18 A PLEA FOR CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT.

and incisive, and shrewd though i!
is, it lacks the elements of genuine
poetry.*
King William deeply felt the value
> of the service which De Foe had ren-
dered him. He sent for him to the
palace; received him with marked
kindness; employed him in con-
fidential commissions; and from
that time accorded him free access
—to his cabinet. In these inter-
SX views the .great questions of the
* day were frankly discussed, and
especially that all-important ques-
‘tion, the union of England and
Scotland. On this point De Foe

 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
  

eos . SS pressed the King closely: “ It shall
be done.” said William, ‘“ but not
PORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM IIL t af
yet.

Cheered and encouraged by the royal confidence, De Foe resumed his pen
with more energy than ever. In the limits to which we are confined it
would be impossible to record even the titles of the numerous forcible and
well-reasoned pamphlets produced by his indefatigable industry. It is a
significant mark of the fulness of his mind and the versatility of his intellect
that not one of them is below mediocrity, while many rise far above it. The
most interesting and the ablest of those which appeared prior to the death
of William is the celebrated pamphlet entitled “ The Original Power of the
Collective Body of the People of England, Examined and Asserted. With
a Double Dedication to the King and to the Parliament.’ Mr. Chalmers
rightly says of it, ‘‘ Every lover of liberty must be pleased with the perusal
of a treatise which vies with Mr. Locke’s famous tract in power of reasoning,
and is superior to it in the graces of style.” Mr. Forster, a still more com-
petent judge, describes it as distinguished for its plain and nervous diction,
The grounds of popular representation, he says, are so happily condensed
and so clearly stated in it, that it became the text-book of political disput-
ants from the days of the expulsion of Walpole and of Wilkes to those ot
the Reform Bill. It may be briefly described, he continues, as a demonstra

* “In this composition the satire was strong, powerful, and manly, upbraiding the
English Tories for their unreasonable prejudice against foreigners ; the rather that there
were so many nations blended in the mass now called Englishmen. The verse was rough
and mistuned, for De Foe never seems to have possessed an ear for the melody of language,
whether in prose or verse. But though wanting ‘the long resounding verse and energy
divine’ of Dryden, he had often masculine expressions and happy turns of thought not
unwoithy of the author of Absalom and Achitophel, though, upon the whole, his style

seems rather to have been formed on that of Hall, Oldham, and the elder satirists.”—
Sir Walter Scott, “‘ Biographies: Danicl De Foe” (edit. 1847) p. 397.