20 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR

 

Before his imprisonment De Foe kept his carriage, and lived in an easy,
comfortable style; but being no longer able to attend to the pantile works, from
which he derived his support, they were given up, the capital invested in them
lost, and himself and a wife and six children thrown for their support upon
the products of his pen. Thus burdened, and made the companion of erimi-
nals, his fortitude did not forsake him: conscious of his integrity, and of the
righteousness of the cause for which he suffered, he cast himself upon the wis-
dom and goodness of that Providence which had hitherto sustained him, and
rising sup?rior to disgrace felt and said,

“Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage ;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for a hermitage.”—Hymn to the Pillory,

There can be little doubt that he associated occasionally with the prisoners,
and communicated those moral and religious instructions which he was so well
fitted to give. It is also probable that many of the desperate characters of his
novels were suggested by the companious he had here; and that the prison be-
game ax school of discipline, in which his mind was familiarized to degradation
and distress. But hitherto his writings had been devoted to politics, or those
plans by which the external condition of society might be ameliorated, and he
did not allow his imprisonment to divert him from his course. Twenty-two
pamphlets were written by him while in prison; and a pirated edition of his
works having been published, he gave the world “A True Collection of the
Writings of the Author of ‘The True-Born Englishman,’ corrected by him-
self.” It contains twenty-two pieces, and in some copies there is the following
advertisement :—

“Whereas there is a spurious collection of the writings of Mr. De Foe, author
of ‘The Tree-Born Hnglishman,’ which contain several things not writ by the
said author, and those that are full of errors, mistakes, and omissions, which
invert the sense and design of the author, This is to give notice that the gen-
uine collection, price six shillings, is corrected by himself, with additions
never before printed, hath the author’s picture before it, curiously engraved
on copper by Mr. Vandergucht; and contains more than double the number
of tracts inserted in the said spurious collection.”

This portrait was from a painting by Taverner, and represents the author in
such a dress as we may suppose he wore when he attended the levees of Wil-
liam and Mary. It is generally admitted to be the best likeness extant, and a
beautiful copy of it, engraved on wood by Clarkson, is prefixed to this edition.

The most important of the works which he projected in Newgate was “The
Review,” the first number of which was issued on Saturday, February 19,
1704, and continued weekly till the ninth number, when it was published twice
a week, on the Tuesdays and Saturdays. It consisted at first of eight quarto
pages, and was sold at the low price of one penny, but with the fifth num.
ber it was reduced to half a sheet, “the publishers of this paper. honestly
declaring that while they make it a whole sheet they get nothing by it;