Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 7.djvu/115

 DANIEL DEFOE 75 tainly ; as the very prince of humbugs, "was to go along with every ministry, so far as they did not break in upon the constitution and the laws and liberty of my country." At what price did he value the constitution ? And how much, lean- ing across the counter of his literary calling, would he ask for the laws and liber- ties of his country ? Both Godolphin and Harley, no doubt, exactly knew. But enough in this brief sketch has been said of him as politician, journalist, controversialist, spy. He heaped pamphlet upon pamphlet, volume upon volume, and in July, 1 7 1 5, was found guilty of what was called a scandalous libel against Lord Anglesea. Sentence was deferred, but he was never brought up for judg- ment. His representations of ardent devotion to the Whig interest seem to have procured his absolution. Be this as it may, it is extraordinary to reflect that he should live to be fifty-eight years of age before he could find it in him to produce that masterpiece of romance, " Robinson Crusoe," the delight, I may truly call it, of all reading nations. The fiction is based upon the experiences of Alexander Selkirk. He had read Steele's story of that man lonely in the South Sea island, and Woodes Roger's account of the discovery of him. Sir Walter Scott has pointed out that Defoe was known to the great circumnavigator Dampier, and he assumes with good reason that he drew many hints from the conversation and recollections of that fine seaman. He was a prosperous man when he wrote " Robinson Crusoe," had built a house at Stoke Newington, and drove in his own coach. This had come about through his successful connection with certain journals ; he was also rapidly producing, and nearly all that he wrote sold hand- somely. Almost as many fine things have been said about " Robinson Crusoe " as about Niagara Falls, or sunrise and sunset. The world has decided to consider it Defoe's masterpiece, and to neglect all else that he wrote for it. Nor can the world be blamed. The deliberate and dangerous lewdness of Defoe is one of the most deplorable things in letters. We shelve much of Smollett, much of Field- ing, without great regret, but it is lamentable that works of powers and percep- tions so supreme as " Moll Flanders" and " Colonel Jack " should be found un- fit and unreadable, infinitely more perilous to the young than the coarser, but honester, freedoms of Smollett and Fielding, because of Defoe's base tradesman- like trick of representing in colors as tempting as possible the sins which with formal, pulpitic, hypocritical gravity he entreats you to avoid. " Robinson Cru- soe " is wholesome : one can see one's daughter with that book in her hand and feel easy. Yet it has not the strength nor the art of " Roxana," " Colonel Jack," and " Moll Flanders." In fact, it may be said that when Defoe set about to write this book he had no thoughts whatever of art in his head. He was to relate what happened to a castaway, and the skill shown is that of a sailor who writes up his log-book. No one could have been more astonished by the success of the book than Defoe himself. He afterward went to work to communicate a need- less significance to the narrative, whose charm is its eternal grace of freshness and simplicity, by writing the " Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe," in which he would have us believe that Crusoe's story is an allegory based on Defoe's own life. This is accepted by some even in our own time. It is easy to understand