels,
and debauchks, only coolly remarked to Marshal
Schomberg, " They are an inconsistent people." Then
we have the history and character of Queen Anne, who
was thirty-seven when she ascended the throne, and
" her character was formed and known. It was
a compound of weakness and bigotry, but in
some sort these availed to counteract each other.
Devotion to a High Church principle was needful
to her fearful conscience ; but reliance on a woman-
favourite was needful to her feeble mind." Hence the
prodigious influence of the domineering and artful
Duchess of Marlborough, of Abigail Masham, and the
good Mrs. Freeman, and hence also the disgraceful,
_ruel, and mad persecution of the best friend of the mo•
narchy, and, perhaps, also, of the Church. During the
reign of William, De Foe had, in his interviews with
that Monarch, frequently urged the benefits that would
accrue by the union of England and Scotland ; but the
cautious Monarch replied that the apple was not yet ripe.

In Queen. Anne's reign, however, the scheme was again
brought forward, mainly at the instance of De Foe, and
he was sent down to Scotland with the Commissioners
as secretary, and at the same time intrusted with con-
siderable influence derived from the Ministry in London.
To his labours, his prudence, and surpassing abilities
the consummation of this great and useful measure is
chiefly to be attributed. This appointment directed his
attention to various matters which he believed to be es-

sential to Scottish prosperity, and grounded in him a
high respect and liking for the Scottish people. He
wrote a poem in eulogy of them ; busied himself earnestly
with suggestions for their commercial and national ad-
vancement ; and afterwards wrote a very interesting
history of the Union. "We rejoice," adds Mr. Macau
lay (for it is needless to conceal his name), " to have to
couple that act so eminently in the best spirit of the
Revolution, so large-minded and so tolerant, with his
name. It changed turbulence to tranquillity ; rude po-
verty to a rich civilisation ; and the fierce atrocities
of a dominant Church to the calm enjoyment of reli-
gious liberty." Yet this man, so noble in all his
conduct, so useful to his country, and so happy in
his family, and who, in his old age, and on the
brink of the grave, loved, to use his own words, his
youngest daughter " above all his comforts," was tried
at th Old Bailey, convicted, pilloried, imprisoned, and
ruined in his fortune, which then- was not small, because
in his " Shortest way with Dissenters," he denounced the
Bill against Occasional Conti rmity. So stupid was the
public, the work which was ironical was taken for seri-
ous, and after a little the writer was assailed by one
universal clamour, " Sluggish, timid, cowardly Dissen-
ters were struck with fear ; rabid Churchmen shouted
approval, a Cambridge fellow wrote to thank his book-
seller for having sent him so excellent a treatise, it
being next to the Holy Bible and the Sacred Comments,
the most valuable he had ever seen." But both parties
were " taken in," and loud and furious were the ex-
ecrations of the Church and the Court against
the author. De Foe found it necessary to seek a
hiding-place in the storm; a reward of fifty pounds
was off.red for his apprehension, and a proclamation ap-
peared in the London Gazate thus describing his person :
—" A middle-sized spare man, about forty years old, of
a brown complexion and dark brown coloured hair, but
wears a wig ; a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes,
and a large mole m ar his mouth, owner of the brick and
pantiles works, near Tilbury Fort, in Essex." He was
not, however, betrayed, for with his usual honesty and
manly spirit when he heard that the printer and pub-
lisher were thrown into prison he surrendered himself.
He was condemned, as we have said, and ordered to
stand three times in the pillory. Here is the account of

