* * * * *

Grandmama returned yesterday morning. My favor with her is better established. She will take supper with me Friday; and as the supper was arranged without foreseeing that she would be there, she will find a company which will not exactly suit her,—among others the Idol, and the Archbishop of Toulouse.

I shall have many things to tell you when I see you. It may be that they will hardly interest you, but it will be the world of my Strawberry Hill.

You agree with me about the letters, which pleases me. I believe myself a genius when I find myself in agreement with you. This Prince Geoffrin is excellent. Surely heaven is witness that I do not love you, but I am forced to find you very agreeable.

Are you waiting until your arrival here to give a jug to the Marechale de Luxembourg? I see no necessity of making a present to the Idol; incense, incense, that is all it wants!

I have a great desire that you should read a Memoir of La Chalottais; it is very rare, very much "prohibited," but I am intriguing to get it.

M. de Beauvan begs you to send me a febrifuge for him. It is from Dr. James, I think. There are two kinds; one is mild and the other violent. He requires a louis's worth of each.

You are mightily deceiving yourself if you think Voltaire author of the analysis of the romance of 'Heloise'. The author is a man from Bordeaux, a friend of M. de Secondat. Apropos of Voltaire, he has had the King of Prussia sounded to know if he would consent to give him asylum at Wesel in case he were obliged to leave his abode. This his Majesty has very willingly granted.

Good-by. I am counting upon being able in future to give you news of your court and your ministry. I have made a new acquaintance, who is a favorite of Lord Bute and the most intimate friend of Lord Holderness. I do not doubt that this lord is aiming at my Lord Rochefort's place, who they say scarcely troubles himself about the embassy.

Write me, I beg you, at least once a week.

Tell me if M. Crawford is in Scotland.

It is thought that the first news from Rome will inform us of the death of Chevalier Macdonald.



PORTRAIT OF HORACE WALPOLE

NOVEMBER, 1765.

No, no! I do not want to draw your likeness; nobody knows you less than I. Sometimes you seem to me what I wish you were, sometimes what I fear you may be, and perhaps never what you really are. I know very well that you have a great deal of wit of all kinds and all styles, and you must know it better than any one.

But your character should be painted, and of that I am not a good judge. It would require indifference, or impartiality at least. However, I can tell you that you are a very sincere man, that you have principles, that you are brave, that you pride yourself upon your firmness; that when you have come to a decision, good or bad, nothing induces you to change it, so that your firmness sometimes resembles obstinacy. Your heart is good and your friendship strong, but neither tender nor facile. Your fear of being weak makes you hard. You are on your guard against all sensibility. You cannot refuse to render valuable services to your friends; you sacrifice your own interest to them, but you refuse them the slightest of favors. Kind and humane to all about you, you do not give yourself the slightest trouble to please your friends in little ways.

Your disposition is very agreeable although not very even. All your ways are noble, easy, and natural. Your desire to please does not lead you into affectation. Your knowledge of the world and your experience have given you a great contempt for men, and taught you how to live with them. You know that all their assurances go for nothing. In exchange you give them politeness and consideration, and all those who do not care about being loved are content with you.

I do not know whether you have much feeling. If you have, you fight it as a weakness. You permit yourself only that which seems virtuous. You are a philosopher; you have no vanity, although you have a great deal of self-love. But your self-love does not blind you; it rather makes you exaggerate your faults than conceal them. You never extol yourself except when you are forced to do so by comparing yourself with other men. You possess discernment, very delicate tact, very correct taste; your tone is excellent.

You would have been the best possible companion in past centuries; you are in this, and you would be in those to come. Englishman as you are, your manners belong to all countries.

You have an unpardonable weakness to which you sacrifice your feelings and submit your conduct—the fear of ridicule. It makes you dependent upon the opinion of fools; and your friends are not safe from the impressions against them which fools choose to give you.

Your judgment is easily confused. You are aware of this weakness, which you control by the firmness with which you pursue your resolutions. Your opposition to any deviation is sometimes pushed too far, and exercised in matters not worth the trouble.

Your instincts are noble and generous. You do good for the pleasure of doing it, without ostentation, without claiming gratitude; in short, your spirit is beautiful and high.



DANIEL DEFOE

(1660?-1731)

BY CHARLES FREDERICK JOHNSON



Daniel Defoe, one of the most vigorous and voluminous writers of the last decade of the seventeenth and the first quarter of the eighteenth centuries, was born in St. Giles parish, Cripplegate, in 1660 or 1661, and died near London in 1731. His father was a butcher named Foe, and the evolution of the son's name through the various forms of D. Foe, De Foe, Defoe, to Daniel Defoe, the present accepted form, did not begin much before he reached the age of forty. He was educated at the "dissenting school" of a Mr. Martin in Newington Green, and was intended for the Presbyterian ministry. Although the training at this school was not inferior to that to be obtained at the universities,—and indeed superior in one respect, since all the exercises were in English,—the fact that he had never been "in residence" set Defoe a little apart from the literary society of the day. Swift, Pope, Addison, Arbuthnot, and the rest, considered him untrained and uncultured, and habitually spoke of him with the contempt which the regular feels for the volunteer. Swift referred to him as "an illiterate fellow whose name I forget," and Pope actually inserted his name in the 'Dunciad':—

"Earless on high stood unabashed De Foe."

This line is false in two ways, for Defoe's ears were not clipped, though he was condemned to stand in the pillory; and there can hardly be a greater incongruity conceived than there is between our idea of a dunce and the energetic, shifty, wide-awake Defoe,—though for that matter a scholar like Bentley and a wit like Colley Cibber are as much out of place in the poet's ill-natured catalogue. Defoe angrily resented the taunts of the university men and their professional assumption of superiority, and answered Swift that "he had been in his time master of five languages and had not lost them yet," and challenged John Tutchin to "translate with him any Latin, French, or Italian author, and then retranslate them crosswise, for twenty pounds each book."

Notwithstanding the great activity of Defoe's pen (over two hundred pamphlets and books, most of them of considerable length, are known to be his; and it is more than probable that much of his work was anonymous and has perished, or could be only partly disinterred by laborious conjecture) he found time to engage twice in business, once as a factor in hosiery and once as a maker of tiles. In each venture he seems to have been unfortunate, and his business experience is alluded to here only because his practical knowledge of mercantile matters is evident in all his work. Even his pirates like Captain Bob Singleton, and adventurers like Colonel Jack, have a decided commercial flavor. They keep a weather eye on the profit-and-loss account, and retire like thrifty traders on a well-earned competency. It is worth mentioning, however, to Defoe's credit, that in one or two instances at least he paid his debts in full, after compromising with his creditors.

Defoe's writings, though all marked by his strong but limited personality, fall naturally into three classes:—

First, his political writings, in which may be included his wretched attempts at political satire, and most of his journalistic work. This is included in numberless pamphlets, broad-sheets, newspapers, and the like, and is admirable expository matter on the public questions of the day. Second, his fiction, 'Robinson Crusoe,' 'Captain Singleton,' 'Colonel Jack,' 'Roxana,' and 'Moll Flanders.' Third, his miscellaneous work; innumerable biographies and papers like the 'History of the Plague,' the 'Account of the Great Storm,' 'The True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal,' etc. Between the last two classes there is a close connection, since both were written for the market; and his fictions proper are cast in the autobiographical form and are founded on incidents in the lives of real persons, and his biographies contain a large proportion of fiction.

Some knowledge of Defoe's political work is necessary to a comprehension of the early eighteenth century. During his life the power of the people and of the House of Commons was slowly extended, and the foundations of the modern English Constitution were laid. The trading and manufacturing classes, especially in the city of London, increased in wealth and political consequence. The reading public on which a popular writer could rely, widened. With these changes—partly as cause and purely as consequence—came the establishment of "News Journals" and "Reviews." Besides Addison's Spectator for the more cultured classes, multitudes of periodicals were founded which aimed to reach a more general public. The old method of a broad-sheet or the pamphlet, hawked in the streets or exposed for sale and cried at the book-stalls, was still in use, but the regular issue of a news-letter was taking its place. Defoe attacked the public in both ways with unwearied assiduity. His poem 'The True-Born Englishman' was sold in the streets to the astonishing number of eighty thousand. In 1704 he established the Review, a bi-weekly. It ran to 1713, and Defoe wrote nearly all of each number. Afterwards he was for eight years main contributor and substantially manager of Mist's Journal, a Tory organ; and one of the most serious and well-founded charges against this first great journalist is, that he was deficient in journalistic honor, and remained in the pay of the Whig Ministry while attached to the Opposition organ. During this period he founded and conducted several other journals.

