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Brunswick in the south. There are several well-marked varieties differing greatly in size, and in the form of the antlers the largest forms occurring furthest north; while by many writers the American reindeer, which has never been domesticated, is regarded as a distinct species. The antlers, which are long and branching, and considerably palmated, are present in both sexes, although in the female they are more slender and less branched than in the males. In the latter they appear at a much earlier age than in any other species of deer, and Darwin conjectures that in this circumstance a key to their exceptional appearance in the female may be found. The reindeer has long been domesticated in Scandinavia, and is of indispensable importance to the Lapland race, to whom it serves at once as a substitute for the horse, cow, sheep, and goat. As a beast of burden it is capable of drawing a weight of 300 lb, while its fleetness and endurance are still more remarkable. Harnessed to a sledge it will travel without difficulty 100 miles a day over the frozen snow, its broad and deeply cleft hoofs being admirably adapted for travelling over such a surface. During summer the Lapland reindeer feeds chiefly on the young shoots of the willow and birch; and as at this season migration to the coast seems necessary to the well-being of the species, the Laplander, with his family and herds, sojourns for several months in the neighbourhood of the sea. In winter its food consists chiefly of the reindeer moss and other lichens, which it makes use of its hoofs in seeking for beneath the snow. The wild reindeer grows to a much greater size than the tame breed, but in Northern Europe the former are being gradually reduced through the natives entrapping and domesticating them. The tame breed found in Northern Asia is much larger than the Lapland form, and is there used to ride on. There are two distinct varieties of the American reindeer-the Barren Ground Caribou, and the Woodland Caribou. The former, which is the larger and more widely distributed of the two, frequents in summer the shores of the Arctic Sea, retiring to the woods in autumn to feed on the tree and other lichens. The latter occupies a very limited tract of woodland country,, and, unlike the Barren Ground form, migrates southward in spring. The American reindeers travel in great herds, and being both unsuspicious and curious they fall ready victims to the bow and arrow or the cunning snare of the Indian, to whom their carcases form the chief source of food, clothing, tents, and tools. Remains of the reindeer are found in caves and other PostPliocene deposits as far south as the south of France, this boreal species having been enabled to spread over Southern Europe, owing to the access of cold during the glacial period. It appears to have continued to exist in Scotland down even to the 12th century.

The Muntjac (Cervulus vaginalis) has its two pronged horns placed on permanent bony pedestals 3 inches in length, and the male is further furnished with long canines in the upper jaw. It is a native of Java, where it may occasionally be seen' in the inclosures of Europeans, but, according to Dr Horsfield, it is impatient of confinement, and not fit for the same degree of domestication as the stag. Its flesh forms excellent venison. There are four species of muntjacs inhabiting the forest districts from India to China, and southward to Java and the Philippine Islands.

The Musk Deer (Moschus moschiferus) differs from the true deer in the absence of horns, and in the presence of the musk-bag, and is now usually regarded as the type of a distinct family-Moschide. The young, however, are spotted as in the Cervidae, and it is doubtful whether the differences already mentioned are sufficient to warrant its separation from the other deer. Canine teeth are present in the upper and lower jaws of both sexes, those in the

