love-making, on the gentleman's side at least, appears to have been gone about in a highly philosophical way; and from time to time the marriage was deferred, until the father had signed a bond to Mr. Baker for due payment of Sophia's dowry. The father was an old gentleman of sixty-four years, afflicted with gout and stone, but very cheerful, still very active, with mental faculties in sharp abundance, keeping a handsome coach, paying away much money in acts of charity, and greatly given to the cultivation of a large and pleasant garden. This was Daniel De Foe. Homely but hearty are the words in which a certain honest old Thomas Webb, after telling us what he had suffered by the death of his wife, goes on to tell us who it was that comforted and consoled him. "And 66 poor distressed I, left alone, and no one to go and speak to, save only Mr. Deffoe, who hath acted a noble and generous part towards me and my poor children. "The Lord reward him and his with the blessings of upper and nether spring, with the blessings of his "basket and store," &c. 66 Alas! the basket and store of De Foe were not much oftener to be replenished on this side the grave. Five years pass, and the next glimpse we get of him reveals a sad change. It is a letter to his printer, Mr. J. Watts, in Wild-court, and even in its signature the bold upright hand is broken down. He is grieved to have detained the proofs, but he has been exceeding ill. He has revised his manuscript again, and contracted it very much, and he hopes to bring it within the bulk the printer desires. He now sends him back the first sheet, with as much copy as will make near three sheets more; and he "for the name of his illustrious pre"decessor in it, to beg that they "might be permitted to spend a "little time in the dwelling-place of 'so eminent a man. Assent was "readily given; whereupon they "said that already they had ven"tured to anticipate that, by bringing 44 a pic-nic hamper in their carriage "and their satisfaction was complete "on permission being granted to "carry it into the garden, where the "explosion of cork, and other cor"responding symptoms, speedily gave "evidence of the sincerity with which "they had made this very matter-of"fact pilgrimage to the home of the "great novelist and patriot." shall have all the remainder, so as not to let him stand still at all. He greatly regrets the number of alterations made in the pages he returns, and fears the corrections will cost as much as perhaps setting the whole over again would be; but he will endeavour to send the rest of the copy so well corrected as to give very little trouble. -Whether or not he succeeded in that endeavour, cannot now be told; for there is no evidence that any more than that single sheet was ever printed.' It must be enough for us that such was his hope and his intention, and that even such, to the very last, according to this most characteristic letter, were the labours, the anxieties, and the ill-rewarded toil, which followed this great English author up to the very verge of the grave. There is but one more letter of his preserved. Its date is a year later; and from this letter, addressed to his sonin-law Baker, which is one of the most affecting that the English language contains, we learn that far beyond 1 The original manuscript nevertheless exists, and is in the possession of Mr. Dawson Turner of Great Yarmouth. Its title is The Complete Gentleman. 2 The eldest son of this marriage, David Erskine Baker, so named after his godfather Lord Buchan, wrote the Biographia Dramatica, or Companion to the Playhouse. What follows I transcribe from a note in the second edition of my Life of Goldsmith. "Pleading the case of au"thors, and their title to a longer "protection of their copyright, Mr. 66 Serjeant Talfourd employed this 66 'affecting illustration. 'A man of "genius and integrity, who has ""received all insult and injury ""from his contemporaries, obtains """nothing from posterity but a 666 name. Look at Daniel De Foe; "recollect him pilloried, bankrupt, "wearing away his life to pay his "creditors in full, and dying in the "struggle !-and his works live, "'imitated, corrupted, yet casting "off their stains, not by protection poverty, or printers, or booksellers, or any of the manifold ills of authorship, the conduct of De Foe's second son was embittering the closing hours of his long and checkered life. He had violated some large trust reposed in him by his father, and had reduced his mother and sisters to beggary. "Nothing but this has conquered or could every man in England who had been one, to give his penny at once to save the descendant he had left-"a "Crusoe without a Friday, in an "island to him a desert." I subjoin the close of this striking appeal. "Let our novelists, now the glory "of our literature, remember their "elder brother Daniel, and calculate "(if, indeed, the debt is calculable) "what they owe him. "Let our historians ask themselves "if no tribute is due, in long arrear, "to the representative of him who "wrote the History of the Plague in "London. What ought to live will "live, what ought to perish will