Yet Mr. Lee is not prepared to allow that this ignoble employment lowers Defoe's character for integrity, consistency, and independence.

From his early youth, Defoe was a politician and a journalist, and it is curious to observe how often this many-sided man, with his suppleness of intellect, his broad tolerance and independent thought, advocated the views and started in the tracks with which the present age is familiar. He anticipated recent discoveries, suggested what we are wont to regard as modern theories, battled bravely for truths which are even now but partially established, evinced a power of grasping details as well as principles, and displayed that practical sagacity which we are sometimes foolish enough to regard as a national characteristic.

Mr. Lee observes that Defoe was the first advocate of free trade, and points out that the chief supporters of the principle were Tories, while the Whigs argued for protection and prohibition. He denounced begging as strongly as Archbishop Whately, and on the same grounds; he demanded entire freedom of the press; he pointed out the evils of the slave trade long before the national conscience had revolted against it; he proposed the foundation of a University in London, of an hospital

for foundlings, and of an academy of music; he suggested plans for diminishing the evils of prostitution, and a plan for the proper management of the insane. Like Steele he had once in his life been forced to fight a duel, and like Steele he pronounced duelling a folly and a sin. He wrote against the multiplication of unnecessary oaths; he advocated, as he well might, prison reform; he suggested means for the prevention of street robberies; he argued for the importance of a standing army, and for the necessity of giving a liberal education to

women.

"I would have men take women for companions" he said, "and educate them to be fit for it," and he adds, "I cannot think that God ever made them so delicate, so glorious creatures, and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable and delightful to mankind, with souls capable of the same enjoyments as men, and all to be only stewards of our houses, cooks, and slaves."

In an age when toleration was so little understood that a law was passed preventing Dissenters from acting as schoolmasters-when printers were hanged for printing treasonable pamphlets-when the frank expression of opinion led to the pillory, to confiscation, and to Newgate-Defoe, fearless and unabashed, as he is justly termed in the 'Dunciad,' advocated the right of private judgment and the broadest toleration of all forms of religious belief. In an age

when fashionable vices were mistaken for virtues; when Dean Swift was on friendly terms with Mrs. Manley; when the Countess of Suffolk was courted by the wits; when Cabinet Ministers got drunk as a matter of course; when bribes were openly offered and accepted, and Sir Robert Walpole declared, “I know the price of every man in the Lords except three;" when many of the clergy frequented alehouses and taverns, or spent their time in hunting after preferment; when even the dull, respectable court of the good-natured Queen Anne was sometimes notorious for its orgies; and when, as Mr. Lee observes, the grossest vice was exhibited openly ;— Defoe, true-born Englishman as he was, spoke out boldly against the follies and sins of the time. His language on such occasions is rarely polite, but it is always vigorous, although not always just. Sometimes, too, he falls into a fault he would have been the first to condemn in others, and apes the flatterer -an office that seems strangely at variance with his rough-grained democratic nature. In spite of King William's connection with Lady Orkney, Defoe declares that " he was a prince of the greatest piety, sincerity, and unfeigned religion either history relates or memory informs of in the world." Prince George of Denmark, who, according to

Of

Macaulay, was hardly an accountable being, and of whom Charles II. said, "I have tried Prince George sober and I have tried him drunk; and, drunk or sober, there is nothing in him," Defoe writes in the most extravagant strain of eulogy, terming him a great and good man, whose sedateness of judgment and consummate prudence commanded respect from the whole nation. Of Queen Anne, who, according to the courtier-preachers of the age, was endowed with transcendent virtues, Defoe sings, in something slightly better than his wonted doggerel:

"Our Church established and our trade restored,
Our friends protected and our peace secured,
France humbled, and our fleets insulting Spain,—
These are the triumphs of a female reign.
At home, her milder influence she imparts,
Queen of our souls and monarch of our hearts;
If change of sexes thus will change our scenes,
Grant, Heaven, we always may be ruled by queens!"

And of George I., a selfish libertine, who cared infinitely more for his German mistresses and cooks than for the welfare of his kingdom, Defoe writes:

"His person is comely and grave, his countenance has majesty and sweetness so mixt that nothing can be better suited to the throne of a king. His temper is goodness itself, inexpressibly obliging, to the last degree courteous and kind, yet not lowered beneath the dignity of his birth. He is steady in council, sedate in resolving, vigorous in executing, brave and gallant in the field, wise and politick in the camp, enterprising

in the matter of action, and yet of so calm a courage that he who dares do anything that is fit to do, can never be in danger of precipitating into what is impracticable to be done. In short, if it may be said of any man in Europe, it may be said of his Majesty, that he is born for council and fitted to command the world."

This flattery of monarchs was carried so far in that day as to reach, in many cases, to sheer blasphemy. Few writers of the century are without traces of the complaint, and, compared with some of his contemporaries, Defoe may be said to have had it in a mild form.

Yet

In spite of this folly, which belonged rather to the time than to the man, Defoe in the earlier part of his career seems to have acted with consummate honesty. King William was attracted by the 'True-born Englishman," and Defoe received some favours from the monarch in consequence. his intercourse with the king was no restraint to his pen, and he wrote in opposition to the war with France a piece characterized by Mr. Henry Kingsley as headlong radicalism with a vengeance. If Defoe as a politician did not shrink from offending the best friend he ever had, he was equally ready as a polemic to attack the most illustrious members of the sect to which he owned allegiance. Among his pamphlets is one entitled,