the scene :
" On the 29th of July, 1703, there appealed, in twenty-four
quarto pages,' 'A Hymn tolhe Pillory, by Daniel De Foe;'
and on that day, we are informed by the London Gazette,
Daniel De Foe stood in the pillory before the Royal Ex-
change in Cornhill; on the day following, near the conduit
in Cheapside ; and on the 31st, at Temple-bar. A large
crowd had assembled to provide themselves sport; but the
pillory they most enjoyed was not of the Government's
erecting. Unexpectedly they saw the Law pilloried, and the
Ministers of State; the dullness which could not compre-
hend, and the malice which on that account would punish, a
popular champion. They veered quickly round. Other mis-
siles than were wont to greet a pillory reached De Foe; and
shouts of a different temper. His health was drunk with ac-
clamations as he stood there; and nothing harder than a
flower was flung at him. ' The people were expected to treat
me very ill,' he said; but it was not so. On the contrary,
they were with me; wished those who had set me there
were placed in my room; and expressed their affections hy
loud shouts and acclamations when I was taken down.' We
are told that garlands covered the platform where he stood ;
and that he saw the 'Hymn' passed fibm hand to hand,
and heard What it calmly said less calmly repeated—
' Tell them the men that placed him here
Are scandals to thetimes;
Are at a loss to find his guilt,
And can't commit his crimes.' "
He still continued to be the sport of fortune. He was
exalted to places of trust and emolument in the State, ad-
mitted to Court and kissed the Queen's hand ; became
again rich and then poor; was struck with apoplexy in
the year of the rebellion of 1715, but survived the attack
for sixteen years, and finally closed his varied life at his
country residence in Newington. The following graphic
and affecting details of his latter days conclude this able
biographical sketch :
" While his gigantic labours were in progress, De Foe
seems to have lived almost wholly at his favourite Newing-
ton. His writings bad been profitable. He got little for
Robb:son Crusoe,' but was paid largely for its successors.
We have occasional glimpses of him still engaged in mercan-
tile speculation; purchasing and assigning leases; disposing
of South Sea stock; and otherwise attending to worldly
affairs. But we do not see him steadily till 1724. A gen-
tleman named Baker, afterwards known as a somewha4
celebrated philosophical inquirer, had then occasion to go to
Newington, where he fell in love with a pretty girl, the
youngest of three daughters who lived in a large and hand-
some house in Church-street, which their father had newly
built, The father was an old gentleman of sixty-four years,
afflicted with gout and stone, but very cheerful, stilt very
active, with mental faculties in sharp abundance, keeping a
handsome coach, paying away much money in acts of cha-
rity-, and greatly given to the cultivation of a large and
pleasant garden. This was Daniel De Foe. We know no-
thing more with certainty till six years later; when, from
one of the most affecting letters which the English language
contains, we learn that the conduct of De Foe's second Son
was embittering the closing days of his long and checkered
life, lie had violated some large trust reposed in him by
his father, and had reduced his mother and sisters to beg-
gary. De Foe writes from a place near Greenwich, where
he seems to have been some time wandering about alone, in
want, and with a broken heart, The letter is to his son-in-
law Baker; possessor of hie ' best gift,' his dear daughter;
and closes thus;—' I would say, I hope with comfort, that
it is yet well I am so near my journey's end, and am hasten-
ing to the place where the weary are at rest, and where the
wicked cease to trouble; be it that the passage is rough, and
the day St,orrny. By what way soever He please to bring
me to the end of it, I desire to finish life with this temper of
soul in all cases,-,re .pcutn laudamus. Kiss my dear Sophy
once more for me, MA if I must see her no more, tell her
this is from a father tlfat toyed her above all his comforts, to
his last breath.'
" The money was .recovered, and the family again pros-
perous; but Daniel De Foe was gone. In his seventy-first
year, on the 24th of April 1731, he had somehow found his
way back to London—to die in that parish of St. Giles,
Cripplegate, wherein he was born ; and, as long as the fa-
mous old city should live, to live in the memory and admira-
tion of her citizens."
There are other articles in the number that require
notice, but this will suffice for the present.

THE SUN, LONDON. SATURDAY EVENING, OCTOBER ll, 1845.

THE REVENUE FOR. THE YEAR AND QUARTER ENDING OCTOBER 10, 1845.

No. 1.---An Abstract of the N,t Produce of the Revenue of Great Britain in the Years and Quarters ended 10th of OcLob2r, 1844, arid 10th of October, 1845, showing the Increase

or Decrease on each head thereof.

RELATIVE CLOSING PRICES OF
RAILWAY SHARES

IN TI3
PRINCIPAL CITIES ANP TOWNS IN ENGLAND
SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND.