MEMOIR Of DE FOR. Vv

“Speculum Crape-Gownorum; or, a Looking-Glass for the Young
Academicks new Foyl’d; with Reflections on some of the late High
Flown Sermons: to which is added, an Essay towards a Sermon of
the Newest Fashion. By a Guide to the Inferiour Clergie. Riden-
tem dicere Verum Quis Vetat. London: Printed for E. Rydal.
1682.” This title De Foe borrowed from the crape gowns then
usually worn by the inferior clergy; and in the book, he fights the
fight of the Dissenters against what he terms the libels of the estab-
lished clergy. “The fertility of the subject,” says Mr. Wilson,
“soon produced a second part of the ‘Speculum;’ in which the
author deals more seriously with the government, and by a practical
view of the effect of persecution, exposed its absurdity.”

We have entered more at length into the nature and purpose of
De Foe’s first book, than will be permitted to us by our limits to do
with each of the works that now followed, in rapid profusion, from
the pen of our author. All that we purpose to ourselves is, to give
the strongest outlines of his character,—the principal events of his
career; and, avoiding on one hand a jejune brevity, that confines
itself to mere dates, attempt not, on the other side, a minute descrip-
tion of events incompatible with our present object.

When the Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme, De Foe was
among those who joined the standard of the haplessnobleman. “A.
romantic kind of invasion,’’ says Welwood, “and scarcely paralleled
in history.” At the age of four-and-twenty, we see De Foe, the
author of “ Robinson Crusoe,” a soldier; as ready with his sword
as prompt with his pen, in the cause of rational liberty. Of Mon-
mouth, De Foe seems to have had some previous knowledge, having
often seen him at Aylesbury races, where the duke rode his own
horses—a circumstance alluded to by our author in his “ Tour.”
De Foe had the good fortune to escape the vengeance visited upon
so many of the duke’s supporters, and returned in safety to London ;
where, leaving the stormy region of politics, he now directed his
attention’ to trade. The nature of his business has been variously
represented. In several publications of the time, he is styled a “ ho-
sier ;” but, if we may believe his own account, he was a hose-factor,
or the middle-man between the manufacturer and the retail dealer.
This agency concern he carried on for some years, in Freeman’s
Court, Cornhill; Mr. Chalmers says, from 1685 to 1695. On the
26th of January, 1687-8, having claimed his freedom by birth, he was
admitted a liveryman of London. In the Chamberlain’s book, his
name was written “ Daniel Foe.”

When the Revolution took place, De Foe was a resident in Toot-
ing, in Surrey, where he was the first person who attempted to form
the Dissenters in the neighborhood into a regular congregation. De
Foe was for many years a resident in this part of Aue it is likely
that he had a country-house there during the time that he carried on
his hose agency in Cornhill. De Foe was one of the most ardent
worshippers of the Revolution: he annually commemorated the 4th
of November as a day of deliverance. “A day,” says he, “famous
On various accounts, and every one of them dear to Britons who love