Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 7.djvu/112

 74 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS The genius of Eyre Crowe has given a wonderful life and color to this memorable incident. This dead thing seems charged with a very passion of vitality in the charming illustration that accompanies this sketch. It is impos- sible to recur to the degradation of one of Great Britain's finest geniuses, at the instance of men of no more importance to posterity than the worms which have eaten them up, without wrath and disgust. But he was popular, and the crowd used him handsomely. They pelted him with flowers and drank his health. Pope, in a famous line, speaks of the London Monument that, like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies, because of the inscription upon it that charged the Papists with causing the great fire. The malignant little hunchback, as malevolent as an ape for all his genius, could tell lies as great as any the chisel could grave, and unfortunately, infinitely more lasting. When he wrote : " Earless on high stands unabash'd Defoe," he knew he lied. Defoe did not lose his ears. He was pil- loried simply, and for three days successively, stood in Cornhill, in Cheapside, and at Temple Bar, where our illustration exhibits him. He went to Newgate ; the government dared not hinder him from writing, and it was while a prisoner that he heroically started " The Review," at first a weekly, and afterward a bi-weekly, issue. It was also in Newgate that he learnt much of those secrets of the prison- house which, translated into "Moll Flanders" and "Colonel Jack," are tran- scripts so exquisitely faithful that one knows not how to parallel them in art save by the paintings of Hogarth. He had a wife and six children at this time, and it is difficult to guess how he provided for them. His works at Tilbury were a failure : it may be supposed that his pen was his sole resource. The Earl of Nottingham resigned office in 1704, and was succeeded by Rob- ert Harley, afterward Earl of Oxford. Harley, who had a high sense of Defoe's genius, sent a messenger to the author lying in jail to inquire what he could do for him. This was in May, yet it does not seem that he was released until August. The government forthwith employed him. His career from this period, whether as a journalist, or whether as a government hireling employed on secret services, is, to say the least, dishonest. In short he was a needy man, willing to write for anybody and say anything for money. In 1706 he was sent as a spy to Scotland. Nothing was then talked about but the union of the two kingdoms ; on both sides of the Tweed the masses of the people were crazy with the excitement of the subject. Of what value Defoe's services were, it is hard now to imagine. Professor Minto supposes that his business "was to ascertain and report the opinions of influential persons, and keep the government informed as far as he could of the general state of feeling." When Harley fell, Godolphin continued to employ Defoe as a government secret emissary and writer. He was again sent to Scotland in 1 708, in relation to the suspected invasion of that country by the French; but he found time to keep his "Review" going. We see him "trim- ming " afresh, with masterly disregard to every appeal save that of his purse, when Godolphin surrendered the treasurer's staff, and Harley once more became prime minister. " My duty," says he, with that wonderful countenance of gravity, and that fine air of outraged honor, which express him in his political writings cer-