Defoe possessed in a large measure the journalistic sense. No one ever had a finer instinct in the subtle arts of "working the public" and of advertising. When the notorious Jack Sheppard was condemned, he visited him at Newgate, wrote his life, and had the highwayman, standing under the gallows, send for a copy and deliver it as his "last speech and dying confession." There is a certain breadth and originality in this stroke, hardly to be paralleled in modern journalism. Defoe had the knack of singling out from the mass of passing events whatever would be likely to interest the public. He brought out an account in some newspaper, and if successful, made the occurrence the subject of a longer article in pamphlet or book form. He was always on the lookout for matter, which he utilized with a pen of marvelous rapidity. The gazette or embryonic newspaper was at first confined to a rehearsal of news. Defoe invented the leading article or "news-letter" of weekly comment, and the society column of Mercure Scandaleuse.

The list of Defoe's political pamphlets is a large one, but they are of more interest to the historian than to the general reader. While they are far inferior in construction and victorious good sense to Sydney Smith's magazine articles on kindred topics, and to Swift's 'Drapier's Letters' in subtle appeals to the prejudices of the ignorant, they show a remarkable command over the method of reaching the plain people,—to use President Lincoln's phrase, and taking it to mean that great body of quiet persons who desire on the whole to be fair in their judgments, but who must have their duty made quite evident before they see it. Defoe is never vituperative—that is, vituperative for a time when Pope and Swift and Dennis made their personal invective so much higher flavored than modern taste endures. He seems to have been tolerant by nature; and although this proceeds in his case from the fact that his moral enthusiasm was never very warm, and not from any innate refinement of nature, he is entitled to the credit of moderation in the use of abusive language. He is tolerant, too, of those who differ from him in politics and religion; and though it is absurd to suppose, as some of his biographers have done, that he was so far in advance of his century as to have advocated the political soundness of free trade, he shows in his treatment of commercial questions the marks of a broad and comprehensive mind. He speaks of foreigners in a cosmopolitan spirit, with the exception of the Portuguese, for whom he seems to feel a lively dislike, founded possibly on some of his early business experiences. The reader will remember the dignified and courteous demeanor of the Spaniards in 'Robinson Crusoe'; and although the violent antipathy of the previous generation to Spanish Romanists had abated, Defoe's freedom from insular prejudice is noteworthy, the more so that a "discreet and sober bearing," such as he gives his Spaniards, seems to have been his ideal of conduct. Defoe is a great journalist, and although he is a typical hack, writing timely articles for pay, he has a touch of genius. He was always successful in gaining the ear of his public; and in the one instance where he hit upon a subject of universal interest, the life of the solitary castaway thrown absolutely on his own resources, he wrote a book, without any effort or departure from his usual style, which has been as popular with succeeding generations as it was with his own. It is a mistake to call 'Robinson Crusoe' a "great boy's book,"—unless we regard the boy nature as persistent in all men, and perhaps it is in all healthy men,—for it treats the unaided conflict with nature and circumstance, which is the essence of adult life, with unequaled simplicity and force. Crusoe is not merely an adventurer; he is the human will, courage, resolution, stripped of all the adventitious support of society. He has the elements of universal humanity, though in detail he is as distinctly English as Odysseus is Greek.

The characters of Defoe's other novels—Colonel Jack, Captain Singleton, Moll Flanders, and Roxana—are so repulsive, and so entirely unaware of their repulsiveness, that we can take little interest in them. Possibly an exception might be made in favor of Colonel Jack, who evinces at times an amusing humor. All are criminals, and the conflict of the criminal with the forces of society may be the subject of the most powerful fiction. But these books are inartistic in several regards. No criminals, even allowing them to be hypocrites, ever disclose themselves in the open-hearted manner of these autobiographers. Vice always pays to virtue the homage of a certain reticence in details. Despite all his Newgate experiences and his acquaintance with noted felons, Defoe never understood either the weakness or the strength of the criminal type. So all his harlots and thieves and outcasts are decidedly amateurish. A serious transgression of the moral law is to them a very slight matter, to be soon forgotten after a temporary fit of repentance, and a long course of evil living in no wise interferes with a comfortable and respectable old age. His pirates have none of the desperation and brutal heroism of sin. Stevenson's John Silver or Israel Hands is worth a schooner-load of them. Neither they nor their author seem to value virtue very highly, though they are acutely sensitive to the discomfort of an evil reputation. Possibly such people may be true to a certain type of humanity, but they are exceedingly uninteresting. A writer who takes so narrow a view cannot produce a great book, even though his lack of moral scope and insight is partly compensated by a vivid presentation of life on the low plane from which he views it.

'Moll Flanders' and 'Roxana' are very coarse books, but it can hardly be said that they are harmful or corrupting. They are simply vulgar. Vice has preserved all its evil by preserving all its grossness. Passion is reduced to mere animalism, and is depicted with the brutal directness of Hogarth. This may be good morals, but it is unpleasant art. It is true that Defoe's test of a writer was that he should "please and serve his public," and in providing amusement he was not more refined nor more coarse than those whom he addressed; but a writer should look a little deeper and aim a little higher than the average morality of his day. Otherwise he may please but will not serve his generation, in any true sense of literary service.

Defoe is sometimes spoken of as the first great realist. In a limited sense this may be true. No doubt he presents the surface of a limited area of the eighteenth-century world with fidelity. With the final establishment of Protestantism, the increase of trade, and the building of physical science on the broad foundations laid down by Newton, England had become more mundane than at any other period. The intense faith and the imaginative quality of the seventeenth century were deadened. The eighteenth century kept its eyes on the earth, and though it found a great many interesting and wonderful things there, and though it laid the foundations of England's industrial greatness, it was neither a spiritual nor an artistic age. The novel was in its infancy; and as if a "true story" was more worthy of respect than an invention, it received from Defoe an air of verisimilitude and is usually based on some real events. He is careful to embellish his fictions with little bits of realism. Thus, Moll Flanders gives an inventory of the goods she took to America, and in the 'History of the Plague' Defoe adds a note to his description of a burial-ground:—"N.B. The author of this Journal lies buried in that very ground, being at his own desire, his sister having been buried there a few weeks before." This enumeration of particulars certainly gives an air of reality, but it is a trick easily caught, and it is only now and then that he hits—as in the above instance—on the characteristic circumstance which gives life and reality to the narrative. Except in 'Robinson Crusoe,' much of his detail is irrelevant and tiresome. But all the events on the lonely island are admirably harmonized and have a cumulative effect. The second part,—after the rescue,—written to take advantage of the popularity of the first, is vastly inferior. The artistic selective power is not exercised. This same concrete imagination which sees minute details is also evident in his contemporary Swift, but with him it works at the bidding of a far more fervid and emotional spirit.

Defoe is a pioneer in novel-writing and in journalism, and in both he shows wonderful readiness in appreciating what the public would like and energy in supplying them with it. To the inventor or discoverer of a new form we cannot deny great credit. Most writers imitate, but it cannot be said that Defoe founded himself on any predecessor, while his successors are numbered by hundreds. A certain relationship could be traced between his work, and the picaresque tales of France and Spain on the one hand and the contemporary journals of actual adventure on the other; but not one close enough to detract from his claim to original power.

Some of Defoe's political work, like 'The True-Born Englishman,' 'The Shortest Way with Dissenters,' 'Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover,' are written in the ironical tone. Mr. Saintsbury seems to think that Defoe's method is not truly ironical, because it differs from Swift's; but if we remember that one writer differeth from another in irony, there is no reason to deny Defoe's mastery of this penetrating weapon, especially when we find that he imposed on both parties. The judges told him that "irony of that sort would bring him to the gallows," but the eighteenth-century law of libel was more rigid in its constructions than the canons of literary art.

Defoe made several attempts at poetical satire, which are sufficient to show that he lacked either the talent or the patience to write political verse. Compared with Dryden's or Pope's, his work is mere doggerel, enlivened by occasional vigorous couplets like—

"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."

Or

"No panegyric needs their praise record— An Englishman ne'er wants his own good word."

But an examination will confirm the impression that Defoe was not a poet, as surely as the re-reading of 'Robinson Crusoe' will strengthen our hereditary belief that he was a great writer of prose.



