MEMOIR OF DE FOE. xv

the “History of Duncan Campbell,” the “Fortunes and Misfor-
tunes of Moll Flanders,” the “Life of Colonel Jacque,” the
“ Memoirs of a Cavalier,” and that extraordinary work, the “ Ac-
count of the Plague.” We might possibly have laid before the
reader a correct list of the multifarious productions of our author,
many of them, until of late, most difficult to be obtained, had not the
spirit of the times called for complete editions of De Foe’s works,
most welcome and valuable offerings to the reading part of the nation.

The latter years of De Foe’s life must have been those of com-
petence, a most honorable competence, insured to him by his works,
and the rapidity with which editions followed editions. There is,
however, a too miserable proof of his sufferings, inflicted upon him
by the cruelty and undutifulness of his son, who, to quote a letter of
De Foe, written in his anguish, “has both ruined my family and
broken my heart.” De Foe adds, “I depended upon him, I trusted
him, I gave up my two dear unprovided children into his hands; but
he has no compassion, and suffers them and their poor dying mother
to beg their bread at his door, and to crave, as if it were an alms,
what he is bound under hand and seal, besifles the most sacred
promises, to supply them with; himself at the same time, living in
a profusion of plenty. It is too much for me.”

For some years before his death, De Foe was tormented with
those dreadful maladies, the gout and the stone, occasioned, in part,
most probably, by his close application to study, whilst making pos-
terity the heirs of undying wisdom. De Foe expired on the 24th of
April, 1731, when he was about seventy years of age, having been
born in the year 1661. The parish of St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, in
which he drew his first breath, was also destined to receive his last.
He was buried from thence, on the 26th of April, in Tindall’s burial-
ground, now most known by the name of Bunhill Fields. His wife
died at the latter end of the following year. De Foe left six chil-
dren, two sons and four daughters, whose descendants are living at
the present time.

The character of De Foe was but the practical example of his
noble writings. As a citizen of the world, his love of truth, and the
patience, the cheerfulness, with which he endured the obloquy and
persecution of his enemies, endear him to us as a great working
benefactor to his race. His memory is enshrined with the memories
of those who make steadfast our faith in the nobility and goodness
of human nature. As a writer, De Foe has bequeathed to us im-
perishable stores of the highest and the most useful wisdom. If he
paint vice, it is to show its hideousness ; whilst virtue itself receives
a new attraction at his hands. His poetry is chiefly distinguished
for its fine common sense; it has no flights—it never wraps us by
its imagination, but convinces us by its terseness; by the irresist-
ible eloquence of its truth. De Foe’s prose, though occasionally
careless, is remarkable for its simplicity and strength. What he has
to say, he says in the shortest manner, and in the simplest style. He
does not—the vice of our day—hide his thoughts under a glittering
mass of words, but uses words as the pictures of things. It is owing