The sun., 1879-03-23
The Author of Robinson Cru.oe.

gent Christians.
The Author of Robinson Crusoe.
The latest addition to the series Of Eng
lsh men Of letters edited 10y John Morley is
Ddnjei DtJoe 10y WILLIAM MINTo tIIarpersl
Ofthose realistic narratives in which Dofoe mp
proved himself such consummate master
very little criticism is offered in tho present
memoir. 1t is true however. that tho author
Of MOL Flanders" Colonel Jack" Rox-
ana. and Robinson Crusoe " mado his strokes
for fame In the intervals Of most exhausting
vocation. During the whole Of his literary ca
reer he was the most industrious Of newspaper
writer's indeed. all things considered. he
must be deemed the vertable parent OF
English journalism. Moreover lie was a
man Of action before he was n man OF
letters. and even after he had made the pen his
main instrument Of livelihood hc often turned
aside to follow natural turn for affairs. He
was sixty years old when he wrote the most
admirable Of his fictitious biographies and.
like Ceryantes he had but to consult his own
experience for the most stirring incidents OF
his tale. Before he drew Robinson Crusoe he
had been by turns a rebel. a merchant Il manu-
facturer. writer OF popular satires in verse. q
bankrupt. lie had acted too as secretary to n
public commission. been employed in secret
service by five successive administrations. writ
ton pamphlets. edited newspapers. had trav-
elrea snrf@red ~ @ sEinYse,cct HT ,San ho ~ %'s hs
own heroes, meeting quickly succeeding DIM
eG!ties with equally ready and fertile ingenuity.
II Is these aspects OF the writer's life explaining
as they do the stamp and direction Of his lite
rary talent which the present biograIhcr has
specially etriven to make known.
Tho subject Of this memoir was by birth a
cockney and disscnter, and il IS noteworthy
in view Of his inbred radicalism which even
selfintcrcst could not always mask that he was
born in the year after the hopes OF English non
coniormists and republicans were blasted
for upward Of two centuries by the restoration
Of Charles II. 1t is n characteristics circum-
stance, marking the inherent stiffness and
spuriousness Of the man. that even his name is
not his own except in the sense that it was as
sumed by himself. His father was butcher
named Foe, who sent his son to a noncon-
formist school with the hope OF making him
dissenting minister The young man.
however. declined TO proceed to tho pull
pit opining, he tells us that It's
Office under tho congregational system was
neither honorable, agreeable. nor profitable.
II was sometimes degraded. 1t seems even in
that age. by tho entrance OF men that had
neither social nor intellectual qualification for
It, who had received out OF a denomna-
tional fund only such training rs made them
sciolists and charatans. rather than adopts in
high learning, and who had consequently to
employ degrading practices in order TO obtain
subsistence. But though he sneers more than
once at tho education Of his " fund bred " COM
panions, the methods followed by his homely.
dissenting teacher we're better fitted 10 mpart
thorough acquaintance with his native idiom
than was the system then prevailing nt the uni
yprsittas All dissertations for iustaupa ~
written. and all disputatons held in English;
ndhence it resulted Dcfoe says, that his fellow
pupils. though they were not destitute in tho
languages. were " made masters OF the Eng
lish tongue. and more of them eXcelled In
that particular than OF any school at that
time" To tho end OF his life, however,
Defoc bitterly resented the taunt frequently
lcvolled at him by university men Of being an
illitorate fellow and no scholar. Thus, in 1905.
AZ tho age of A, he angrily challenged John
Tutchin TO translate with him any Latin.
French. or Italian author. and after that 10 re-
translate them crosswisc. for twenty pounds
each book and he replied to swift, who had
spoken Of him scornfully as an iterate fell
low whose name forget" that he had been in
his time pretty we'll master Of hve languages
and mad not lost them yet though he wrote no
bill at his door. nor set Latin quotations on the
front Of his Rericr." OF course these rotorts
were well enough whom addressed to the small
Try OF authors hanging about tho TdHi1' and
Spectator, but It wohld have been as seemly for
CULVER to put on airs OF consequence in Brob-
dinag as for Defoe 10 nnme himself in the same
day with Swift, though it were only on the score
OF racy English,
Deioc began early to engage in political in
trigue, and before he was % took part In the
Duke Of Monmouth = rising, when the whips of
Charles were exchanged for tho scorpions Of
james But the butchers son was more sue
cessful than some OF his fellow pupils in escap-
Ing the keen hunt and savage reprisns insti-
tuted by Jeftreys and Kirke, and we find him
toward the close OF 1888 beginning business as
II hosier. Seven years later he has to neo from
his creditors but It deserves to be recorded ns
one OF the white spots in n life sufficiently
solled, that he aiterward paid of most Of his
lost no time In making his adhesion to the now
monarch conspicuous, being one OF n reg-
ment OF volunteer horse made up OF tho
chief cockncys who attended their Mai
estles from White Hall to banquet given by
the Lord Mayor Three years later he composed
satire in verse which was wrotched drvol in
decd, compared with the trenchant rhymes of
Dryden or Swift, but in which the author seems
to have discerned better title to Immortality
than in Robinson Crusoe." This anonymous
doggere however. wRs much less widely