FROM 'ROBINSON CRUSOE'

CRUSOE'S SHIPWRECK

Nothing can describe the confusion of thought which I felt when I sunk into the water; for though I swam very well, yet I could not deliver myself from the waves so as to draw my breath; till that wave having driven me or rather carried me a vast way on towards the shore, and having spent itself, went back, and left me upon the land almost dry, but half dead with the water I took in. I had so much presence of mind as well as breath left, that seeing myself nearer the mainland than I expected, I got upon my feet, and endeavored to make on towards the land as fast as I could, before another wave should return and take me up again; but I soon found it was impossible to avoid it; for I saw the sea coming after me as high as a great hill, and as furious as an enemy which I had no means or strength to contend with: my business was to hold my breath, and raise myself upon the water, if I could; and so by swimming to preserve my breathing, and pilot myself towards the shore if possible; my greatest concern now being that the wave, as it would carry me a great way towards the shore when it came on, might not carry me back again with it when it gave back towards the sea.

The wave that came upon me again, buried me at once twenty or thirty feet deep in its own body; and I could feel myself carried with a mighty force and swiftness towards the shore, a very great way; but I held my breath, and assisted myself to swim still forward with all my might. I was ready to burst with holding my breath, when, as I felt myself rising up, so to my immediate relief I found my head and hands shoot out above the surface of the water; and though it was not two seconds of time that I could keep myself so, yet it relieved me greatly, gave me breath and new courage. I was covered again with water a good while, but not so long but I held it out; and finding the water had spent itself, and began to return, I struck forward against the return of the waves, and felt ground again with my feet. I stood still a few moments to recover breath, and till the water went from me, and then took to my heels and ran with what strength I had farther towards the shore. But neither would this deliver me from the fury of the sea, which came pouring in after me again; and twice more I was lifted up by the waves and carried forward as before, the shore being very flat.

The last time of these two had well-nigh been fatal to me; for the sea having hurried me along as before, landed me, or rather dashed me, against a piece of rock, and that with such force that it left me senseless, and indeed helpless as to my own deliverance; for the blow taking my side and breast, beat the breath as it were quite out of my body, and had it returned again immediately I must have been strangled in the water; but I recovered a little before the return of the waves, and seeing I should again be covered with the water, I resolved to hold fast by a piece of the rock, and so to hold my breath if possible till the wave went back. Now, as the waves were not so high as the first, being nearer land, I held my hold till the wave abated, and then fetched another run, which brought me so near the shore, that the next wave, though it went over me, yet did not so swallow me up as to carry me away; and the next run I took, I got to the mainland, where to my great comfort I clambered up the cliffs of the shore, and sat me down upon the grass, free from danger and quite out of the reach of the water.

I was now landed, and safe on shore; and began to look up and thank God that my life was saved, in a case wherein there were, some minutes before, scarce any room to hope. I believe it is impossible to express, to the life, what the ecstasies and transports of the soul are when it is so saved, as I may say, out of the grave: and I did not wonder now at the custom, viz., that when a malefactor who has the halter about his neck is tied up, and just going to be turned off, and has a reprieve brought to him,—I say I do not wonder that they bring a surgeon with it, to let him blood that very moment they tell him of it; that the surprise may not drive the animal spirits from the heart and overwhelm him.

"For sudden joys, like griefs, confound at first."

I walked about the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I may say, wrapped up in the contemplation of my deliverance; making a thousand gestures and motions which I cannot describe; reflecting upon my comrades that were drowned, and that there should not be one soul saved but myself; for as for them, I never saw them afterwards, or any sign of them, except three of the hats, one cap, and two shoes that were not fellows.



I cast my eyes to the stranded vessel—when the breach and froth of the sea being so big I could hardly see it, it lay so far off—and considered, Lord! how was it possible I could get on shore?



CRUSOE MAKES A NEW HOME

I soon found the place I was in was not for my settlement, particularly because it was upon a low moorish ground, near the sea, and I believed it would not be wholesome; and more particularly because there was no fresh water near it; so I resolved to find a more healthy and more convenient spot of ground.

I consulted several things in my situation which I found would be proper for me: first, air and fresh water, I just now mentioned; secondly, shelter from the heat of the sun; thirdly, security from ravenous creatures, whether men or beasts; fourthly, a view to the sea, that if God sent any ship in sight, I might not lose any advantage for my deliverance, of which I was not willing to banish all my expectation yet.

I searched for a place proper for this. I found a little plain on the side of a rising hill, whose front towards this little plain was steep as a house-side, so that nothing could come down upon me from the top. On the side of this rock there was a hollow place, worn a little way in, like the entrance or door of a cave; but there was not really any cave, or way into the rock at all.

On the flat of the green, just before this hollow place, I resolved to pitch my tent. This plain was not above a hundred yards broad, and about twice as long, and lay like a green before my door; and at the end of it descended irregularly every way down into the low ground by the seaside. It was on the N. N. W. side of the hill, so that it was sheltered from the heat every day, till it came to a W. and by S. sun, or thereabouts, which in those countries is near the setting.

Before I set up my tent I drew a half-circle before the hollow place, which took in about ten yards in its semi-diameter from the rock, and twenty yards in its diameter from its beginning and ending.

In this half-circle I pitched two rows of long stakes, driving them into the ground till they stood very firm like piles, the biggest end being out of the ground about five feet and a half, and sharpened on the top. The two rows did not stand above six inches from one another.

Then I took the pieces of cable which I cut in the ship, and laid them in rows, one upon another, within the circle between these two rows of stakes, up to the top, placing other stakes in the inside, leaning against them, about two feet and a half high, like a spur to a post: and this fence was so strong that neither man nor beast could get into it or over it. This cost me a great deal of time and labor, especially to cut the piles in the woods, bring them to the place, and drive them into the earth.

The entrance into this place I made to be not by a door, but by a short ladder to go over the top; which ladder, when I was in, I lifted over after me; and so I was completely fenced in and fortified, as I thought, from all the world, and consequently slept secure in the night, which otherwise I could not have done; though as it appeared afterwards, there was no need of all this caution against the enemies that I apprehended danger from.

A FOOTPRINT

It happened one day about noon, going toward my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition. I listened, I looked about me, but I could hear nothing or see anything; I went up to a rising ground to look farther; I went up the shore and down the shore, but it was all one: I could see no other impression but that one. I went to it again to see if there were any more, and to observe if it might not be my fancy; but there was no room for that, for there was exactly the print of a foot—toes, heel, and every part of a foot. How it came hither I knew not, nor could I in the least imagine; but after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of myself, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but terrified to the last degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying every stump at a distance to be a man. Nor is it possible to describe how many various shapes my affrighted imagination represented things to me in, how many wild ideas were found every moment in my fancy, and what strange unaccountable whimseys came into my thoughts by the way. When I came to my castle (for so I think I called it ever after this) I fled into it like one pursued. Whether I went over by the ladder, as first contrived, or went in at the hole in the rock, which I had called a door, I cannot remember; no, nor could I remember the next morning, for never frightened hare fled to cover or fox to earth with more terror of mind than I to this retreat.



FROM 'HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE IN LONDON'

SUPERSTITIOUS FEARS OF THE PEOPLE

But I must go back again to the beginning of this surprising time; while the fears of the people were young, they were increased strangely by several odd incidents, which put altogether, it was really a wonder the whole body of the people did not rise as one man and abandon their dwellings, leaving the place as a space of ground designed by heaven for an Akeldama doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth, and that all that would be found in it would perish with it. I shall name but a few of these things; but sure they were so many, and so many wizards and cunning people propagating them, that I have often wondered there was any (women especially) left behind.

In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for several months before the plague, as there did the year after, another, a little before the fire; the old women, and the phlegmatic hypochondriac part of the other sex, whom I could almost call the old women too, remarked, especially afterward, though not till both those judgments were over, that those two comets passed directly over the city, and that so very near the houses that it was plain they imported something peculiar to the city alone. That the comet before the pestilence was of a faint, dull, languid color, and its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow; but that the comet before the fire was bright and sparkling, or as others said, flaming, and its motion swift and furious; and that accordingly one foretold a heavy judgment, slow but severe, terrible, and frightful, as was the plague. But the other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, as was the conflagration; nay, so particular some people were, that as they looked upon that comet preceding the fire they fancied that they not only saw it pass swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the motion with their eye, but they even heard it,—that it made a rushing mighty noise, fierce and terrible, though at a distance and but just perceivable.

