In other matters which relate to polite writing, I shall seldom differ from you; or, if I do, shall, I hope, have the prudence to conceal my opinion.

The Tower, April 10, 1723.

I THANK you for all the instances of your friendship both before and since my misfortunes. A little time will complete them, and separate you and me for ever. But in what part of the world soever I am, I will live mindful of your sincere kindness to me; and will please myself with the thought, that I still live in your esteem and affection, as much as ever I did; and that no accidents of life, no distance of time or place, will alter you in that respect. It never can me; who have loved and valued you ever since I knew you, and shall not fail to do it when I am not allowed to tell you so; as the case will soon be. Give my faithful services to Dr. Arbuthnot, and thanks for what he sent me, which was much to the purpose, if any thing can be said to be to the purpose in a case that is already determined. Let him know my defence will be such, that neither my friends need blush for me, nor will my enemies have great occasion of triumph, though sure of the victory. I shall want his advice before I go abroad, in many things. But I question whether I shall be permitted to see him, or any body but such as are absolutely necessary towards the despatch of my private affairs. If so, God bless you both! and may no part of the ill fortune that attends me pursue either of you! I know not but I may call upon you at my hearing, to say somewhat about my way of spending my time at the Deanery, which did not seem calculated towards managing plots and conspiracies. But of that I shall consider.——You and I have spent many hours together upon much pleasanter subjects; and, that I may preserve the old custom, I shall not part with you now

till I have closed this letter with three lines of Milton, which you will, I know, readily and not without some degree of concern apply to your ever affectionate, &c. FR. ROFFEN.

Some natural tears he dropt, but wip'd them soon:

The world was all before him, where to chuse

His place of rest, and Providence his Guide.'

Paris, Nov. 23, 1731.

WHAT are they doing in England to the honour of letters? and particularly what are you doing?

'Ipse quid audes?

Quae circumvolitas agilis thyma ? '

Do you pursue the Moral Plan [the Essay on Man] you marked out, and seemed sixteen months ago so intent upon? Am I to see it perfected ere I die? and are you to enjoy the reputation of it while you live? or do you rather choose to leave the marks of your friendship, like the legacies of a will, to be read and enjoyed only by those who survive you? Were I as near you as I have been, I should hope to peep into the manuscript before it was finished. But, alas! there is, and will ever probably be, a great deal of land and sea between us. How many books have come out of late in your parts, which you think I should be glad to peruse? Name them: the Catalogue, I believe, will not cost you much trouble. They must be good ones indeed to challenge any part of my time, now I have so little of it left. I, who squandered whole days heretofore, now husband hours, when the glass begins to run low, and care not to mis-spend them on trifles. At the end of the lottery of life, our last minutes, like tickets left in the wheel, rise in their valuation. They are not of so much worth, perhaps, in themselves, as those which preceded; but we are apt to prize them more, and with reason. I do so, my dear friend, and yet think the most precious

minutes of my life well employed in reading what you write.

My country, at this distance, seems to me a strange sight: I know not how it appears to you, who are in the midst of the scene, and yourself a part of it: I wish you would tell

me. ...

After all, I do and must love my country, with all its faults and blemishes; even that part of the constitution which wounded me unjustly, and itself through my side, shall ever be dear to me. My last wish will be like that of Father Paul, 'Esto perpetua!' and when I die at a distance from it, it will be in the same manner as Virgil describes the expiring Peloponnesian,

'Sternitur

et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos.'

Do I still live in the memory of my friends, as they do in mine?-Epistolary Correspondence.

XXIII.

DANIEL DEFOE.

CIRCA 1663-1731.

DANIEL DEFOE was born in London about 1663.

His father, James Foe, was a citizen and butcher of the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate.

Little is known of his early life except that his family were Protestant Dissenters, and that he was educated at a dissenting academy at Newington. He became an author before he was twenty-one, and is said to have devoted to literature and politics time which was necessary for the conduct of his business, which was that of a hosier. In 1692 he became a bankrupt, and was obliged to abscond from his creditors. A composition was entered into, and by unwearied diligence he succeeded in making the payments with punctuality.

In 1683 he took arms as a follower of the Duke of Monmouth, and in 1688 he zealously favoured the Revolution. He was more than once the object of prosecution for his political writings, and in 1703 he was sentenced to the pillory, and to be fined and imprisoned, but he did not lose heart, and his time in Newgate was fruitful of literary projects.

The formerly current opinion that Defoe's political career came to a close immediately, or very soon after, the accession of the House of Hanover, is now known to be erroneous. From 1715 to 1726 he contributed largely to various Jacobite journals, with the connivance and in the pay of the ministries who held power during that period. In this employment it was expected of him to restrain the violence of the malcontent party for whom he ostensibly worked, and to keep the Government duly informed of the movements and projects of the partisans of the Stuarts. This course of conduct has left a deep stain on the memory of

Defoe; nevertheless it is difficult to believe that he was not a man of a naturally simple, straightforward, earnest character. Such a character is reflected in his language, which though careless and hasty, is always that of a clear thinker, and of one who writes only because he has something to say. He is an excellent example of a plain style. The bulk of his voluminous works is political. It was not until he was fifty-eight that he commenced a new career of authorship as a writer of fiction, and among other works of that class produced the History of the Plague, from which two of the following extracts are taken. Robinson Crusoe first appeared in 1719, and was succeeded by several other tales, which, if showing equal power, neither obtained nor perhaps deserved the same wide-spread popularity. His narrative style has the same merits, after its kind, as his political style. Defoe died in the parish in which he was born in 1731.

1. The Plague of London.

INDEED, the poor people were to be pitied in one particular thing, in which they had little or no relief, and which I desire to mention with a serious awe and reflection, which, perhaps, every one that reads this may not relish; namely, that whereas Death now began not, as we may say, to hover over every one's head only, but to look into their houses, and chambers, and stare in their faces; though there might be some stupidity, and dulness of the mind, and there was so, a great deal; yet, there was a great deal of just alarm, sounded in the very inmost soul, if I may so say, of others. Many consciences were awakened; many hard hearts melted into tears; and many a penitent confession was made of crimes long concealed. It would have wounded the soul of any Christian to have heard the dying groans of many a despairing creature; and none durst

come near to comfort them. Many a robbery, many a murder, was then confessed aloud, and nobody surviving