upper jaw of the male being longest. It is a native of the highlands of Central Asia from the Himalayas to Peking, being found at an elevation of 8000 feet, and in its habit resembling such mountain species as the chamois. It is exceedingly shy and difficult of approach, and is hunted solely for its musk-an unctuous brown secretion, possessing a most penetrating and enduring odour, extremely disagreeable when present in large quantities, but forming a pleasant perfume when used sparingly. The substance is contained in a bag, almost the size of a hen's egg, situated on the abdomen, and secreted in greatest quantity during the rutting season. The hunters cut off the bag, and close the opening, and after drying, it is ready for sale. Fossil Deer.-Remains of many extinct species of deer belonging to existing genera have been found in PostPliocene and other recent deposits; while the remains of extinct genera occur in both hemispheres, but do not extend further back than the Upper Miocene. The deer family, so far as yet discovered, is thus of comparatively recent origin, and is probably, as Mr Wallace suggests, an Old World group, which during the Miocene period passed to North America and subsequently to the southern continent. The best preserved species of fossil deer is the gigantic Irish Elk (Cervus megaceros). It is not a true elk, but is intermediate between the fallow deer and reindeer, and is found in great abundance and perfection in the lake deposits of Ireland. It occurs also in the Isle of Man, in Scotland, and in some of the English caverns. The antlers of a specimen of this species in Dublin weigh about 80 ib, and their span is twice that of the living elk. It appears to have been contemporaneous with the extinct mammoth and rhinoceros, but it is still doubtful whether it co-existed with man. In Kent's Hole, near Torquay, the base of an antler, partly gnawed, was found; and this, according to Owen, probably belonged to the most gigantic of our English cervine animals. (J. GI.)

DEFAMATION, saying or writing something of another, calculated to injure Lis reputation or expose him to public hatred, contempt, and ridicule. See LIBEL and SLANDER.

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH (Fidei Defensor), a peculiar title belonging to the sovereign of England, in the same way that Catholicus belongs to the king of Spain, and Christianissimus to the king of France. Although certain charters have been appealed to in proof of an earlier use of the title, it appears to have been first conferred by Leo. X. on Henry VIII. in 1521 for writing against Luther. It was afterwards confirmed by Clement VII. When Henry suppressed the religious houses at the time of the Reformation, the Pope not only deprived him of this designation, but also deposed him; in the thirty-fifth year of his reign, however, the title of "Defender of the Faith " was confirmed by Parliament, and has continued to be used by all his successors on the English throne.

DEFFAND, MARIA DE VICHY-CHAMROND, MARQUISE DU (1697-1780), a celebrated leader in the fashionable literary society of Paris during the greater part of the 18th century, was born in Burgundy of a noble family in 1697. Educated at a convent in Paris, she there displayed, along with great intelligence, the sceptical and cynical turn of mind which so well suited the part she was afterwards to fill in the philosophical circles of Paris. Her parents, alarmed at the freedom of her views, arranged that Massillon should visit and reason with her, but this seems to have had little effect. They married her at twenty-one years of age to the Marquis du Deffand without consulting her inclination. The union proved an unhappy one, and resulted in a speedy separation. Madame du Deffand, young and beautiful, did not, according to the common belief, succeed in keeping herself uncontaminated by the abounding vice of the age, and it is said that she was for

a time the mistress of the regent. She was afterwards reconciled to her husband, but it proved impossible for them to live together, and a second and final separation took place. Without heart and without. enthusiasm, Madame du Deffand was incapable of any strong attachment, but her intelligence, her cynicism, and her esprit made her the centre of attraction to a circle which included nearly all the famous philosophers and literary men in Paris, besides not a few distinguished visitors from abroad. In 1752 she became blind, and soon afterwards she took up her abode in apartments in the convent of St Joseph in the Rue St Dominique, which had a separate entrance from the street. This became the frequent resort of such men as Choiseul, Bouflers, Montesquieu, Voltaire, D'Alembert, David Hume, and Horace Walpole. In 1764 the society was split into two parties by the defection of her companion Mademoiselle de L'Espinasse, who took with her D'Alembert and several others. Madame du Deffand had most affinity of nature with Horace Walpole, who paid several visits to Paris expressly for the purpose of enjoying her society, and who maintained a close and most interesting correspondence with her for fifteen years. She died on the 24th September 1780. Of her innumerable witty sayings probably the best, and certainly the best known, is her remark on the Cardinal de Polignac's account of St Denis's miraculous walk of two miles with his head in his hands,-" Il n'y a que lo premier pas qui coûte."

The correspondence of Madame du Deffand with D'Alembert, Henault, Montesquicu, and others was published at Paris in 1809. Her letters to Horace Walpole, edited, with a biographical sketch, by Miss Berry, were published at London from the originals in Strawberry Hill in 1810.

