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port we look, and ask-Is there room for us? Can our voice be heard amid the many clamouring sounds that issue from the press? Or are our wishes and our objects larger than our power, and are we about to add to the many attempts which have been made to float on the breath of public opinion, and then to drop into that paradise of oblivion, where the weak, and the worthless, and the unfortunate, are all glad to mingle in forgotten confusion?

To these questions we boldly answer Yes! and No! The

public have the right to reply: but, in that spirit of faith which earnestness imparts, we will anticipate their privilege, and prognosticate success. For we do not come as supplanters or competitors; we do not seek to reap that which other men have sown ; but we come to occupy a field which seems to us uninclosed, or, on the fairest principles of political economy, to supply a want-to meet a demand. There is, therefore, room for us, and we feel confident that our voice

will be heard.

We are very anxious to obtain favour and acceptance with one portion of the community-OUR YOUNG MEN. These constitute the hope of the present age, and the strength of the future. After deducting the fops, and the fools, and the witlings, we believe that there is now a very large body of thoughtful, intelligent young men of MEN in all the fulness of the word—whose seriousness is the result of an intelligent and joyous cheerfulness, not of an austere and ignorant gloom-and who, while they enter with zest into the amusements of life, are not forgetful of the nobler and better part of their being, their rational nature. To this body we appeal, and ask for its support.

Our elder readers must not begrudge our latitude in affording amusement as well as instruction. They must remember, that they themselves were once young, and life to them was sparkling in the dew of the morning. God has given us the sunshine and the shower-we should laugh with those that laugh, as well as weep with those that weep. This wondrous

world is full of the materials of enjoyment-our very appetites were given to us as blessings, God writing upon their use, "Do thyself no harm." Therefore we must have room to range "from grave to gay, from lively to severe;" and in seeking the moral improvement of our fellow-men, and making general literature subservient to it, we must not forget that there are many more ways of accomplishing the object than exclusively by the formal lecture or the serious advice; or even by scientific disquisition and detail.

Shall we find entrance into the domestic circle? This, too, is our "heart's desire." Give us room, then, around the fire-side, for we long to be neighbourly and social. We wish to talk to our friends of domestic duties and domestic life; to show how spirit, and feeling, and manner, tinge with beauty and grace the commonest of our associations and occupations, and how intimately the true happiness of a nation is interwoven with the happiness of households and individuals. We seek a seat by the fire-side as an honour and a privilege; the hearths of Old England are her hallowed places, where nothing profane should come-they are sacred to affection and love: and merry voices ring around them. And now, kind reader, what seek we more? We seek for support, for without support we could not live; we seek for reward, for "reward sweetens labour." Of both we are assured; and, receiving them, we shall steadily pursue the path we have marked out. But over and above this expectation of support and reward there is a desire to have a share in the improvement of our fellow-men; and if, through the medium of our periodical, we succeed in rousing a dormant understanding, implant a good thought, or rightly direct a feeling, we shall derive a portion of that gratification which a good man may enjoy, when, at the close of existence, looking on all the way that he has come, and mourning over the manifold deficiencies that have marked his course, he can yet raise his eyes to Heaven, and thank God that he has not been permitted to live altogether in vain.

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

THE

No. I.

PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM SMITH, 113, FLEET STREET.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1839.

CREDIT AND DEBT.

[PRICE TWOPENCE.

Imprisonment, for debt! when did it originate, and why? That labour is capital, has been perceived since labour has been in use upon the earth; and men have understood in all ages, that he who, while he had neither land, nor corn, nor cattle, had still bones and sinews to perform service, is a capitalist, and can enter the market of exchange. But the distinction which separates between a man's services and the body by which those services are performed, required a great advance in society before it could be rightly understood, and acted upon.

CORYAT, in his "Crudities," tells us that he saw the following inscription, which some witty rogue had posted up :-" On ne loge céans à credit: car il est mort, les mauvais payeurs l'ont tué." "Here is no lodging upon credit: for credit is dead, bad payers have killed it." But Credit has a "charmed life;" all the bad payers in the world could not kill her; she may be wounded, smitten down, and trampled in the dust: but a little glimpse of sunshine is sufficient to revive her, and she that appeared to be dead will sit up and begin to speak. Like time, she may appear to be ever on the move ; like riches, she may take wings and fly away: but earth, after all, is her native home, and amongst men she delights to dwell. In truth, Credit is the daughter of Faith and sister of Hope. "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God;" and by credit we know that the world that now is has been upheld. Credit, or if you will, faith, between man and man, is the vital element in society, the binding influence, the key-labourer is clearly shown in the offer made by those inhabitants of

stone of the arch

"The rest that there are put

Are nothing till this come to bind and shut." Without credit, or faith, social existence would pine and die; and the more perfect the social organization, the more powerful will the influence of credit be.

