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قراءة كتاب The Life of Daniel De Foe

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The Life of Daniel De Foe

The Life of Daniel De Foe

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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1700-1, by a writer who brings haste to apologise for dulness. For this Defence of king William and the Dutch, which was doubtless circulated by detraction and by power, De Foe was amply rewarded. "How this poem was the occasion," says he, "of my being known to his majesty; how I was afterwards received by him; how employed abroad; and how, above my capacity of deserving, rewarded, is no part of the present case[18]." Of the particulars, which the author thus declined to tell, nothing can now be told. It is only certain that he was admitted to personal interviews with the king, who was no reader of poetry; and that for the royal favours De Foe was always grateful.

When the pen and ink war was raised against a standing army, subsequent to the peace of Ryswick, our author published An Argument, to prove that a standing army, with consent of parliament, is not inconsistent with a free government[19]. "Liberty and property," says he, "are the glorious attributes of the English nation; and the dearer they are to us, the less danger we are in of losing them; but I could never yet see it proved, that the danger of losing them by a small army was such, as we should expose ourselves to all the world for it. It is not the king of England alone, but the sword of England in the hand of the king, that gives laws of peace and war now to Europe; and those who would thus wrest the sword out of his hand in time of peace, bid the fairest of all men in the world to renew the war." He who is desirous of reading this treatise on an interesting topic, will meet with strength of argument, conveyed in elegant language[20].

When the nation flamed with faction, the grand jury of Kent presented to the commons, on the 8th of May, 1701, a petition, which desired them, "to mind the public business more, and their private heats less;" and which contained a sentiment, that there was a design, as Burnet tells, other counties and the city of London should equally adopt. Messrs. Culpeppers, Polhill, Hamilton, and Champneys, who avowed this intrepid paper, were committed to the Gatehouse, amid the applauses of their countrymen. It was on this occasion that De Foe's genius dictated a Remonstrance, which was signed Legion, and which has been recorded in history for its bold truths and seditious petulance. De Foe's zeal induced him to assume a woman's dress, while he delivered this factious paper to Harley, the speaker, as he entered the house of commons[21]. It was then also that our author, who was transported by an equal attachment to the country and the court, published The Original Power of the collective Body of the People of England examined and asserted[22]. This timeful treatise he dedicated to king William, in a dignified strain of nervous eloquence. "It is not the least of the extraordinaries of your majesty's character," says he, "that, as you are king of your people, so you are the people's king; a title, which, as it is the most glorious, so it is the most indisputable." To the lords and commons he addresses himself in a similar tone: The vindication of the original right of all men to the government of themselves, he tells them, is so far from being a derogation from, that it is a confirmation of their legal authority. Every lover of liberty must be pleased with the perusal of a treatise, which vies with Mr. Locke's famous tract in powers of reasoning, and is superior to it in the graces of style.

At a time when "union and charity, the one relating to our civil, and the other to our religious concerns, were strangers in the land," De Foe published The Freeholder's Plea against Stock-jobbing Elections of Parliament men[23]. "It is very rational to suppose," says our author, "that they who will buy will sell; or, what seems more rational, they who have bought must sell." This is certainly a persuasive performance, though we may suppose, that many voters were influenced then by arguments still more persuasive. And he concludes with a sentiment, which has not been too often repeated, That nothing can make us formidable to our neighbours, and maintain the reputation of our nation, but union among ourselves.

How much soever king William may have been pleased with The True-born Englishman, or with other services, he was little gratified probably by our author's Reasons against a War with France. This argument, showing that the French king's owning the prince of Wales as king of England, is no sufficient ground of a war, is one of the finest, because it is one of the most useful, tracts in the English language[24]. After remarking the universal cry of the people for war, our author declares he is not against war with France, provided it be on justifiable grounds; but, he hopes, England will never be so inconsiderable a nation, as to make use of dishonest pretences to bring to pass any of her designs; and he wishes that he who desires we should end the war honourably, ought to desire also that we begin it fairly. "But if we must have a war," our author hoped, "it might be wholly on the defensive, in Flanders, in order to carry on hostilities in remote places, where the damage may be greater, by wounding the Spaniard in some weaker part; so as upon a peace he shall be glad to quit Flanders for an equivalent." Who at present does not wish that De Foe's argument had been more studiously read, and more efficaciously admitted?

A scene of sorrow soon after opened, which probably embittered our author's future life. The death of king William deprived him of a protector, who, he says, trusted, esteemed, and much more valued him than he deserved: and who, as he flattered himself amidst his later distresses, would never have suffered him to be treated as he had been in the world. Of that monarch's memory, he says, that he never patiently heard it abused, nor ever could do so; and in this gratitude to a royal benefactor there is surely much to praise, but nothing to blame[25].

In the midst of that furious contest of party, civil and religious, which ensued on the accession of queen Anne, our author was no unconcerned

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