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On Defoe's list of victims murdered, as he calls it, by Claverhouse's own hand is the name of Graham of Galloway. The young man, he says, being pursued by the dragoons, had taken refuge in his mother's house; but being driven out thence was overtaken by Claverhouse and shot dead with a pistol, though he offered to surrender and begged hard for his life.
Their loyal writers attributed Defoe's pardon to the secret Jacobitism of the Ministry quite wrongly as we have just seen he was acting for Harley as a Hanoverian and not as a Jacobite.
It is not likely that so shrewd a lawyer would have overlooked such a chance as this, a case of murder committed in his own country; for murder it would certainly have been, were Defoe's story true. In 1682 military executions had not been sanctioned by law; and for a soldier to shoot a man offering to surrender would have been as clear a case of murder as was the butchery on Magus Moor.
Young people still read it as they might a dime novel, skipping its moralizing passages and hurrying on to more adventures; but they seldom appreciate the excellent mature reasons which banish the dime novel to a secret place in the haymow, while Crusoe hangs proudly on the Christmas tree or holds an honored place on the family bookshelf. Defoe's Apparition of Mrs.
To Defoe's genius we are also indebted for two discoveries, the "interview" and the leading editorial, both of which are still in daily use in our best newspapers. The fourth fact to remember is that Defoe knew prison life; and thereby hangs a tale.
But the great point of Gulliver is that, like Defoe's work, though in not quite the same way, it is interesting that it takes hold of its reader and gives him its "peculiar pleasure." When a work of art does this, it is pretty near perfection.
They greeted the author of this pamphlet as a friend and ally. The Dissenters did not see the satire either, and found in the writer a new and most bitter enemy. But when at last Defoe's meaning became plain the High Church party was very angry, and resolved to punish him. Defoe fled into hiding.
But in the main, the book reflected Defoe's strong tendency to speculate upon unusual and supernatural phenomena, and utterly failed to "divulge the secret intrigues and amours of one part of the sex, to give the other part room to make favorite scandal the subject of their discourse." That Defoe had refrained from treating one important aspect of Duncan Campbell's activities he was well aware.
This skirmish served the double purpose of strengthening Harley against the reckless zealots of his party, and keeping up Defoe's appearance of impartiality.
It is indeed distressing to think that while many scores of thousands of copies of Lord Lytton's flashy romance, "Paul Clifford," have been devoured by the public, "Captain Singleton" has remained unread and almost forgotten. But the explanation is simple. Defoe's plain and homely realism soon grew to be thought vulgar by people who themselves aspired to be refined and genteel.
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