The creditor who found that his debtor had nothing wherewith to repay him—not an ox nor an ass, nor a skin, nor a hoof, could yet clearly understand that his debtor's But to head and hands would furnish capital to repay the debt. secure the debtor's services it was deemed necessary to secure his person; the insolvent's body was regarded as the principal of the debt, and his services the annual interest. This incapacity of making a distinction between the person and the services of the

the old world of civilisation, the Egyptians, when they repaired to Joseph with their complaints, during the grievous seven years' famine. "We will not hide it from my lord," they said, "how that our money is spent; my lord also hath our herds of cattle: there is not aught left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our lands wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our lands? Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh." Joseph's father, Jacob, acquired his wealth and his wives by his labour, and though he was working for wages, and therefore a hired servant, was regarded by Laban as a kind of superior slave; Rachel and Leah both regarded themselves as exchanged, and considered the bargain as perfectly right and natural; "He hath sold us," said the wives to their husband, when they were debating about quitting their father; and this argument was given to second Jacob's resolution, and to convince him that as he had bought them, so he had a perfect right to carry them away. As people, therefore, in selling their services, considered that they were selling themselves, the transition was easy and consequent for a creditor, in lack of other capital wherewith to repay himself, to seize the person of the debtor, and repay himself out of his labour. The wives and children of debtors were also considered as property available for the payment of debts; and so early as the time of Job we find allusions to the fact, that creditors, in exercising their privilege, were often guilty of cruelty"plucking the fatherless from the breast, and taking a pledge from the poor."

How else can we account for those details which are now become an essential portion of a daily newspaper-dextrous swindlers, defrauded tradesmen ; one day, the son of a nobleman in his cabriolet, the other a "black prince" with his secretary, going their rounds, and stocking their apartments with plunder? The mere struggle for existence, the anxiety to "do business," are not sufficient to account for it. It is because credit is an all-important element of social life, the more important as social life becomes more fully developed, and because our moral progress is far behind our social, that police reports abound in those details, of which the plundered tradesmen may say, like the frogs in the fable, that while they furnish sport to others, they are death to them. Credit❘ is the steam by which society becomes locomotive; but it may also cause the machine to explode. With all the evidences around us, of fraud, deceit, trickery, and cunning, it is marvellous, and it is cheering too, to see so much faith placed by man in man. The poor man, indeed, who has come to London with an empty purse, willing to dig, but ashamed to beg, may complain that credit is nowhere to be found. But let him get over that difficult thing, a beginning: let him get possession of some decent house in the suburbs, and he will soon find that, instead of having to hunt after The right of the creditor to seize the person of his debtor, and credit, credit will come a hunting after him. He has scarcely got those of his wife and children, was recognised under the Jewish the key into his hands, before a card informs him, that in his im- polity; though here, as in the law of slavery, the right was mediate neighbourhood teas are to be found packed up in the same tempered with mercy. Once every seven years, debts contractea state in which they left China, and therefore he may save himself the by poor persons who were unable to pay, were ordered to be canunnecessary trouble of sending into the "city" for his supplies. The celled, and the year was significantly termed the "Lord's release." butterman makes his bow, and the green-grocer touches his hat, and We are not to suppose that this extended to all debts: for though the milk-woman, dropping her pails and a curtsey, hopes the lady the Jews were not a commercial people, yet even amid the quietof the house will patronise her and her "walk; nay, rival chim-ness of an agricultural life, a cancelling, once every seven years, ney-sweeps reciprocally caution you, and each bids you observe that "" my boys have my name and address on a brass-plate." In fact, throw around yourself a little air of respectability-just hang out those mute but intelligent signals, which seem to indicate that you are a man, and are disposed to "do as you would be done unto," and you will quickly perceive what an overflowing thing is the faith of tradesmen, and make the discovery that perhaps it is easier to get into debt than to keep out of it!