DEFOE, DANIEL (1661-1731), was born in London in the year 1661, in the parish of St Giles, Cripplegate. Neither the exact date nor place of his birth is known, nor is his baptisin recorded, probably because he was of a nonconformist family. Hardly anything is known of his ancestors; his grandfather, Daniel Foe, is said to have been a squire or wealthy yeoman at Elton, in Huntingdonshire (not Northamptonshire, as more generally stated), and to have kept a pack of hounds; but the authority for the former statement seems to be mainly traditional, and for the latter we have merely an anecdote in one of Defoe's Lewspaper articles, which is at least as likely to have been fiction as fact. Attempts have been made, but merely fancifully, to trace the name to Vaux, Fawkes, or even Devereux. As to the variation Defoe or Foe it is to be noticed that its owner signed either indifferently till a late period of his life, and that his initials where they occur are sometimes D. F. and sometimes D. D. F. Mr Lee's conjecture, that the later form originated in his being called Mr D. Foe to distinguish him from his father, seems not unlikely. It may be added that three autograph letters of his are extant, all addressed in 1705 to the same person, and signed respectively D. Foe, de Foe, and Daniel Defoe.

James Foe, the father of the author of Robinson Crusoe, was a butcher and a citizen of London. Of his mother nothing is known. Daniel was chiefly educated at a famous dissenting academy, Mr Morton's of Stoke Newington, where many of the celebrated nonconformists of the time were brought up. It is noteworthy that one of his schoolfellows suggested the unusual name of Crusoe. In after life Defoe frequently asserted the sufficiency of his education and the excellence of the methods observed by his teacher. Judging from his writings his stock of general information must have been far larger than that of most regularly educated men of his day; but it is probable that his attainments were in no particular line very exquisite or profound. With very few exceptions all the known events of Defoe's life are connected with authorship. In the older catalogues of his works two pamphlets, Speculum

Crapegounorum (a satire on the clergy) and A Treatise against the Turks, are attributed to him before the accession of James II., but there seems to be no publication of his which is certainly genuine before The Character of Dr Annesley, the family minister, published in 1697. He had, however, before this (if we may trust tradition) played an active part in public affairs. He had taken up arms in Monmouth's expedition, and is supposed to have owed his lucky escape from the clutches of the king's troops and the law, into which not a few of his school-fellows fell, to the fact of his being a Londoner, and therefore a stranger in the west country. On January 26, 1688, he was admitted a livery man of the city of London, having claimed his freedom by birth. Since his western escapade he had taken to the business of wholesale hosiery. At the entry of William and Mary into London he is said to have served as a volunteer trooper "gallantly mounted and richly accoutred." In these days he lived at Tooting, and was instrumental in forming a dissenting congregation at that place. His business operations at this period appear to have been extensive and varions. He would seem both now and later to have been a sort of commission merchant, especially in Spanish and Portuguese goods, and at some time or other he visited Spam on business. Later we hear him spoken of as "a civet-cat merchant." but as he cau hardly have kept a menagerie of these animals it is odd that no one has supposed that the civet-cat was the sign of his place of business (it was a very usual one) rather than the staple of his trade. In 1692 his mercantile operations came to a disastrous. close, and he failed for £17,000. By his own account the disaster would seem to have arisen from relying too much on credit. His misfortunes made him write both feelingly and forcibly on the bankruptcy laws; and although his creditors accepted a composi tion, he afterwards honourably paid them in full, a fact attested by independent and not very friendly witnesses. Subsequently, he undertook first the secretaryship and then the managership and chief ownership of some tileworks at Tilbury, but here also he was unfortunate, and hus imprisonment (of which more hereafter) in 1703 brought the works to a stand-still, and thereby lost him £3000 From this time forward we hear of no settled business in which he engaged. He evidently, however, continued to undertake commissions, and made his politicul visits to Scotland an occasion for opening connections of this kind with that country. In the last thirty years of his life business played but a subordinate part, though he seems to have derived more profit from it than from his earlier ventures. It was probably at the time of his troubles in 1692 that he had occasion to visit Bristol, where-according to a local traditioh-he lay perdu for fear of bailiffs all the week, but emerged in gorgeous raiment on Sunday, whence he was known by the nickname of "the Sunday gentleman."

