CHAPTER III.

DE FOE AS A WRITER OF FICTION.

political writings, I propose in the present to examine his career
as a novelist; to regard him in the capacity in which, despite his

 

government, he is best known and most admired by posterity.

ae Early in 1715 De Foe was visited with an attack of apoplexy;
the result, perhaps, of his severe and incessant labours, added to the storm
of undeserved obloquy which constantly assailed him. After his recovery,
which was slow and gradual, he produced a work entitled “The Family
Instructor, in Three Parts”
-—a work of nearly 450
pages, probably written be-:
fore his illness, and revised
and published on his restora-
tion to health. It is a book
of admirable wisdom, con-
taining much devout and
zealous counsel to fathers
and children, to masters and
\ servants, to husbands and
\S wives; and to me it illus-
\ trates, in a very forcible and
\ striking manner; the genuine
nature of the man, his
simple earnestness and un-
affected piety. Passing over,
as I have intimated my in-
tention to do, his minor
pamphlets and flying sheets,
I must notice, as published in 1717, his “History of the Wars of Charles
XIL, King of Sweden;” and his second series (1718) of “The Family
Instructor, in Two Parts: Part I., Relating to Family Breaches, and their
Obstructing Religious Duties; IL, To the Great Mistake of Mixing the

 

DANIEL DE FOE.