I saw both these stars, and I must confess, had had so much of the common notion of such things in my head that I was apt to look upon them as the forerunners and warnings of God's judgments; and especially when the plague had followed the first, I saw yet another of the like kind, I could not but say, God had not yet sufficiently scourged the city.

The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely increased by the error of the times, in which I think the people, from what principle I cannot imagine, were more addicted to prophecies and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales, than ever they were before or since: whether this unhappy temper was originally raised by the follies of some people who got money by it,—that is to say, by printing predictions and prognostications,—I know not; but certain it is, books frighted them terribly; such as 'Lily's Almanack,' 'Gadbury's Astrological Predictions,' 'Poor Robin's Almanack,' and the like; also several pretended religious books, one entitled, 'Come out of Her, my People, lest Ye be Partakers of her Plagues'; another called 'Fair Warning'; another, 'Britain's Remembrancer'; and many such, all or most part of which foretold, directly or covertly, the ruin of the city; nay, some were so enthusiastically bold as to run about the streets with their oral predictions, pretending they were sent to preach to the city; and one in particular, who like Jonah to Nineveh, cried in the streets, "Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed." I will not be positive whether he said forty days or yet a few days. Another ran about naked, except a pair of drawers about his waist, crying day and night, like a man that Josephus mentions, who cried, "Woe to Jerusalem!" a little before the destruction of that city; so this poor naked creature cried, "Oh! the great and the dreadful God!" and said no more, but repeated those words continually, with a voice and countenance full of horror, a swift pace; and nobody could ever find him to stop, or rest, or take any sustenance, at least that ever I could hear of. I met this poor creature several times in the streets, and would have spoken to him, but he would not enter into speech with me or any one else, but kept on his dismal cries continually.

These things terrified the people to the last degree; and especially when two or three times, as I have mentioned already, they found one or two in the hills, dead of the plague at St. Giles's.

Next to these public things were the dreams of old women; or I should say, the interpretation of old women upon other people's dreams; and these put abundance of people even out of their wits. Some heard voices warning them to be gone, for that there would be such a plague in London, so that the living would not be able to bury the dead; others saw apparitions in the air; and I must be allowed to say of both, I hope without breach of charity, that they heard voices that never spake, and saw sights that never appeared; but the imagination of the people was really turned wayward and possessed; and no wonder if they who were poring continually at the clouds saw shapes and figures, representations and appearances, which had nothing in them but air and vapor. Here they told us they saw a flaming sword held in a hand, coming out of a cloud, with a point hanging directly over the city. There they saw hearses and coffins in the air carrying to be buried. And there again, heaps of dead bodies lying unburied and the like; just as the imagination of the poor terrified people furnished them with matter to work upon.

"So hypochondriac fancies represent Ships, armies, battles in the firmament; Till steady eyes the exhalations solve, And all to its first matter, cloud, resolve."

I could fill this account with the strange relations such people give every day of what they have seen; and every one was so positive of their having seen what they pretended to see, that there was no contradicting them without breach of friendship, or being accounted rude and unmannerly on the one hand and profane and impenetrable on the other. One time before the plague was begun, otherwise than as I have said in St. Giles's,—I think it was in March,—seeing a crowd of people in the street I joined with them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all staring up into the air to see what a woman told them appeared plain to her, which was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in his hand, waving it or brandishing it over his head. She described every part of the figure to the life, showed them the motion and the form, and the poor people came into it so eagerly and with so much readiness: "Yes! I see it all plainly," says one, "there's the sword as plain as can be;" another saw the angel; one saw his very face, and cried out what a glorious creature he was! One saw one thing, and one another. I looked as earnestly as the rest, but perhaps not with so much willingness to be imposed upon; and I said indeed that I could see nothing but a white cloud, bright on one side by the shining of the sun upon the other part. The woman endeavored to show it me, but could not make me confess that I saw it, which indeed if I had, I must have lied; but the woman turning to me looked me in the face and fancied I laughed, in which her imagination deceived her too, for I really did not laugh, but was seriously reflecting how the poor people were terrified by the force of their own imagination. However, she turned to me, called me a profane fellow and a scoffer, told me that it was a time of God's anger, and dreadful judgments were approaching, and that despisers such as I should wander and perish.

The people about her seemed disgusted as well as she, and I found there was no persuading them that I did not laugh at them, and that I should be rather mobbed by them than be able to undeceive them. So I left them, and this appearance passed for as real as the blazing star itself.

Another encounter I had in the open day also; and this was in going through a narrow passage from Petty France into Bishopsgate Churchyard, by a row of almshouses. There are two churchyards to Bishopsgate Church or parish; one we go over to pass from the place called Petty France into Bishopsgate Street, coming out just by the church door; the other is on the side of the narrow passage where the almshouses are on the left, and a dwarf wall with a palisade on it on the right hand, and the city wall on the other side more to the right.

In this narrow passage stands a man looking through the palisades into the burying-place, and as many people as the narrowness of the place would admit to stop without hindering the passage of others; and he was talking mighty eagerly to them, and pointing now to one place, then to another, and affirming that he saw a ghost walking upon such a gravestone there: he described the shape, the posture, and the movement of it so exactly, that it was the greatest amazement to him in the world that everybody did not see it as well as he. On a sudden he would cry, "There it is! Now it comes this way!" then, "'Tis turned back!" till at length he persuaded the people into so firm a belief of it, that one fancied he saw it; and thus he came every day making a strange hubbub, considering it was so narrow a passage, till Bishopsgate clock struck eleven, and then the ghost would seem to start, and as if he were called away, disappear on a sudden.

I looked earnestly every way and at the very moment that this man directed, but could not see the least appearance of anything; but so positive was this poor man that he gave them vapors in abundance, and sent them away trembling and frightened, till at length few people that knew of it cared to go through that passage, and hardly anybody by night on any account whatever.

This ghost, as the poor man affirmed, made signs to the houses, and to the ground, and to the people, plainly intimating, or else they so understanding it, that abundance of people should come to be buried in that churchyard, as indeed happened; but that he saw such aspects, I must acknowledge I never believed, nor could I see anything of it myself, though I looked most earnestly to see it if possible.

HOW QUACKS AND IMPOSITORS PREYED ON THE FEARS OF THE PEOPLE

I cannot omit a subtlety of one of those quack operators, with which he gulled the poor people to crowd about him, but did nothing for them without money. He had, it seems, added to his bills which he gave out in the streets, this advertisement in capital letters; viz., "He gives advice to the poor for nothing."

Abundance of people came to him accordingly, to whom he made a great many fine speeches, examined them of the state of their health and of the constitution of their bodies, and told them many good things to do which were of no great moment; but the issue and conclusion of all was, that he had a preparation which, if they took such a quantity of every morning, he would pawn his life that they should never have the plague,—no, though they lived in the house with people that were infected. This made the people all resolve to have it; but then the price of that was so much,—I think it was half a crown. "But, sir," says one poor woman, "I am a poor almswoman, and am kept by the parish, and your bills say you give the poor your help for nothing." "Ay, good woman," says the doctor, "so I do, as I published there; I give my advice, but not my physic!" "Alas, sir," says she, "that is a snare laid for the poor then, for you give them your advice for nothing: that is to say, you advise them gratis, to buy your physic for their money; so does every shopkeeper with his wares." Here the woman began to give him ill words, and stood at his door all that day, telling her tale to all the people that came, till the doctor, finding she turned away his customers, was obliged to call her up-stairs again and give her his box of physic for nothing, which perhaps too was good for nothing when she had it.

THE PEOPLE ARE QUARANTINED IN THEIR HOUSES

This shutting up of houses was at first counted a very cruel and unchristian method, and the poor people so confined made bitter lamentations; complaints of the severity of it were also daily brought to my lord mayor, of houses causelessly and some maliciously shut up; I cannot say, but upon inquiry, many that complained so loudly were found in a condition to be continued; and others again, inspection being made upon the sick person and the sickness not appearing infectious, or if uncertain, yet on his being content to be carried to the pest-house, was released.

As I went along Houndsditch one morning about eight o'clock there was a great noise; it is true indeed that there was not much crowd, because the people were not very free to gather together, or to stay together when they were there, nor did I stay long there; but the outcry was loud enough to prompt my curiosity, and I called to one who looked out of a window, and asked what was the matter.

