THE CHARACTER OF AN HONEST MAN. 27

part of the rights at issue in those party struggles, it the more becomes us
to remember such a man with gratitude, and with wise consideration for
what errors we may find in him. He was too much in the constant heat ot
the battle to see all that we see now. He was not a philosopher himself,
but he helped philosophy to some wise conclusions. He did not stand at
the highest point of toleration,* or of moral wisdom ; but with his masculine,
active arm, he helped to lif, his successors over obstructions which had
stayed his own advance. He stood, in his opinions and his actions, alone
and apart from his fellow-men; but it was to show his fellow-men of later
times the value of a juster and larger fellowship, and of more generous modes
of action. And when he now retreated from the world Without to the
world Within,t in the solitariness of his unrewarded service and integrity,
he had assuredly earned the right to challenge the higher recognition of
posterity. He was walking towards History with steady feet; and might
look up into her awful face with a brow unabashed and undismayed.

* Yet I am inclined to think he better understood and more ardeatly advocated the
great doctrine of toleration than any man of his time, or any man since the Protector
Cromwell and his Latin secretary, John Milton.

+ Mr. Forster here shares the belief common to all De Foe’s biographers before Mr.
Lee’s researches revealed the truth, that De Foe retired from political warfare after the
accession of George I. We shall see that such was not the case.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DE FOE’S HOUSE AT NEWINGTON.