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Updated: May 23, 2025
Defoe's own test of a good writer was that he should at once please and serve his readers, and he kept this double object in view in his newspaper writings, as much as in Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, and the Family Instructor. Great as is the variety of subjects in the selections which Mr.
A sailor named Alexander Selkirk had been "marooned" on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez, and after living there alone for more than four years, had been taken off by the same captain who had abandoned him. The interest taken in England in the narrative of this event revealed to Defoe's acute mind a great literary opportunity.
It was more rationally and effectually dealt with in Defoe's High Church Legion, or the Memorial examined; but one is sometimes tempted to wish that the cry of the Church in danger might be as summarily disposed of as it was in the reign of Queen Anne, when to vote its safety was deemed sufficient to insure it. Drake's misfortunes as a writer were as conspicuous as his abilities.
If you pass but by, and take no notice, they will yelp and make a noise, and perhaps run a little after you; but turn back, offer to strike them or throw stones at them, and you'll never have done nay, you'll raise all the dogs of the parish upon you." This last was precisely what the Government did, and they found reason to regret that they did not take Defoe's advice and let Sacheverell alone.
When Defoe's jest was discovered, and his opponents found that the book was "writ sarcastic," they caused the unhappy author to be severely punished. Parliament condemned his book to the flames, and its author to the pillory and to prison.
If Defoe had a real man Friday, who had learnt all his arts till he could practise them as well as himself, the fact might go to explain his enormous productiveness as an author. But I doubt whether the allegory can be pushed into such details. Defoe's fancy was quick enough to give an allegorical meaning to any tale.
We get a pleasant glimpse of Defoe's life at this period from the notes of Henry Baker, the naturalist, who married one of his daughters and received his assistance, as we have seen, in starting The Universal Spectator. Baker, original a bookseller, in 1724 set up a school for the deaf and dumb at Newington.
Defoe's philosophers, who spent their lives trying to extract sunshine from cucumbers, never entertained any more fantastic notion than this of yours. However, it's your funeral, not mine. You're paying for it. I decline to put in any funds for any such purpose. Amuse yourself; you've got to settle the bill." Flint smiled sourly, his gold tooth glinting, but made no answer.
It was an adventurous life he led, full of dark and shadowy passages which we cannot understand and so perhaps cannot pardon. But whether he sold his pen or no we are bound to confess that Defoe's desire was towards the good, towards peace, union, and justice. One thing he fought for with all his buoyant strength was the Union between England and Scotland.
But Cotton Mather's Magnalia, a vast book dealing with the past history of New England, was printed in 1702, only a year later than Defoe's True-Born Englishman. For more than two centuries the development of English speech and English writing on this side of the Atlantic has kept measurable pace now slower, now swifter with the speech of the mother country.
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