A watchman, it seems, had been employed to keep his post at the door of a house which was infected, or said to be infected, and was shut up; he had been there all night for two nights together, as he told his story, and the day watchman had been there one day, and was now come to relieve him; all this while no noise had been heard in the house, no light had been seen, they called for nothing, sent him on no errands, which used to be the chief business of the watchman, neither had they given him any disturbance, as he said, from Monday afternoon, when he heard a great crying and screaming in the house, which as he supposed was occasioned by some of the family dying just at that time. It seems the night before, the dead-cart, as it was called, had been stopt there, and a servant-maid had been brought down to the door dead, and the buriers or bearers, as they were called, put her into the cart, wrapped only in a green rug, and carried her away.

The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when he heard that noise and crying as above, and nobody answered a great while; but at last one looked out and said with an angry quick tone, and yet a kind of crying voice, or a voice of one that was crying, "What d'ye want, that you make such a knocking?" He answered, "I am the watchman; how do you do? What is the matter?" The person answered, "What is that to you? Stop the dead-cart." This, it seems, was about one o'clock; soon after, as the fellow said, he stopped the dead-cart, and then knocked again, but nobody answered; he continued knocking, and the bellman called out several times, "Bring out your dead;" but nobody answered, till the man that drove the cart, being called to other houses, would stay no longer, and drove away.

The watchman knew not what to make of all this, so he let them alone till the morning man, or day watchman, as they called him, came to relieve him. Giving him an account of the particulars, they knocked at the door a great while, but nobody answered, and they observed that the window or casement at which the person looked out who had answered before, continued open, being up two pair of stairs.

Upon this the two men, to satisfy their curiosity, got a long ladder, and one of them went up to the window and looked into the room, where he saw a woman lying dead upon the floor in a dismal manner, having no clothes on her but her shift; but though he called aloud, and putting in his long staff, knocked hard on the floor, yet nobody stirred or answered; neither could he hear any noise in the house.

He came down upon this, and acquainted his fellow, who went up also, and finding it just so, they resolved to acquaint either the lord mayor or some other magistrate of it, but did not offer to go in at the window. The magistrate, it seems, upon the information of the two men ordered the house to be broken open, a constable and other persons being appointed to be present, that nothing might be plundered; and accordingly it was so done, when nobody was found in the house but that young woman, who having been infected and past recovery, the rest had left her to die by herself, and every one gone, having found some way to delude the watchman and to get open the door, or get out at some back door, or over the tops of the houses, so that he knew nothing of it; and as to those cries and shrieks which he heard, it was supposed they were the passionate cries of the family at this bitter parting, which to be sure it was to them all, this being the sister to the mistress of the family. The man of the house, his wife, several children and servants, being all gone and fled; whether sick or sound, that I could never learn, nor indeed did I make much inquiry after it.

MORAL EFFECTS OF THE PLAGUE

Here we may observe, and I hope it will not be amiss to take notice of it, that a near view of death would soon reconcile men of good principles one to another, and that it is chiefly owing to our easy situation in life, and our putting these things far from us, that our breaches are fomented, ill blood continued, prejudices, breach of charity and of Christian union so much kept and so far carried on among us as it is: another plague year would reconcile all these differences; a close conversing with death or with diseases that threaten death would scum off the gall from our tempers, remove the animosities among us, and bring us to see with differing eyes than those which we looked on things before; as the people who had been used to join with the church were reconciled at this time with the admitting the Dissenters, who with an uncommon prejudice had broken off from the communion of the Church of England, were now content to come to their parish churches, and to conform to the worship which they did not approve of before; but as the terror of the infection abated, those things all returned again to their less desirable channel, and to the course they were in before.

I mention this but historically. I have no mind to enter into arguments to move either or both sides to a more charitable compliance one with another; I do not see that it is probable such a discourse would be either suitable or successful; the breaches seem rather to widen, and tend to a widening farther than to closing; and who am I that I should think myself able to influence either one side or the other? But this I may repeat again, that it is evident death will reconcile us all—on the other side the grave we shall be all brethren again; in heaven, whither I hope we may come from all parties and persuasions, we shall find neither prejudice nor scruple; there we shall be of one principle and of one opinion. Why we cannot be content to go hand in hand to the place where we shall join heart and hand, without the least hesitation and with the most complete harmony and affection; I say, why we cannot do so here, I can say nothing to, neither shall I say anything more of it but that it remains to be lamented.

TERRIBLE SCENES IN THE STREETS

This [38,195 deaths in about a month] was a prodigious number of itself; but if I should add the reasons which I have to believe that this account was deficient, and how deficient it was, you would with me make no scruple to believe that there died above 10,000 a week for all those weeks, and a proportion for several weeks both before and after. The confusion among the people, especially within the city, at that time was inexpressible; the terror was so great at last that the courage of the people appointed to carry away the dead began to fail them; nay, several of them died, although they had the distemper before, and were recovered; and some of them dropped down when they had been carrying the bodies even at the pitside, and just ready to throw them in; and this confusion was greater in the city, because they had flattered themselves with hopes of escaping, and thought the bitterness of death was past. One cart, they told us, going up to Shoreditch, was forsaken by the drivers, or being left to one man to drive, he died in the street; and the horses, going on, overthrew the cart and left the bodies, some thrown here, some there, in a dismal manner. Another cart was, it seems, found in the great pit in Finsbury Fields, the driver being dead, or having been gone and abandoned it; and the horses running too near it, the cart fell in and drew the horses in also. It was suggested that the driver was thrown in with it and that the cart fell upon him, by reason his whip was seen to be in the pit among the bodies; but that, I suppose, could not be certain.

In our parish of Aldgate the dead-carts were several times, as I have heard, found standing at the churchyard gate, full of dead bodies; but neither bellman, nor driver, nor any one else with it. Neither in these nor in many other cases did they know what bodies they had in their cart, for sometimes they were let down with ropes out of balconies and out of windows; and sometimes the bearers brought them to the cart, sometimes other people; nor, as the men themselves said, did they trouble themselves to keep any account of the numbers.

THE PLAGUE DUE TO NATURAL CAUSES

I would be far from lessening the awe of the judgments of God, and the reverence to his Providence, which ought always to be on our minds on such occasions as these; doubtless the visitation itself is a stroke from heaven upon a city, or country, or nation where it falls, a messenger of his vengeance, and a loud call to that nation, or country, or city, to humiliation and repentance, according to that of the prophet Jeremiah, xviii. 7, 8: "At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom to pluck up, and pull down, and destroy it; if that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them." Now to prompt due impressions of the awe of God on the minds of men on such occasions, and not to lessen them, it is that I have left those minutes upon record.

I say, therefore, I reflect upon no man for putting the reason of those things upon the immediate hand of God, and the appointment and direction of his Providence; nay, on the contrary there were many wonderful deliverances of persons when infected, which intimate singular and remarkable Providence in the particular instances to which they refer; and I esteem my own deliverance to be one next to miraculous, and do record it with thankfulness.

But when I am speaking of the plague as a distemper arising from natural causes, we must consider it as it was really propagated by natural means; nor is it at all the less a judgment for its being under the conduct of human causes and effects: for as the Divine power has formed the whole scheme of nature, and maintains nature in its course, so the same power thinks fit to let his own actings with men, whether of mercy or judgment, to go on in the ordinary course of natural causes, and he is pleased to act by those natural causes as the ordinary means; excepting and reserving to himself nevertheless a power to act in a supernatural way when he sees occasion. Now it is evident that in the case of an infection there is no apparent extraordinary occasion for supernatural operation, but the ordinary course of things appears sufficiently armed and made capable of all the effects that heaven usually directs by a contagion. Among these causes and effects, this of the secret conveyance of infection, imperceptible and unavoidable, is more than sufficient to execute the fierceness of Divine vengeance, without putting it upon supernaturals and miracles.

This acute penetrating nature of the disease itself was such, and the infection was received so imperceptibly, that the most exact caution could not secure us while in the place; but I must be allowed to believe,—and I have so many examples fresh in my memory to convince me of it that I think none can resist their evidence,—I say, I must be allowed to believe that no one in this whole nation ever received the sickness or infection but who received it in the ordinary way of infection from somebody, or the clothes, or touch, or stench of somebody that was infected before.