VOL I.

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of all debts contracted in the usual intercourse of social existence, would have unhinged society. The regulation was intended for the benefit of the poor, and doubtless, also, to check rapacious persons from inveigling debtors, as well as to teach a sentiment of commiseration and mercy.

After the Jews were settled in Palestine under a monarchy, we find that both the goods and the bodies of debtors were taken in execution." Be not thou one of them that strike hands," said

[Bradbury and Evans, Printers, Whitefriars.j

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the wise man, “or of those that are sureties for debts. If thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?" One of the many affecting stories with which the Bible abounds, records how the prophet Elisha performed a miracle to save a poor widow woman from the grasp of a creditor. "Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord; and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen." And on the return of the Jews from Babylon, some of the poorer sort complained to Nehemiah, "We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn because of the dearth-lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought into bondage already; neither is it in our power to redeem them."

All this time there was no imprisonment for debt; the thing would have been laughed at as an absurdity. But it was introduced amongst them by their conquerors, the Romans; and we find that the idea was familiar to them in the time of our Saviour, as in the parable in the 18th of Matthew, where both the sale of wife and children, and the casting into prison, are mentioned. The Roman law of debtor and creditor was very severe, though even in its primitive severity the idea of getting payment of the debt out of the labour or services of the insolvent was distinctly involved. "The cruelty of the twelve tables," says Gibbon, "against insolvent debtors still remains to be told; and I shall dare to prefer the literal sense of antiquity to the specious refinements of modern criticism. After the judicial proof or confession of the debt, thirty days of grace were allowed before a Roman was delivered into the power of his fellow citizen. In this private prison twelve ounces of rice were his daily food; he might be bound with a chain of fifteen pounds weight; and his misery was thrice exposed in the market-place, to solicit the compassion of his friends and countrymen. At the expiration of sixty days the debt was discharged by the loss of liberty or life: the insolvent debtor was either put to death, or sold in foreign slavery beyond the Tiber." In practical operation, the law allowed the creditor to confine the debtor in his own house, there to work out the debt: but as this led to gross abuses, private imprisonment was changed for that of public; and imprisonment for debt in public prisons was in operation in the Roman empire long before the Christian era.

In English law the legal acceptation of debt is, "A sum of money due by certain and express agreement: as, by a bond for a determinate sum, a bill or note, a special bargain, or a rent reserved on lease, where the quantity is fixed and specific, and does not depend upon any subsequent valuation to settle it. The nonpayment of any of these is an injury, for which the proper remedy is by action of debt, to compel the performance of the contract, and recover the specifical sum due."

debtor being confined, not as a punishment, but as a security that he will be forthcoming to give satisfaction for the wrong he has done.

One of the specific forms of action, provided at a very early period in the history of English law, for the redress of injuries, is technically termed assumpsit, from the past tense of the Latin word assumo, construed to signify "I undertake." As an instance :-The plaintiff having supplied the defendant with goods, the defendant is considered to have undertaken, super se assumpsit, to pay the plaintiff so much money. But out of the fear that debtors, on the first intimation of an action being commenced against them, would make their escape, or hide themselves, grew the monstrous abuse of arrest on mesne process. Mesne process is defined to be, all such process as intervenes between the beginning and end of a suit. It is an intermediate process-something occurring between the commencement and end of an action. The action being commenced, the defendant could, under mesne process, be immediately arrested. Mesne process, in English law, was therefore something similar to the Scotch meditatio fugathe Scotch creditor swearing that his debtor was in meditatione fuge, that is, thinking of running away, got a warrant for his arrest. As the law stood, a person might be arrested under mesne process who had not the slightest knowledge of his alleged creditor, and who had never directly or indirectly incurred legal or moral liability for the debt which some perjured profligate might have sworn to him. Anciently, a plaintiff was required to give security that he had not brought an action without cause, and was liable to amercement for raising a false accusation; but this became a mere form, those imaginary and immortal personages, John Doe and Richard Roe, being always returned as the standing pledges for this purpose. Thus the means provided by the law for remedying an injury might be turned with ease into the means of committing a gross injury. Add to this, all the exactions in the shape of fees and expenses-the extortions of spunging-houses, and the misery and profligacy of prisons, and a more ingeniously contrived system for defeating its own purpose can hardly be imagined; the English law of debtor and creditor has hitherto been a disgrace to the intelligence and humanity of Englishmen.

