Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/299

 ii S.V.MAB. 30, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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he would perform the third agreement and advance his share of the stock. This Ward did, and they came to a fourth agreement by which the rent was reduced to 60Z. a year, and Defoe was to erect some new buildings. Ward, hoping that Defoe would really keep this fourth agreement, went to Colchester, where he boarded with Adams ; but Defoe refused to adhere to his promise, or to have the stock valued, so at last Ward returned to Warwickshire in despair, Defoe having shortly before told him that the farm and works had been let to a William Goymer. Ward denied that he ever had possession of the farm or cultivated it, or that Adams was his servant, or that the commission of bankruptcy was taken out with the inten- tion of defrauding liis creditors. From the schedule attached to the answer it appears that Defoe had borrowed in money and goods a sum of over 2531. during a period extending from May, 1724, to October, 1725, and among the items are consignments of cheese and oysters, whether for Defoe's personal consumption or for commercial purposes does not appear.

III.

The troubles of the last few years of Defoe's life have been the occasion of some amount of uncertainty to his bio- graphers. We know that in 1730 he was in difficulties, and that he assigned his property to his son Benjamin, and was for some time living in obscurity. After Defoe's death in September, 1733, letters of administration were granted to Mary Brooke, widow, a creditrix. The reason suggested for this by Mr. Win. Lee in his ' Life of Defoe ' is that the latter was lodging at the house of that lady when he died, and that she had a claim on the personal effects he left there in respect of board and lodging. This explanation, which is really no more than a guess, is, I think, incorrect, the real fact of the case being that Mrs. Brooke was a judg- ment creditrix of the estate in consequence of some action at law between her and Defoe. In 1728, and again in 1730, Defoe filed a bill in Chancery* against Mary Brooke as administratrix of the goods and chattels of James Stancliffe, deceased, left unadminis- tered by Samuel Brooke, her late husband. It appears that Mrs. Brooke had commenced an action in the King's Bench or Exchequer!

Belle. 279; Zincke, Bdle. 1473.
 * Foe v. Brooke. Ch. Pro. 1714-54. Winter,

t Probably in the former. There is no record of such action in the index to Exch. B. and A.

for the recovery of some debt owed by Defoe to James and Samuel Stancliffe, with whom he had had dealings when he was in business. It would only be wasting space to enter into details of Defoe's bill ; it is sufficient to say that the complainant asked the Court to order, among other things, the discovery oi certain books and documents having refer- ence to the matter.

Mr. Lee repudiates the opinion of some of Defoe's earlier biographers that his troubles had their origin in debt contracted forty or so years before. But, as is seen from the> foregoing, these debts did, as a matter of fact, contribute, at any rate to some extent, to the difficulties of the latter part of Defoe's life.

It may be worth while mentioning t'hat in the first action (Defoe v. Ward) the com- plainant describes himself as " Daniel Defoe, Esq.," and in the second (Foe v. Brooke) as " Daniel Foe, Gentleman/' To the latter an affidavit is attached signed " DanieL Foe," and dated 29 Jan., 1729.

A. J. C. GUIMARAENS..

CHARLES DICKENS. FEBRUARY 7TH, 1812 JUNE 9in, 1870.

(See ante, pp. 81, 101. 121, 141, 161, 182,. 203, 223.)

THE next years from 1858 onward were to Dickens full of the excitement and change he so much enjoyed the years of his first paid readings, when wherever he read he was greeted with the " greatest personal affection and respect." The outset of his adventures was at Exeter " the finest audi- ence I ever read to " ; then he went to Liverpool, where an audience of 2,300 persons was present ; and thence to Ireland. Dublin " greatly surprised him by appearing to be so much larger and more prosperous than he had supposed." The people were most enthusiastic, the ladies every night beguiling his attendant to give them the bouquet from his coat.

"The last night in Dublin," Dickens wrote to his daughter Mamie, "was an extraordinary scene. All the way from the hotel to the Rotunda (a mile) I had to contend against the stream of people M'ho were turned away. When I got there they had broken the glass in the pay boxes, and were offering 5f. freely for a stall ! Eleven bank notes were thrust into a pay box at one time for eleven stalls. Our men were flattened against walls and squeezed against beams. Ladies stood all night with their chins against my platform."

But better than all this,

" the personal affection is something overwhelm- ing," he wrote to Miss Hogarth. "I wish you and