SPREAD OF THE PLAGUE THROUGH NECESSITIES OF THE POOR

Before people came to right notions of the infection, and of infecting one another, people were only shy of those that were really sick; a man with a cap upon his head, or with cloths round his neck, which was the case of those that had swellings there,—such was indeed frightful. But when we saw a gentleman dressed, with his band on, and his gloves in his hand, his hat upon his head, and his hair combed, of such we had not the least apprehensions, and people conversed a great while freely, especially with their neighbors and such as they knew. But when the physicians assured us that the danger was as well from the sound,—that is, the seemingly sound,—as the sick, and that those people that thought themselves entirely free were oftentimes the most fatal; and that it came to be generally understood that people were sensible of it, and of the reason of it; then, I say, they began to be jealous of everybody, and a vast number of people locked themselves up so as not to come abroad into any company at all, nor suffer any that had been abroad in promiscuous company to come into their houses or near them; at least not so near them as to be within the reach of their breath or of any smell from them; and when they were obliged to converse at a distance with strangers, they would always have preservatives in their mouths, and about their clothes, to repel and keep off the infection.

It must be acknowledged that when people began to use these cautions, they were less exposed to danger, and the infection did not break into such houses so furiously as it did into others before; and thousands of families were preserved, speaking with due reserve to the direction of divine Providence, by that means.

But it was impossible to beat anything into the heads of the poor; they went on with the usual impetuosity of their tempers, full of outcries and lamentations when taken, but madly careless of themselves, foolhardy and obstinate, while they were well. Where they could get employment, they pushed into any kind of business, the most dangerous and the most liable to infection; and if they were spoken to, their answer would be:—"I must trust in God for that; if I am taken, then I am provided for, and there is an end of me;" and the like. Or thus:—"Why, what must I do? I cannot starve; I had as good have the plague as perish for want; I have no work, what could I do? I must do this or beg." Suppose it was burying the dead, or attending the sick, or watching infected houses, which were all terrible hazards; but their tale was generally the same. It is true, necessity was a justifiable, warrantable plea, and nothing could be better; but their way of talk was much the same where the necessities were not the same. This adventurous conduct of the poor was that which brought the plague among them in a most furious manner; and this, joined to the distress of their circumstances when taken, was the reason why they died so by heaps; for I cannot say I could observe one jot of better husbandry among them,—I mean the laboring poor,—while they were all well and getting money, than there was before, but as lavish, as extravagant, and as thoughtless for to-morrow as ever; so that when they came to be taken sick, they were immediately in the utmost distress, as well for want as for sickness, as well for lack of food as lack of health.



FROM 'COLONEL JACK'

COLONEL JACK AND CAPTAIN JACK ESCAPE ARREST

We had not parleyed thus long, but though in the dead of the night, came a man to the other inn door—for as I said above, there are two inns at that place—and called for a pot of beer; but the people were all in bed, and would not rise; he asked them if they had seen two fellows come that way upon one horse. The man said he had; that they went by in the afternoon, and asked the way to Cambridge, but did not stop only to drink one mug. "Oh!" says he, "are they gone to Cambridge? Then I'll be with them quickly." I was awake in a little garret of the next inn, where we lodged; and hearing the fellow call at the door, got up and went to the window, having some uneasiness at every noise I heard; and by that means heard the whole story. Now the case is plain, our hour was not come; our fate had determined other things for us, and we were to be reserved for it. The matter was thus:—When we first came to Bournbridge we called at the first house and asked the way to Cambridge, drank a mug of beer, and went on, and they might see us turn off to go the way they directed; but night coming on, and we being very weary, we thought we should not find the way; and we came back in the dusk of the evening and went into the other house, being the first as we came back, as that where we called before was the first as we went forward.

You may be sure I was alarmed now, as indeed I had reason to be. The Captain was in bed and fast asleep, but I wakened him, and roused him with a noise that frighted him enough. "Rise, Jack," said I, "we are both ruined; they are come after us hither." Indeed, I was wrong to terrify him at that rate; for he started and jumped out of bed and ran directly to the window, not knowing where he was, and not quite awake, was just going to jump out of the window, but I laid hold of him. "What are you going to do?" says I. "I won't be taken," says he; "let me alone; where are they?"

This was all confusion; and he was so out of himself with the fright, and being overcome with sleep, that I had much to do to prevent his jumping out of the window. However, I held him fast and thoroughly wakened him, and then all was well again and he was presently composed.

Then I told him the story, and we sat together upon the bedside, considering what we should do; upon the whole, as the fellow that called was apparently gone to Cambridge, we had nothing to fear, but to be quiet till daybreak, and then to mount and be gone.

Accordingly, as soon as day peeped we were up; and having happily informed ourselves of the road at the other house, and being told that the road to Cambridge turned off on the left hand, and that the road to Newmarket lay straight forward: I say, having learnt this, the Captain told me he would walk away on foot towards Newmarket, and so when I came to go out I should appear as a single traveler; and accordingly he went out immediately, and away he walked, and he traveled so hard that when I came to follow I thought once that he had dropped me, for though I rode hard, I got no sight of him for an hour. At length, having passed the great bank called the Devil's Ditch, I found him and took him up behind me, and we rode double till we came almost to the end of Newmarket town. Just at the hither house in the town stood a horse at a door, just as it was at Puckeridge. "Now," says Jack, "if the horse was at the other end of the town I would have him, as sure as we had the other at Puckeridge;" but it would not do; so he got down, and walked through the town on the right-hand side of the way.

He had not got half through the town, but the horse, having somehow or other got loose, came trotting gently on by himself, and nobody following him. The Captain, an old soldier at such work, as soon as the horse was got a pretty way before him, and that he saw nobody followed, sets up a run after the horse, and the horse, hearing him follow, ran the faster; then the Captain calls out, "Stop the horse!" and by this time the horse was got almost to the farther end of the town; the people of the house where he stood not missing him all the while.

Upon his calling out "Stop the horse!" the poor people of the town, such as were next at hand, ran from both sides of the way and stopped the horse for him, as readily as could be, and held him for him till he came up; he very gravely comes up to the horse, hits him a blow or two, and calls him "dog" for running away; gives the man twopence that catched him for him, mounts, and away he comes after me.

This was the oddest adventure that could have happened, for the horse stole the Captain, the Captain did not steal the horse. When he came up to me, "Now, Colonel Jack," says he, "what do you say to good luck? Would you have had me refuse the horse, when he came so civilly to ask me to ride?"—"No, no," said I; "you have got this horse by your wit, not by design; and you may go on now, I think; you are in a safer condition than I am, if we are taken."

COLONEL JACK FINDS CAPTAIN JACK HARD TO MANAGE

We arrived here very easy and safe, and while we were considering of what way we should travel next, we found we were got to a point, and that there was no way now left but that by the Washes into Lincolnshire, and that was represented as very dangerous; so an opportunity offering of a man that was traveling over the fens, we took him for our guide, and went with him to Spalding, and from thence to a town called Deeping, and so to Stamford in Lincolnshire.

This is a large populous town, and it was market day when we came to it; so we put in at a little house at the hither end of the town, and walked into the town. Here it was not possible to restrain my Captain from playing his feats of art, and my heart ached for him; I told him I would not go with him, for he would not promise to leave off, and I was so terribly concerned at the apprehensions of his venturous humor that I would not so much as stir out of my lodging; but it was in vain to persuade him. He went into the market and found a mountebank there, which was what he wanted. How he picked two pockets there in one quarter of an hour, and brought to our quarters a piece of new holland of eight or nine ells, a piece of stuff, and played three or four pranks more in less than two hours; and how afterwards he robbed a doctor of physic, and yet came off clear in them: all this, I say, as above, belongs to his story, not mine.

I scolded heartily at him when he came back, and told him he would certainly ruin himself and me too before he left off, and threatened in so many words that I would leave him and go back, and carry the horse to Puckeridge, where we borrowed it, and so go to London by myself.

He promised amendment, but as we resolved (now we were in the great road) to travel by night, so, it being not yet night, he gives me the slip again; and was not gone half an hour, but he comes back with a gold watch in his hand. "Come," says he, "why ain't you ready? I am ready to go as soon as you will:" and with that he pulls out the gold watch. I was amazed at such a thing as that in a country town; but it seems there were prayers at one of the churches in the evening, and he, placing himself as the occasion directed, found the way to be so near a lady as to get it from her side, and walked off with it unperceived.

The same night we went away by moonlight, after having the satisfaction to hear the watch cried, and ten guineas offered for it again; he would have been glad of the ten guineas instead of the watch, but durst not venture to carry it home. "Well," says I, "you are afraid, and indeed you have reason; give it to me; I will venture to carry it again;" but he would not let me, but told me that when we came into Scotland we might sell anything there without danger; which was true indeed, for there they asked us no questions.