It was not as a business man that Defoe was to make his mark, though his business experiences coloured to some extent the literary productions to which he owes his fame. The course of his life was determined about the middle of the reign of William III. by his introduction (we know not how) to William himself and to other influential persons. He frequently boasts of his personal intimaey with the "glorious and immortal" king (epithets, by the way, to the invention of which he has considerable claim), and in 1695 he was appointed accountant to the commissioners of the glass duty, which office he held for four years. During this time he produced (January 1698) his Essay on Projects, one of the first and not the least noteworthy of his works. This essay contains suggestions on banks, road-management, friendly and insurance societies of various kinds, idiot asylums, bankruptcy, academies (in the French sense),

military colleges, high schools for women, &c. It displays Defoe's lively and lucid style in full vigour, and abounds with ingenious thoughts and apt illustrations, though it illustrates also the unsystematic character of his mind. In the same year Defoe wrote the first of a long series of pamphlets on the then burning question of occasional conformity. In this, for the first time, he showed the unlucky independence which, in so many other instances, united all parties against him. On the one hand he pointed out to the dissenters the scandalous inconsistency of their playing fast and loose with sacred things, and on the other he denounced the impropriety of requiring tests at all. In direct support of the Government he published, towards the close of the reign, a Defence of Standing Armies, against Trenchard, and a set of pamphlets on the Partition Treaty Thus in political matters he had the same fate as in ecclesiastical; for the Whigs were no more prepared than the Tories to support William through thick and thin. He also dealt with the questions of stock-jobbing and of electioneering corruption. But his most remarkable publication at this time-the publication, indeed, as the author of which he became famous-was The True-Born Englishman, a satire in rough but extremely vigorous verse on the national objection to William as a foreigner, and on the claim of purity of blood for a nation which Defoe chooses to represent as crossed and dashed with all the strains and races in Europe. He also took a prominent part in the proceedings which followed the famous Kentish petition, and was the author, and some say the presenter, of the equally famous Legion Memorial, which asserted in the strongest terms the supremacy of the electors over the elected, and of which even an irate House of Commons did | not dare to take any great notice. The theory of the indefeasible supremacy of the freeholders of England, whose delegates merely (according to this theory) the Commons were, was one of Defoe's favourite political tenets, and he returned to it in a most powerfully written tract entitled The Original Power of the Collective Body of the People of England examined and asserted. At the same time he was occupied in a controversy on the conformity question with the well-known John How (usually spelt Howe at present), and wrote several minor political tracts.

The death of William was a great misfortune to Defoe, and he soon felt the power of his adversaries. After publishing The Mock Mourners, intended to satirize and rebuke the outbreak of Jacobite joy at the king's death, he turned his attention once more to ecclesiastical subjects, and, in an evil hour for himself, wrote the famous Shortest Way with the Dissenters. The traditional criticism of this remarkable pamphlet is a most curious example of the way in which thoroughly inappropriate descriptions of books pass from mouth to mouth. Every commentator (with the single exception of Mr Chadwick) has dilated upon its "exquisite irony." Now, the fact of the matter is, that in The Shortest Way there is no irony at all, and, as Defoe's adversaries acutely remarked, irony would never have been pleaded had not the author got into trouble, when of course it suited him faire flèche de tout bois. The pampalet is simply an exposition in the plainest and most forcible terms of the extreme "high-flying" position, and every line of it might have been endorsed, and was endorsed, by consistent high-churchmen. The author's object clearly was by this naked presentation to awaken the dissenters to a sense of their danger, and to startle moderate churchmen by showing them to what end their favourite doctrines necessarily led. For neither of these purposes was irony necessary, and irony, we repeat, there is none. If any lingering doubt from the consensus of authority on the other side remain, let the student read The Shortest Way and then turn to Swift's Modest Proposal or