now,

Our practice hitherto has been the worst form of the Romanwe imprison the debtor, not to get the debt out of his services, but, in effect, to cut off the least chance of the debt being repaid, by suspending the debtor's power of labouring. We are speaking not of deliberate fraudulent debtors, or lazy scoundrels, or idling black guards, but of men having some honest purpose in view, whether they have been thoughtless, inconsiderate, or unfortunate. Compared with our practice of imprisonment for debt, the law which permitted the seizing of a debtor, with his wife and children, was wise and merciful: for the slaves must be fed while they worked; but in our free country the debtor might piue inactive in prison, and his family perish by inches at home. Oh! what a long catalogue of sorrow and suffering, what an amount of ruined character, broken hearts, and awful curses, are to be found in the records of English

Upon this simple notion of an injury has been built our costly and absurd system of imprisonment for debt. The person injured is supposed to go to the Court and complain of the injury; the Court, as representing the authority by which law and justice are main-imprisonment for debt! tained and administered, issues its writ, "a mandatory letter from the king (or queen) on parchment, sealed with the great seal, and directed to the sherift of the county wherein the injury is committed, or supposed so to be, requiring him to command the wrongdoer, or party accused, either to do justice to the complainant, or else appear in court, and answer the accusation against him." The great prerogative of an Englishman is personal liberty; but as the law assumes itself to be "the supreme arbiter of every man's life, liberty, and property,” the person accused of committing the injury must answer the demand of the law, why he has injured his neighbour; and hence the origin of holding persons to bail for debt (the word bail, as the reader is doubtless well aware, being derived from a French word, signifying to deliver up); the person bailed being supposed to be delivered into the care of his friends, who became answerable for his appearance at the proper time. Lack of bail conducts us at once to imprisonment; the

In early life, circumstances made us, for a time, well acquainted with the debtors' side of a provincial prison. The face of the youngster was familiar to turnkeys of outer and inner doors, and on presenting himself, in the visiting hours, he was freely admitted. By degrees the novelty and the sensation of fear and aversion wore away; the promiscuous groups, the rackets, skittles, dice, and cards, the wine, spirits, porter, pipes, and tobacco, all furnished matter for amusement; and long after the necessity for visiting the prison was over, it was visited still. Once, while enjoying a holiday with a school-fellow, and being near the prison, the thought sprang up to conduct him there. He was a quiet, timid, home-bred youth, had no other idea of a prison than as a dark and dismal place, the abode of wickedness and woe. He acquiesced in the proposal to visit the city jail with a hesitation which told how much he relied on his conductor for safety and protection. That conductor was artful enough to play on his timidity; and marking how he looked

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behind him as the heavy inner door was closed with a jar, he told him to keep quiet, otherwise he would be seized and put into a cell. This intelligence made his heart to throb, and his knees almost to knock together: yet, while a cold perspiration was breaking over him, he rallied a little, and staggered after his companion. But the visit was one of agony and horror; he shrank within himself, and scarcely saw or heard anything. In passing through one of the galleries, a voice called him by name; and the poor little fellow might have been knocked down with a straw. It came from one who had frequently been a visitor at his father's house. After recognition, and the youth had felt somewhat reassured, he put the question, "Why are you here?" "Because I owe your father a little money." My father!" exclaimed the boy, in a tone expressive of incredulity, surprise, and indignation. "My father owes money, and nobody dares to put him into jail!” Something of the nature of the English law of debtor and creditor was explained to him, and he also learned that he who had often eaten salt with his father, was now, because of some disarrangement of affairs, and a consequent quarrel, the inmate of a prison, was spending his days in useless indolence or fretful inactivity, had lost a fair chance of recovering his position in the world; and his family, losing self-respect, were frittering away whatever of comfort or happiness they once enjoyed. If ever a transformation passed suddenly over a human being, it passed at this moment over the mind and feelings of this timid yet manly boy. He entered the prison almost crouching with fear, he left it swelling with an indignant scorn; from that hour he became an enthusiast in the cause of the abolition of imprisonment for debt; his limited means were always ready to be given in aid of the relief of unfortunate debtors; and he has now lived to see an important step taken towards effecting an object, rendered dear to his heart by the memorable and ineffaceable scene of his early days.