We set out, as I said, in the evening by moonlight, and traveled hard, the road being very plain and large, till we came to Grantham, by which time it was about two in the morning, and all the town as it were dead asleep; so we went on for Newark, where we reached about eight in the morning, and there we lay down and slept most of the day; and by this sleeping so continually in the daytime, I kept him from doing a great deal of mischief which he would otherwise have done.

COLONEL JACK'S FIRST WIFE IS NOT DISPOSED TO BE ECONOMICAL

We soon found a house proper for our dwelling, and so went to housekeeping; we had not been long together but I found that gay temper of my wife returned, and she threw off the mask of her gravity and good conduct that I had so long fancied was her mere natural disposition, and now, having no more occasion for disguises, she resolved to seem nothing but what she really was, a wild untamed colt, perfectly loose, and careless to conceal any part, no, not the worst of her conduct.

She carried on this air of levity to such an excess that I could not but be dissatisfied at the expense of it, for she kept company that I did not like, lived beyond what I could support, and sometimes lost at play more than I cared to pay; upon which one day I took occasion to mention it, but lightly, and said to her by way of raillery that we lived merrily for as long as it would last. She turned short upon me: "What do you mean?" says she; "why, you do not pretend to be uneasy, do ye?" "No, no, madam, not I, by no means; it is no business of mine, you know," said I, "to inquire what my wife spends, or whether she spends more than I can afford, or less; I only desire the favor to know, as near as you can guess, how long you will please to take to dispatch me, for I would not be too long a-dying."

"I do not know what you talk of," says she. "You may die as leisurely or as hastily as you please, when your time comes; I ain't a-going to kill you, as I know of."

"But you are going to starve me, madam," said I; "and hunger is as leisurely a death as breaking upon the wheel."

"I starve you! why, are not you a great Virginia merchant, and did not I bring you L1500? What would you have? Sure, you can maintain a wife out of that, can't you?"

"Yes, madam," says I, "I could maintain a wife, but not a gamester, though you had brought me L1500 a year; no estate is big enough for a box and dice."

She took fire at that, and flew out in a passion, and after a great many bitter words told me in short that she saw no occasion to alter her conduct; and as for not maintaining her, when I could not maintain her longer she would find some way or other to maintain herself.

Some time after the first rattle of this kind she vouchsafed to let me know that she was pleased to be with child; I was at first glad of it, in hopes it would help to abate her madness; but it was all one, and her being with child only added to the rest, for she made such preparations for her lying-in, and other appendixes of a child's being born, that in short I found she would be downright distracted; and I took the liberty to tell her one day she would soon bring herself and me to destruction, and entreated her to consider that such figures as those were quite above us and out of our circle; and in short, that I neither could nor would allow such expenses; that at this rate two or three children would effectually ruin me, and that I desired her to consider what she was doing.

She told me with an air of disdain that it was none of her business to consider anything of that matter; that if I could not allow it she would allow it herself, and I might do my worst.

I begged her to consider things for all that, and not drive me to extremities; that I married her to love and cherish her, and use her as a good wife ought to be used, but not to be ruined and undone by her. In a word, nothing could mollify her, nor any argument persuade her to moderation; but withal she took it so heinously that I should pretend to restrain her, that she told me in so many words she would drop her burthen with me, and then if I did not like it she would take care of herself; she would not live with me an hour, for she would not be restrained, not she; and talked a long while at that rate.

I told her, as to her child, which she called her burthen, it should be no burthen to me; as to the rest she might do as she pleased; it might however do me this favor, that I should have no more lyings-in at the rate of L136 at a time, as I found she intended it should be now. She told me she could not tell that; if she had no more by me, she hoped she should by somebody else. "Say you so, madam?" said I; "then they that get them shall keep them." She did not know that neither, she said, and so turned it off jeering, and as it were laughing at me.

This last discourse nettled me, I must confess, and the more because I had a great deal of it and very often; till, in short, we began at length to enter into a friendly treaty about parting.

Nothing could be more criminal than the several discourses we had upon this subject; she demanded a separate maintenance, and in particular, at the rate of L300 a year; and I demanded security of her that she should not run me in debt; she demanding the keeping of the child, with an allowance of L100 a year for that, and I demanding that I should be secured from being charged for keeping any she might have by somebody else, as she had threatened me.

In the interval, and during these contests, she dropped her burthen (as she called it), and brought me a son, a very fine child.

She was content during her lying-in to abate a little, though it was but a very little indeed, of the great expense she had intended; and with some difficulty and persuasion was content with a suit of child-bed linen of L15 instead of one she had intended of threescore; and this she magnified as a particular testimony of her condescension, and a yielding to my avaricious temper, as she called it.



THE DEVIL DOES NOT CONCERN HIMSELF WITH PETTY MATTERS

From 'The Modern History of the Devil'

Nor will I undertake to tell you, till I have talked farther with him about it, how far the Devil is concerned to discover frauds, detect murders, reveal secrets, and especially to tell where any money is hid, and show folks where to find it; it is an odd thing that Satan should think it of consequence to come and tell us where such a miser hid a strong box, or where such an old woman buried her chamberpot full of money, the value of all which is perhaps but a trifle, when, at the same time he lets so many veins of gold, so many unexhausted mines, nay, mountains of silver (as we may depend on it are hid in the bowels of the earth, and which it would be so much to the good of whole nations to discover), lie still there, and never say one word of them to anybody. Besides, how does the Devil's doing things so foreign to himself, and so out of his way, agree with the rest of his character; namely, showing a friendly disposition to mankind, or doing beneficent things? This is so beneath Satan's quality, and looks so little, that I scarce know what to say to it; but that which is still more pungent in the case is, these things are so out of his road, and so foreign to his calling, that it shocks our faith in them, and seems to clash with all the just notions we have of him and of his business in the world. The like is to be said of those merry little turns we bring him in acting with us and upon us upon trifling and simple occasions, such as tumbling chairs and stools about house, setting pots and kettles bottom upward, tossing the glass and crockery-ware about without breaking, and such-like mean foolish things, beneath the dignity of the Devil, who in my opinion is rather employed in setting the world with the bottom upward, tumbling kings and crowns about, and dashing the nations one against another; raising tempests and storms, whether at sea or on shore; and in a word, doing capital mischiefs, suitable to his nature and agreeable to his name Devil, and suited to that circumstance of his condition which I have fully represented in the primitive part of his exiled state.

But to bring in the Devil playing at push-pin with the world, or like Domitian, catching flies,—that is to say, doing nothing to the purpose,—this is not only deluding ourselves, but putting a slur upon the Devil himself; and I say, I shall not dishonor Satan so much as to suppose anything in it; however, as I must have a care to how I take away the proper materials of winter-evening frippery, and leave the goodwives nothing of the Devil to frighten the children with, I shall carry the weighty point no farther. No doubt the Devil and Dr. Faustus were very intimate; I should rob you of a very significant proverb if I should so much as doubt it. No doubt the Devil showed himself in the glass to that fair lady who looked in to see where to place her patches; but then it should follow too that the Devil is an enemy to the ladies wearing patches, and that has some difficulties in it which we cannot easily reconcile; but we must tell the story, and leave out the consequences.



DEFOE ADDRESSES HIS PUBLIC

From 'An Appeal to Honor and Justice'

I hope the time has come at last when the voice of moderate principles may be heard. Hitherto the noise has been so great, and the prejudices and passions of men so strong, that it had been but in vain to offer at any argument, or for any man to talk of giving a reason for his actions; and this alone has been the cause why, when other men, who I think have less to say in their own defense, are appealing to the public and struggling to defend themselves, I alone have been silent under the infinite clamors and reproaches, causeless curses, unusual threatenings, and the most unjust and unjurious treatment in the world.

I hear much of people's calling out to punish the guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the innocent. I hope some will be inclined to judge impartially, and have yet reserved so much of the Christian as to believe, and at least to hope, that a rational creature cannot abandon himself so as to act without some reason, and are willing not only to have me defend myself, but to be able to answer for me where they hear me causelessly insulted by others, and therefore are willing to have such just arguments put into their mouths as the cause will bear.