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his Reasons against Abolishing the Church of England. He will soon see the difference. Ironical or not, however, it was unlikely that the high-churchmen and their leader Nottingham (the Don Dismal of Swift) would let such a performance pass unnoticed. The author was soon discovered; and, as he absconded, an advertisement was issued offering a reward for his apprehension, and giving us the only personal description we possess of him, as 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 near his mouth." In this conjuncture Defoe had really no friends, for the dissenters were as much alarmed at his book as the high-flyers were irritated. He surrendered, and his defence appears to have been injudiciously conducted; at any rate he was fined 200 marks, and condemned to be pilloried three times, to be imprisoned indefinitely, and to find sureties for his good behaviour during seven years. His sojourn in the pillory, however, was rather a triumph than a punishment, for the populace took his side; and his Hymn to the Pillory, which he soon after published, is one of the best of his poetical works. Unluckily for him his condemnation had the indirect effect of destroying his business. He remained in prison until August 1704, and then owed his release to the intercession of Harley, who represented his case to the queen, and obtained for him not only liberty but pecuniary relief and employment, which, of one kind or another, lasted until the termination of Anne's reign. Defoe was uniformly grateful to the minister, and his language respecting him is in curious variance with that generally used. There can be little doubt that, independ ently of gratitude, Harley's moderation in a time of the extremest party-insanity was no little recommendation to Defoe. During his imprisonment the latter was by no means idle. A spurious edition of his works having been issued, he himself produced a collection of twenty-two treatises, to which some time afterwards he added a second group of eighteen more. He also wrote in prison many short pamphlets, chiefly controversial, published a curious work on the famous storm of November 26, 1703, and started perhaps the most remarkable of all his projects, The Review. This was a paper which was issued during the greater part of its life three times a week. It was entirely written by Defoe, and extends to eight complete volumes and some few score numbers of a second issue. He did not confine himself to news, but threw his writing into the form of something very like finished essays on questions of policy, trade, and domestic concerns; while he also introduced a so-called "Scandal Club," in which minor questions of manners and morals were treated in a way which undoubtedly suggested the Tatlers and Spectators which followed. It is probable that if the five points of bulk, rapidity of production, variety of matter, originality of design, and excellence of style are taken together, hardly any author can show a work of equal magnitude. It is unlucky that only one complete copy of the work is known to exist, and that is in a private library. After his release he went to Bury St Edmunds for change of air, though he did not interrupt either his Review or his occasional pamphlets. One of these, Giving Alms no Charity, and Employing the Poor a Grievance to the Nation, is for the time an extraordinarily far-sighted performance. It denounces on the one hand indiscriminate alms-giving, and on the other the folly of national work-shops, the institution of which on a parochial system had been proposed by Sir Humphrey Mackworth.

In 1705 appeared The Consolidator, or Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon, a political satire which is supposed to have given some hints for Gulliver; and at the end of the year Defoe performed a secret mission (the first of several of the kind) for Harley.