Yes! imprisonment for debt is now at least half abolished. Here is one of the evidences of our social advancement-one of the proofs of our moral progress—one of those facts which make us thankful to sec reason, humanity, justice, common sense, selfinterest, triumphing over old prejudices, old customs, and old law. Under the law as it stood three months ago, anybody might be arrested, if any other person made an affidavit that he owed him twenty pounds. Now, nobody in England can be arrested for debt, until judgment is obtained in the cause. There is an exception in the case of a person about to abscond or leave the country; and if a creditor can satisfy a judge that such is the fact, the debtor may be apprehended, or, which is the same thing, required to find bail. Arrest, therefore, on what is called "mesne process," is wholly abolished, except in the instance mentioned; and all personal actions in the superior courts of law are to be commenced by writ of summons, which is something like a rational procedure. True, by this act far greater facilities are given to creditors to recover their debts out of the property of their debtors; lands, goods, and funds, can be touched that could not be touched before; and a fraudulent debtor nas fewer chances now of so arranging his property, as to have all the enjoyment of it to himself, leaving his creditor without the means of satisfying his claims. But with the present comparatively low tone of moral feeling on the subject of debt, there are strong reasons why great protection should be given to the creditor.

We cannot yet say that the occupation of the sheriff's officer is gone; far from it. Whitecross-street-Prison need not yet be shut up; the Fleet still opens its doors in Farringdon street; the King's Bench still looks dark, dingy, and towering in the Borough. But something has been done; we may express a hope that the statistical annals of England will not, in future, have to record the fact of seventeen thousand persons imprisoned in one year for debt, four-fifths being confined for sums under £80, and a large proportion for sums under £30. The law has done something for us; and we should do something for ourselves. We must acquire a more sacred notion of the word "debt." When we buy with out paying, we pledge our sacred word and honour; we induce

our creditor to exercise towards us relatively a portion of that faith which we exercise, when we look for seed-time and harvest, for sunshine and rain. Under the new law, we have a more powerful motive to recollect the moral of Miss Edgeworth's story, "Out of debt out of danger." De Foe conjures us-"Never think yourselves discharged in conscience, though you may be discharged in law. The obligation of an honest mind can never die. No title of honour, no recorded merit, no mark of distinction, can exceed that lasting appellation, an honest man.' He that lies buried under such an epitaph has more said of him than volumes of history can contain. The payment of debts after fair discharges is the clearest title to such a character that I know, and how any man can begin again and hope for a blessing from Heaven, or favour from man, without such a resolution, I know not."

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To crown all, a higher authority tells us, "Owe no man anything, but to love one another; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying-Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DANIEL DE FOE. TARDY justice has been done, of late years, to the memory of Daniel De Foe. But his extraordinary character is far from being generally appreciated or understood. We know him as the author of a few imperishable works; but the wonder is, that these works were written when he was an old man, and after he had been struck by apoplexy. He was about fifty-eight when he produced immortal Robinson Crusoe; and past sixty when he wrote the Journal of the Plague, the Memoirs of a Cavalier, Religious Courtship, &c. &c. Before the production of these works, he had written nearly two hundred separate publications, on almost every topic of human speculation: and one might have thought that after the storm and toil of his life, the old man had nothing else to do, but to "cover his feet," and die. But just as the lamp of life was beginning to burn dim, it blazed out with a brilliancy that threw his past exertions into the shade. De Foe stamped his name in English literature as he was stepping into the grave.

Cobbett has been compared to De Foe; and in some respects the comparison is good. There is the same untiring exertion, much of similar versatility, and much of the same unflinching boldness. But altogether, De Foe was immeasurably Cobbett's superior in moral and mental qualities. De Foe was far in advance of his time, Cobbett very little, and that only on a few narrow and confined topics. Cobbett was full of stubborn prejudices, and reduced everything to his own standard; while De Foe had a quick and vigorous mind, saw almost intuitively many of the broad and liberal views in trade, politics, and religion, which have now passed into truths, and endeavoured to enlighten his countrymen on topics on which Cobbett would have been incorrigible. As to moral consistency, the two men are not to be named in the same category. Cobbett was a clever man, a remarkable man, and when De Foe's advantages of education are deducted, and Cobbett's self-taught acquirements are recollected, the two men may appear to stand more nearly equal. But De Foe was, what Cobbett, with all his ability, was not-a man of genius.

