mean time, two ftout young fellows were bufy digging a grave in the fand near the house. When the women had done with the corpfe, they fet up a most hideous howl, upon which the people began to assemble round the grave, and four men went up into the houfe to bring down the body; in doing this they were much interrupted by a young man, fon to the deceased, who endeavoured with all his might to prevent them, but finding it in vain, he clung round the body, and was carried to the grave along with it: there, after a violent ftruggle, he was turned away, and conducted back to the houfe. The corpfe being now put into the grave, and the

lafhings, which bound the legs and arms cut, all the live ftock, which had been the property of the deceased, confifting of about half a dozen hogs, and as many fowls, was killed, and flung in above it; a man then approached with a bunch of leaves ftuck upon the end of a pole, which he fwept two or three times gently along the corpfe, and then the grave was filled up. During the ceremony, the women continued to make the most horrible vocal concert imaginable: the men faid nothing. A few days afterward, a kind of monument was erected over the grave, with a pole upon it, to which long trips of cloth of different colours were hung.

MEMOIRS of the LIFE and WRITINGS of DANIEL DE FOE: With a fine Portrait of that celebrated Author.

DANIEL DE FOR, a voluminous (when they understand their own prinpolitical and mifcellaneous writer ciples, which is not always the cafe) of the latter part of the last, and be- however they may differ on doctrinal ginning of the prefent century (but points, or modes of church governprincipally celebrated as the author of ment, have but one general ground of one of the most popular works in any diffent from the church of England; language, The Adventures of Ro- namely, the abfolute denial of the binson Crufoe) was born in London, authority claimed by that church, in about the year 1663. He was the the twentieth of the thirty-nine artifon of James Foe, citizen and butcher, cles agreed upon in convocation in the of the parish of St. Giles', Cripple- year 1562. De Foe, who had regate: his grandfather was Daniel Foe, ceived a liberal education, at a dif of Elton, in the county of Northamp- fenting academy at Newington Green, ton, yeoman. How he came by the near London, was himself a diffenter name of De Foe we are not informed upon principle and reflection. From his enemies have afferted, that he af- his various writings,' fays Mr. Chalfumed the De, in order that he might mers, it is plain, that he was a not be thought an Englishman. It zealous defender of the principles of certainly appeared, from the books of the diffenters, and a strenuous fupthe Chamberlain of London, (lately porter of their politics, before the destroyed by a fire at Guildhall) that by the name of Daniel Foe, our author was admitted to the freedom of the city by birth, on the 26th of January 1687-8 *.

:

The family of De Foe were proteftant diffenters; but of what denomination it is not eafy to know; nor is the circumftance of any confequence. The proteftant diffenters,

liberality of our rulers had freed this conduct from danger. He merits the praife which is due to fincerity in manner of thinking, and to uniformity in habits of acting, whatever obloquy may have been caft on his name, by attributing writings to him, which, as they belonged to others, he was ftudious to difavow.'

De Foe commenced author before

*Life of Daniel De Foe, by George Chalmers, efq. prefixed to Stockdale's edition of Robinson Crusoe.

he was twenty-one. His firft publication, in 1683, was a A Treatife against the Turks ;' which was written against a fentiment very prevalent, at that time, in favour of the Ottomans, as oppofed to the house of Auftria. He was a man who would fight as well as write; and, before he was three-and-twenty, in June 1685, he appeared in arms for the duke of Monmouth. Of this exploit he boafted in the latter part of his life, when it was no longer dangerous to avow his participation in that imprudent enterprife, with greater men of fimilar principles.

To efcape from the dangers of battle was not wonderful; but how he avoided thre fanguinary rage of Jefferies has not been accounted for. It is certain, that his zeal was too ardent to be inactive. In a tract against the proclamation for the repeal of the penal laws in 1687, he very efficacioufly oppofed the unconftitutional measures purtued by king James II; warning the diffenters against the fecret dangers of the infidious toleration with which that infatuated monarch attempted to deceive them. But neither this tract, nor that against the Turks, did he think proper to republish in the fubfequent collection of his writings.

As he had endeavoured to promote the revolution by his pen and his fword, he had the fatisfaction of participating in the pleasures and advantages of that great event. During the hilarity of the moment, the lordmayor of London asked king William to partake of the city feaft on the 29th of October, 1689. Every honour was paid to the fovereign of the people's choice. A regiment of volunteers, compofed of the chief citizens, and commanded by the celebrated carl

of Peterborough, attended the king and queen from Whitehall to the manfion-houfe. Among thefe troopers, gallantly mounted, and richly accoutred, was Daniel De Foe †.

While our author thus courted notice, he is faid to have acted as a hofier in Freeman's-court, Cornhill; but the hofier and the poet are irreconcileable characters. With the ufual imprudence of fuperior genius, he was carried by his vivacity into companies who were gratified by his wit. He fpent thofe hours with a fociety for the cultivation of polite learning, which he ought to have employed in the calculations of the counting-houfe; and being obliged to abfcond from his creditors in 1692, he attributed thofe misfortunes to the war, which were probably owing to his own misconduct. An angry creditor took out a commiffion of bankruptcy, which was fuperfeded on the petition of thofe to whom he was most indebted, who accepted a compofition on his fingle bond. This he punctually paid, by the efforts of unwearied diligence. But fome of thofe creditors, who had been thus fatisfied, falling afterward into diftrefs themselves, De Foe voluntarily paid them their whole claims; being then in rifing circumstances from king William's favour. This is an example of integrity, which it would be unjust to conceal. Being reproached, in 1705, by lord Haverfham, with mercenarinefs, our author feelingly obferves, how, with a numerous family, and no helps but his own industry, he had forced his way with undifcouraged diligence, through a fea of misfortunes, and reduced his debts, exclufive of compofition, from feventeen thousand to less than five thousand pounds . He had been concerned in some pan

* An Appeal to Honour and Juftice, &c. by Daniel De Foe, 8vo. 1715. + Oldmixon's Hit. vol. ii. page 37.

Being reproached by Tutchin, in his Obfervator, with having been apprentice to a hofier, De Foe afferts, that he never was a hofier, or an apprentice, but admits that he had been a trader. Review, vol. ii. page 149. Oldmixon, who never fpeaks favourably of De Foe, allows that he had never been a merchant, otherwife than by peddling a little to Portugal. Hift. ii. page 519.

Reply to lord Haverfham's Vindication.