While on one of these in the west of England he was molested, though with no serious result, by the zealous country justices. In 1705 also appeared the famous Mrs Veal. As is well known, this admirablo fiction is said to have been composed for a bookseller, to help off an unsaleable translation of Drelincourt on Death. Mr Lee, however, has thrown some doubts on this story. Defoe's next considerable work was Jure Divino, a poetical argument in some 10,000 terribly bad verses; and soon afterwards (1706) he began to be largely employed in promoting the union with Scotland. Not only did he write pamphlets as usual on the project, and vigorously recommend it in The Review, but in October 1706 he was sent on a political mission to Scotland by Godolphin, to whom Harley had recommended him. He resided in Edinburgh for nearly sixteen months, and his services to the Government were rewarded by a regular salary. He seems to have devoted himself to commercial and literary as well as to political matters, and prepared at this time his elaborate History of the Union, which appeared in 1709. In this latter year occurred the famous Sacheverel sermon, and Defoe wrote several tracts on the occasion. In 1710 Harley returned to power, and Defoe was placed in a somewhat awkward position. To Harley himself he was bound by gratitude and by a substantial agreement in principle, but with the rest of the Tory ministry he had no sympathy. He seems, in fact, to have agreed with the foreign policy of the Tories and with the home policy of the Whigs, and naturally incurred the reproach of time-serving and the hearty abuse of both parties. At the end of 1710 he again visited Scotland. In the negotiations concerning the Peace of Utrecht, Defoe strongly supported the ministerial side, to the intense wrath of the Whigs, and this wrath was displayed in an attempted prosecution against some pamphlets of his on the all-important question of the succession, but the influence of Harley saved him. He continued, however, to take the side of the dissenters in the questions affecting religious liberty, which played such a prominent part towards the close of Anne's reign. He naturally shared Harley's downfall; and, though the loss of his salary might seem a poor reward for his constant support of the Hanoverian claim, it was little more than his ambiguous, not to say trimming, position must have led him to expect. He was violently attacked on all sides, and at last published in 1715 an apologia entitled An Appeal to Honour and Justice, in which he defends his political conduct, and which furnishes us with the main authority for the details of his life. With this publication his political work was formerly supposed to have ended; but in 1864 six letters were discovered in the Record Office from Defoe to a Government official, Mr Delafaye, which established the fact that in 1718 at least Defoe was doing not only political work, but political work of a somewhat equivocal kind— that he was, in fact, sub-editing the Jacobite Mist's Journal, under a secret agreement with the Government that he should tone down the sentiments and omit objectionable items. He seems to have performed the same not very honourable office in the case of two other journals-Dormer's Letter and the Mercurius Politicus; and, if we may trust Mr Lee, he wrote in these and other papers till n arly the end of his life.

However this may be, the interest of Defoe's life from this time forward is very far from political. He was now a man of fifty-five years of age; he had, up to this period, written nothing but what may be called occasional literature, and, except the History of the Union and Jure Divino, nothing of any great length. In 1715 appeared the first volume of The Family Instructor, which was subsequently continued, and which was very popular during the last century. Three years afterwards came forth the first