Short notices of De Foe are to be found in the Biographia Britannica, and works of a similar description; and much valuable matter has been collected by Mr. Chalmers and Dr. Towers: a life prefixed to Cadell's edition of Robinson Crusoe, is also interesting. But a very full and complete "Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel De Foe," was published in 1830, in three volumes, 8vo, written by Walter Wilson, Esq., of the Inner Temple. From this valuable work a great portion of what follows is collected.

Little is known of the progenitors of De Foe. His grandfather, Daniel Foe, (the De being a prefix adopted by our author,) was a freeholder in Northamptonshire, and farmed his own estate of Elton,

in that county. His father, James Foe, it is presumed, was a younger son of the latter, and was sent to London, where he was apprenticed to a butcher, in which business he flourished in the parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, and afterwards retired with a competency. In this parish was De Foe born, in 1661. His parents were nonconformists, and under their guidance, and the ministrations of the Rev. Dr. Annesley, an esteemed presbyterian minister, who had been ejected from the living of Cripplegate, he was early initiated in those moral and religious principles which give such a lustre to his subsequent life and writings. While yet a boy, he manifested a cheerfulness, vivacity, and buoyancy of spirits, with such remarkable courage, as was soon displayed in that spirit of independence and unconquerable love of liberty, which he maintained throughout his long and singularly checkered life. In one of his reviews he remarks, of himself, "From a boxing English boy, I learnt this early piece of generosity, not to strike my enemy when he is down," a disposition he cherished in his literary contests. An anecdote, illustrative of the times of his youth, may be given: "During that part of the reign of King Charles II., when the nation was under strong apprehensions of a Roman Catholic government, and religious persons were the victims of persecution, it being expected that printed Bibles would become rare, or locked up in an unknown tongue, many honest people, struck with the alarm, employed themselves in copying the Bible into short-hand. To this task, young De Foe applied himself, and he tells us, "that he worked like a horse till he had written out the whole Pentateuch, when he was so tired, that he was willing to risk the rest.' The influences of pious example, and the blessing of a liberal, religious education, were developed in all his after circumstances. Brought up amongst dissenters, he embraced their views of religion and politics, he wrote and suffered in their cause; and a fuller and clearer view of their history and progress, is, perhaps, nowhere to be found than in his "Reviews," and others of his publications. At the age of fourteen, he was removed from school to the academy at Newington Green of the Rev. Charles Morton, noted in his day as "a polite and profound scholar." Shut out by law from the universities, this was one of the institutions which the dissenters had as substitutes. His progress here is not known, but it is to be gathered from his writings that "he had been master of five languages, that he had studied the mathematics, natural philosophy, logic, geography, and history." In this academy he went through a course of theology, and studied politics as a science. If his active habits prevented him from becoming a profound scholar, he acquired sufficient learning to become a formidable rival to the writers of that disputatious age. That he was intended for the ministry is certain; what made him change his course does not clearly appear. However, his genius following another bent, and his necessities compelling him, he entered on a succession of employments, the details of which illustrate the history of half a century.

At twenty-one De Foe commenced as author, and with all the ardour of youthful blood espoused the popular side in politics. His first recorded publication was an answer to Roger L'Estrange's "Guide to the Inferior Clergy," and was entitled "Speculum Crape-Gownorum; or a Looking-glass for the young Academies new foyl'd: with reflections on some of the late high-flown Sermons; to which is added, an Essay towards a Sermon of the newest fashion. By a Guide to the Inferior Clergy. London: printed for E. Rydal, 1682," 4to, pp. 34. The title he borrows from the crape gowns worn by the inferior clergy. In this, and in most of his controversial writings, he makes use of the most biting irony and satire; and by his unremitting attacks on the court and high-church party, he entailed upon himself a long-continued persecution.