perish. Marble is but a wretched prop at best. Defoe wants no "statue, and is far beyond all other "want. Alas! there is one behind "who is not so. Let all contribute "" one penny for one year; poor James "has lived seventy-seven, and his "dim eyes can not look far into "another. "Persuade, Sir, for you can more "powerfully than any, the rich, the "industrious, the studious, to pur"chase a large store of perdurable "happiness for themselves by the "smallest sum of a day's expendi"ture. The author of that book which has imparted to most of them "the greatest delight of any, was also "the earliest teacher of political 66 economy, the first propounder of "free trade. He planted that tree "which, stationary and stunted for "nearly two centuries, is now spread"ing its shadow by degrees over all "the earth. He was the most far"sighted of our statesmen, and the "most worthily trusted by the wisest "of our kings. He stood up for the "liberty of the press; let the press "be grateful. "It was in the power of Johnson "to relieve the grandaughter of "Milton: Sir, it is in yours to prop up the last scion of Defoe. If "Milton wrote the grandest poem, "and the most energetic and eloquent "prose, of any writer in any country; "if he stood erect before Tyranny, "and covered with his buckler, not "England only, but nascent nations; "if our great prophet raised in vision "the ladder that rose from earth to "heaven, with angels upon every "step of it; lower, indeed, but not "less useful, were the energies of "Defoe. He stimulated to enterprise "those colonies of England which "extend over every sea, and which "carry with them, from him, the "spirit and the language that will "predominate throughout the world. "Achilles and Homer will be for'gotten before Crusoe and Defoe." To this most striking letter succeeded one by Mr. Charles Knight, from whom the information as to James De Foe originally reached me, and who had already, with his characteristic zeal in every good work, opened in con junction with Mr. Dickens a sub. scription. Mr. Landor's letter brought immediate and large additions to it, and enough was obtained for the purpose desired. From the close of January 1854, to the middle of May 1857, nearly 2001 was paid, in small sums, to the worthy old man; whose needs were in this way better satisfied than if the money in any larger amount had been placed at his disposal. Much more might have been collected, but more was not wanted. James De Foe died on the 19th of May 1857. After 66 66 Et tu! Brute. I depended upon him, I conquer me. "trusted him, I gave up my two dear unprovided children "into his hands; but he has no compassion, and suffers "them and their poor dying mother to beg their bread "at his door, and to crave, as if it were an alms, what he "is bound under hand and seal, besides the most sacred promises, to supply them with; himself, at the same time, living in a profusion of plenty. It is too much "for me. Excuse my infirmity; I can say no more, my "heart is too full. I only ask one thing of you as a dying request. Stand by them when I am gone, and "let them not be wronged, while he is able to do them "right. Stand by them as a brother; and if you have any thing within you owing to my memory, who have "bestow'd on you the best gift I had to give, let them not "be injured and trampled on by false pretences, and "unnatural reflections. I hope they will want no help "but that of comfort and council; but that, they will "indeed want, being too easy to be managed by words and promises." Even thus 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, as we have said, is to his son-in-law, Baker; possessor of his "best gift," his dear daughter; and it closes thus: "I would say, I hope with comfort, that it "is yet well I am so near my journey's end, and am hastening 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 stormy. 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"Te Deum laudamus. May all you do be prosperous, and "all you meet with pleasant, and may you both escape "the tortures and troubles of uneasy life! It adds to 66 66 payment of all expenses incident to his illness and death, a very small balance was handed to his daughters; and an account of the monies collected and distributed was then circulated among the subscribers, in so far as it was possible to reach them, by Mr. Knight and myself. 66 my grief that I must never see the pledge of your "mutual love, my little grandson. Give him my blessing, "and may he be, to you both, your joy in youth, and your "comfort in age, and never add a sigh to your sorrow. "Kiss my dear Sophy once more for me; and, if I must see her no more, tell her this is from a father that loved "her above all his comforts, to his last breath." 66 The money was recovered, and the family again prosperous; but Daniel De Foe was gone. In his seventyfirst year, on the 24th of April 1731, he had somehow found his way back to LONDON-to die in that parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate,' wherein he was born; and, as long as the famous old city should live, to live in the memory and admiration of her citizens. |