volume of Robinson Crusoe. The first edition of this ħaf published on the 25th of April 1719. It ran through four editions in as many months, and then in August appeared the second part Twelve months afterwards the third part, or Serious Reflections, appeared. This last part is now hardly ever reprinted. Its connection, indeed, with the two former is little more than nominal, Crusoe being simply made the mouth-piece of Defoe's sentiments on various points of morals and religion. Meanwhile the first two parts were reprinted as a feuilleton in Heathcote's Intelligencer, perhaps the earliest instance of the appearance of such a work in such a form. Crusoe was immediately popular, and various wild stories were set afloat of its having been written by Lord Oxford in the Tower, and of its being simply a piratical utilization of Alexander Selkirk's papers. It is sufficient to say that all such stories are not only intrinsically of the wildest improbability, but also possess not a tittle of evidence in their favour. A curious idea, recently revived by the late Mr H. Kingsley, is that the adventures of Robinson are allegorical and relate to Defoe's own life. This idea was certainly entertained to some extent at the time, and derives some colour of justification from words of Defoe's, but there seems to be no serious foundation for it. The book was almost immediately imitated; of such imitations Philip Quarll is the only one now known even by name. Contemporaneously with the later parts of Crusoe appeared The Dumb Philosopher, or Dickory Cronke. It is a short and rather dull book, of something the same type as the Serious Reflections. In 1720 came forth The Life and Adventures of Mr Duncan Campbell. This, unlike the two former, was not entirely a work of imagination, inasmuch as its hero, the fortune-teller, was a real person. There are amusing passages in the story, but it is too desultory to rank with Defoe's best. In the same prolific year appeared two wholly or partially fictitious histories, each of which might have made a reputation for any man. The first was the famous Memoirs of a Cavalier, which, as has been often repeated, Lord Chatham believed to be true history, and which Mr Lee believes to be the embodiment at least of authentic private memoirs. It is more probable, however, that Defoe, with his extensive acquaintance with recent English history, and his astonishing power of working up details, was fully equal to the task of its unassisted composition. As a model of historical work of a certain kind it is hardly surpassable, and many separate passages-accounts of battles and skir mishes-have never been equalled except by Mr Carlyle. Captain Singleton, the last work of the year, has been unjustly depreciated by most of the commentators. The record of the journey across Africa, with its surprising anticipations of recent discoveries (anticipations which were commented on by Dr Birdwood in a paper read before the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1863, and which are probably due to Defoe's intercourse with Portugal) yields in interest to no work of the kind known to us; and the semi-piratical Quaker who accompanies Singleton in his buccaneering expeditions is a character thoroughly deserving of life. It may be mentioned that there is also a Quaker who plays a very creditable part in Roxana, and that Defoe seems to have been well affected to the Friends. In estimating this wonderful productiveness on the part of a man sixty years old, it should be remembered that it was a habit of Defoe's to keep his works in manuscript sometimes for long periods.

In 1721 nothing of importance was produced, but in the next twelvemonth three capital works appeared. These were The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders, The Journal of the Plague Year, and The History of Colonel Jack. Moll Flanders (as a whole) may be placed next to Robinson Crusoe in order of merit, or bracketted for

exemplified in the Pride, Insolence, and Exorbitant Wages of our Women-Servants, Footmen, &c. This subject was a very favourite one with Defoe, and in the pamphlet he showed the immaturity of his political views by advocating legislative interference in these matters. Like all his work of this sort, however, it is extremely amusing reading. Towards the end of this same year The Complete English Tradesman, which may be supposed to sum up the experience of his business life, appeared. and its second volume followed two years afterwards. This book has been variously judged. It is generally and traditionally praised, but those who have read it will be more disposed to agree with Charles Lamb, who considers it "of a vile and debasing tendency," and thinks it "almost impossible to suppose the author in earnest." It is certainly clear to those who know it what our foreign critics mean by the reproach of "shop-keeping;" and the intolerable meanness advocated for the sake of the paltriest gains, the entire ignoring of any pursuit in life except money-getting, and the representation of the whole duty of man as consisting first in the attainment of a competent fortune, and next, when that fortune has been attained, in spending not more than half of it, are certainly repulsive enough. But there are no reasons for thinking the performance ironical or insincere, and it cannot be doubted that Defoe would have been honestly unable even to understand Lamb's indignation. In 1706 came forth The Political History of the Devil. This is a curious book, partly explanatory of Defoe's ideas on morality, and partly belonging to a series of demonological works which he wrote, and of which the chief others are A System of Magic, and An Essay on the History of Apparitions. In all these works his treatment is on the whole rational and sensible; but in The History of the Devil he is somewhat hampered by an insufficiently worked-out theory as to the nature and personal existence of his hero, and the manner in which he handles the subject is an odd and not altogether satisfactory mixture of irony and earnestness. There are many very amusing things in the book, but to speak of its "extraordinary brilliancy and wit" (as Mr H. Kingsley has done) is certainly inappropriate. The works which have just been mentioned, together with A Plan of English Commerce, containing very enlightened views on export trade, appeared in 1727-8 During the whole of the years from 1715 to 1728 Defoe had issued pamphlets and minor works far too numerous to mention. The only one of them perhaps which requires special notice is Religious Courtship (1722), a curious series of dialogues displaying Defoe's unaffected religiosity, and at the same time the rather meddling intrusiveness with which he applied his religious notions. This latter point was more flagrantly illustrated in one of his latest works, The Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed (1727). This, which was originally issued with a much more offen sive name, has been called "an excellent book with an improper title." It might more properly be called an illjudged work, with a title which gives fair warning of its contents. The Memoirs of Captain Carleton (1728) have been long attributed to Defoe. There is, however, a well-known anecdote of Johnson which makes this extremely unlikely; it is now known that an actual officer of the name did exist and serve; and the internal evidence is, we think, strongly against Defoe's authorship. These Memoirs have been also attributed to Swift, with greater probability as far as style is concerned. The Life of Mother Ross, reprinted in Bohn's edition of Defoe, has no claim whatever to be considered his.