As for those who are prepossessed, and according to the modern justice of parties are resolved to be so, let them go; I am not arguing with them, but against them; they act so contrary to justice, to reason, to religion, so contrary to the rules of Christians and of good manners, that they are not to be argued with, but to be exposed or entirely neglected. I have a receipt against all the uneasiness which it may be supposed to give me, and that is, to contemn slander, and think it not worth the least concern; neither should I think it worth while to give any answer to it, if it were not on some other accounts, of which I shall speak as I go on. If any young man ask me why I am in such haste to publish this matter at this time, among many other good reasons which I could give, these are some:—

1. I think I have long enough been made Fabula Vulgi, and borne the weight of general slander; and I should be wanting to truth, to my family, and to myself, if I did not give a fair and true state of my conduct, for impartial men to judge of when I am no more in being to answer for myself.

2. By the hints of mortality, and by the infirmities of a life of sorrow and fatigue, I have reason to think I am not a great way off from, if not very near to, the great ocean of eternity, and the time may not be long ere I embark on the last voyage. Wherefore I think I should even accounts with this world before I go, that no actions [slanders] may lie against my heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, to disturb them in the peaceable possession of their father's [character] inheritance.

3. I fear—God grant I have not a second sight in it—that this lucid interval of temper and moderation which shines, though dimly too, upon us at this time, will be of but short continuance; and that some men, who know not how to use the advantage God has put into their hands with moderation, will push, in spite of the best Prince in the world, at such extravagant things, and act with such an intemperate forwardness, as will revive the heats and animosities which wise and good men were in hopes should be allayed by the happy accession of the King to the throne.

It is and ever was my opinion, that moderation is the only virtue by which the peace and tranquillity of this nation can be preserved. Even the King himself—I believe his Majesty will allow me that freedom—can only be happy in the enjoyment of the crown by a moderative administration. If his Majesty should be obliged, contrary to his known disposition, to join with intemperate councils, if it does not lessen his security I am persuaded it will lessen his satisfaction. It cannot be pleasant or agreeable, and I think it cannot be safe, to any just prince to rule over a divided people, split into incensed and exasperated parties. Though a skillful mariner may have courage to master a tempest, and goes fearless through a storm, yet he can never be said to delight in the danger; a fresh fair gale and a quiet sea is the pleasure of his voyage, and we have a saying worth notice to them that are otherwise minded,—"Quit ama periculum, periebat in illo."



ENGAGING A MAID-SERVANT

From "Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business"

Besides, the fear of spoiling their clothes makes them afraid of household work, so that in a little time we shall have none but chambermaids and nurserymaids; and of this let me give you one instance. My family is composed of myself and sister, a man and maid; and being without the last, a young wench came to hire herself. The man was gone out, and my sister above-stairs, so I opened the door myself, and this person presented herself to my view, dressed completely, more like a visitor than a servant-maid; she, not knowing me, asked for my sister. "Pray, madam," said I, "be pleased to walk into the parlor; she shall wait on you presently." Accordingly I handed madam in, who took it very cordially. After some apology I left her alone for a minute or two, while I, stupid wretch! ran up to my sister and told her there was a gentlewoman below come to visit her. "Dear brother," said she, "don't leave her alone; go down and entertain her while I dress myself." Accordingly down I went, and talked of indifferent affairs; meanwhile my sister dressed herself all over again, not being willing to be seen in an undress. At last she came down dressed as clean as her visitor; but how great was my surprise when I found my fine lady a common servant-wench.

My sister, understanding what she was, began to inquire what wages she expected. She modestly asked but eight pounds a year. The next question was, "What work she could do to deserve such wages?" to which she answered she could clean a house, or dress a common family dinner. "But cannot you wash," replied my sister, "or get up linen?" She answered in the negative, and said she would undertake neither, nor would she go into a family that did not put out their linen to wash and hire a charwoman to scour. She desired to see the house, and having carefully surveyed it, said the work was too hard for her, nor could she undertake it. This put my sister beyond all patience, and me into the greatest admiration. "Young woman," she said, "you have made a mistake; I want a housemaid, and you are a chambermaid." "No, madam," replied she, "I am not needlewoman enough for that." "And yet you ask eight pounds a year," replied my sister. "Yes, madam," said she, "nor shall I bate a farthing." "Then get you gone for a lazy impudent baggage," said I; "you want to be a boarder, not a servant; have you a fortune or estate, that you dress at that rate?" "No, sir," said she, "but I hope I may wear what I work for without offense." "What! you work?" interrupted my sister; "why, you do not seem willing to undertake any work; you will not wash nor scour; you cannot dress a dinner for company; you are no needlewoman; and our little house of two rooms on a floor is too much for you. For God's sake, what can you do?" "Madam," replied she pertly, "I know my business, and do not fear service; there are more places than parish churches: if you wash at home, you should have a laundrymaid; if you give entertainments, you must have a cookmaid; if you have any needlework, you should have a chambermaid; and such a house as this is enough for a housemaid, in all conscience."

I was so pleased at the wit, and astonished at the impudence of the girl, so dismissed her with thanks for her instructions, assuring her that when I kept four maids she should be housemaid if she pleased.



THE DEVIL

From 'The True-Born Englishman'

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. For ever since he first debauched the mind, He made a perfect conquest of mankind. With uniformity of service, he Reigns with general aristocracy. No non-conforming sects disturb his reign, For of his yoke there's very few complain. He knows the genius and the inclination, And matches proper sins for every nation. He needs no standing army government; He always rules us by our own consent; His laws are easy, and his gentle sway Makes it exceeding pleasant to obey. The list of his vicegerents and commanders Outdoes your Caesars or your Alexanders. They never fail of his infernal aid, And he's as certain ne'er to be betrayed. Through all the world they spread his vast command, And death's eternal empire is maintained. They rule so politicly and so well, As if they were Lords Justices of hell; Duly divided to debauch mankind, And plant infernal dictates in his mind.



THERE IS A GOD

From 'The Storm'

For in the darkest of the black abode There's not a devil but believes a God. Old Lucifer has sometimes tried To have himself deified; But devils nor men the being of God denied, Till men of late found out new ways to sin, And turned the devil out to let the Atheist in. But when the mighty element began, And storms the weighty truth explain, Almighty power upon the whirlwind rode, And every blast proclaimed aloud There is, there is, there is a God.



EDUARD DOUWES DEKKER

(1820-1887)

Ten years after 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' there appeared in Amsterdam a book that caused as great a sensation among the Dutch coffee-traders on the Amstel, as had Harriet Beecher Stowe's wonderful story among the slaveholders at the South. This book was 'Max Havelaar,' and its author, veiled under the suggestive pen-name of "Multatuli" ("who have suffered much"), at once became famous. It frankly admitted that it was a novel with a purpose, and this purpose was to bring home to his countrymen the untold sufferings and oppression to which the natives of the Dutch East Indies were subjected, in order that the largest possible profit might flow into the coffers of the people of Holland. Multatuli, under the disguise of fiction, professed to give facts he had himself collected on the spot.

Eduard Douwes Dekker, born in 1820 in Amsterdam, went as a youth of seventeen to the Dutch colonies. There for nearly twenty years he was in the employ of the government, obtaining at last the post of Assistant Resident of Lebak, a province of Java. In this responsible position he used his influence to stem the abuses and extortions practiced by the native chiefs against the defenseless populace. But his humanitarianism clashed with the interests of his government, and sacrificing a brilliant career to a principle, he sent in his resignation and returned to Holland in 1856 a poor man. He began to put his experiences on paper, and in 1860 published the book that made him famous. 'Max Havelaar' is a bitter arraignment of the Dutch colonial system, and gives a more excruciating picture of the slavery of the natives of fair "Insulind" than ever existed in the South. For nearly three hundred years Dutch burghers on the Scheldt, the Maas, and the Amstel, have waxed fat on the labors of the Malays of the far East. In these islands of the East-Indian Archipelago the relations between the Europeans and the Dutch are peculiar, based on the policy of the government of getting the largest possible revenues out of these fertile possessions. Practically the native is a Dutch subject, and the product of his labor goes directly to Holland; nominally he is still ruled by his tribal chief, to whom he is blindly and superstitiously devoted. Playing on this feudal attachment, the Dutch, while theoretically pledging themselves to protect the defenseless populace against rapacity, have yet so arranged the administration that the chiefs have unlimited opportunities of extortion. They are paid premiums on whatever their provinces furnish for the foreign market, and as they have practically full control over the persons and property of their subjects, they force these poor wretches to contribute whatever they may demand in unpaid labor and provisions, besides the land taxes.