Popery was the epidemic of the time, and the public mind was constantly disturbed with rumours of plots and conspiracies. It was dangerous to be in the streets, and many carried arms for their protection. De Foe gives a curious description of a weapon then in use, from which some idea may be formed of the character of the times. "I remember," says he, "in the time of the Popish plot, when murthering men in the dark was pretty much in fashion, and every honest man walked in the streets in danger of his life, a very pretty invention was found out, which soon put an end to the doctrine of assassination, and the practice too, and cleared our streets of the murthering villains of those days; this was a Protestant fail. Now, a Protestant flail is an excellent weapon-a pistol is a fool to it; it laughs at the sword or the cane; for you know there's no fence against a flail. For my part I have frequently walked with one about me, in the old Popish days; and though I never set up for a hero, yet when armed with this scourge

for a Papist, I remembered I feared nothing." De Foe laments the factions of the times, and the insecurity of life and property. "It would be melancholy," says he, "to fill this paper with a history of the dilapidations and invasions made upon one another here in a nation of Christians. No man would think, and foreigners are amazed when they hear, how a Protestant nation, not long before persecuted themselves, and by reason of that persecution rending themselves by force from the Roman church, and having established a reformation, should not, among the rest of their doings, have rooted out that canker of religion, persecution.” In 1685, De Foe engaged himself in business, some say as a hosier, but most likely as a hose-factor, an agent between the manufacturer and retailer, in Freeman's Court, Cornhill, to which he devoted part of his time during ten years. He was admitted a liveryman in 1688. But he was not successful in business; the times were too stormy for his active spirit to keep quiet at the counter; and he was drawn out into company, and spent too many of his hours in coffee-houses and taverns, engaging eagerly in the controversial subjects which then interested all classes. He set himself in determined opposition to one of the current opinions which was then embraced by great numbers of all parties, that kings derive their dignity and power immediately from Heaven, and are not accountable to men for their actions." It was for many years together," says De Foe, "and I am witness to it, that the pulpit sounded nothing but the duty of absolute submission, obedience without reserve, subjection to princes as God's vicegerent, accountable to none, to be withstood in nothing, and by no person. I have heard it publicly preached, that if the king_commanded my head, and sent his messengers to fetch it, I was bound to submit, and stand still while it was cut off."

The Revolution, and the accession of King William, commenced a new era in the life of De Foe. He annually commemorated the 4th of November, in token of our deliverance: "a day," says he, “famous on various accounts, and every one of them dear to Britons, who love their country, value the Protestant interest, or who have an aversion to tyranny and oppression." At this period of his life De Foe abstained from politics, and was engaged in commercial speculations with Spain and Portugal, but was unsuccessful, and failed in business. In 1695 he obtained the situation of accountant to the glass commissioners, which he lost in 1699, by the termination of the commission, on the tax being suppressed. De Foe designates William's reign as the "Projecting Age," which brought forth his "Essay on Projects," under the heads of politics, commerce, and benevolence. One of his projects was the plan of friendly societies, which, says he, "might be improved into methods that should prevent the general misery and poverty of mankind, and at once secure us against beggars, parish poor, alms-houses, and hospitals, by which not a creature so miserable or so poor but should claim subsistence as their due, and not ask of charity." Another project was an institution for the education of females. It was an easy transition from politics to the reformation of manners, to which he devoted his attention. He published "The Poor Man's Plea, in relation to all the Proclamations, Declarations, Acts of Parliament, &c., which have been or shall be made, or published, for a reformation of manners, and suppressing immorality in the nation." Reformation societies were established, and in reference to the subject he says, " England, bad as she is, is yet a reforming nation, and the work has made more progress from the court even to the street, than, I believe, any nation in the world can parallel in such a time, and in such circumstances."

In 1701 he produced the "True-born Englishman," a satirical poem, which went through many editions. It opens with some lines which have passed into a proverb:

"Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The devil always builds a chapel there; And 'twill be found upon examination The latter has the largest congregation." The "True-born Englishman" was caused by an attack upon King William, in which his faults were summed up in the epithet of foreigner," which then had a very opprobrious kind of sound and meaning. This was the cause of his personal introduction to King William, and the favour he enjoyed. It was about this time also that he drew up the celebrated LEGION paper, on the occasion of five Kentish gentlemen being committed for presenting a petition to the House of Commons. Also, "Reasons against a War with France," which has been characterised as one of the finest political tracts in the English language.

By the death of King William, De Foe lost a true and powerful friend, and his gratitude was only equal to his admiration of his

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