that position with the somewhat similar Roxana. Both | Nobody's Business, or Private Abuses Public Grievances, are triumphs of novel-writing. Both have subjects of a rather more than questionable character, but both display the remarkable art with which Defoe handles such subjects. It is not true, as is sometimes said, that the difference of the two is the difference between gross and polished vice. The real difference is much more one of morals than of manners. Moll is by no means of the lowest class. Notwithstanding the greater degradation into which she falls, and her originally dependent position, she has been well educated, and has consorted with persons of gentle birth. She displays throughout much greater real rafinement of feeling than the more high-flying Roxana, and is at any rate flesh and blood, if the flesh be somewhat frail and the blood somewhat hot. Neither of the two heroines has any but the rudiments of a moral sense; but Roxana, both in her original transgression and in her subsequent conduct, is actuated merely by avarice and selfishness-vices which are peculiarly offensive in connection with her other failing, and which make her thoroughly repulsive. The art of both stories is great, and as regards the episode in Roxana of the daughter Susannah is consummate; but the transitions of the later plot are less natural than those in Moll Flanders. It is only fair to notice that while the latter, according to Defoe's more usual practice, is allowed to repent and end happily, Roxana is brought to complete misery; Defoe's morality, therefore, required more repulsiveness in one case than in the other. The Journal of the Plague Year, more usually called, from the title of the second edition, A History of the Plague, has perhaps lacked less of its due meed of admiration than any of its author's minor works. Here also the accuracy and apparent veracity of the details is so great that many persons have taken it for an authentic record, while others have contended for the existence of such a record as its basis. But it appears that here too the genius of Mrs Veal's creator must, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, be allowed sufficient for the task. The History of Colonel Jack is an unequal book. There is hardly in Robinson Crusoe a scene equal, and there is consequently not in English literature a scene superior, to that praised by Lamb, and extracted in Knight's Half Hours with the Best Authors,-the scene where the youthful pickpocket first exercises his trade, and then for a time loses his ill-gotten (though for his part he knows not the meaning of the word ill-gotten) gains. But great part of the book, and especially the latter portion, is dull; and in fact it may be generally remarked of Defoe that the conclusions of his tales are not equal to the beginning, perhaps from the restless indefatigability with which he undertook one work almost before finishing another. Roxana, or the Fortunate Mistress, already commented on, appeared in 1724; and in the same year came forth the first volume of A Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, which was completed in the two following years. Much of the information in this was derived from personal experience, for Defoe claims to have made many more tours and visits about England than those of which we have record; but the major part must necessarily have been dexterous compilation. In 1725 appeared A New Voyage round the World, apparently entirely due to the author's own fertile imagination and extensive reading. It is full of his peculiar verisimilitude, and has all the interest of Anson's or Dampier's voyages, together. with a charm of style superior even to that of the latter, and far beyond anything which the soi-disant chaplain of the "Centurion" could attain to. The journey by land across South America is of especial interest, and forms an admirable pendant to the African travels in Singleton. In the same year Defoe wrote a curious little pamphlet entitled Everybody's Business is

There is little to be said of Defoe's private life during this period. He must in some way or other have obtained a considerable income. In 1724 he had built himself a large

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