150 ADDISON'S LOVE OF GARDENS, AND OF SINGING-BIRDS. when stiff hedgerows and blank terraces were the approved style, he describes the natural style of gardening' with his wonted simplicity and beauty; paints the clear fountain's wandering rill, passing through banks of violets and primroses, plats of willow and other plants, that seem to be of its own producing; and then teaches us to listen to the concert to which he has given a general invitation to every feathered songster in the neighbourhood. Nor does he ever suffer their nests to be destroyed even in spring. I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.' By his successful efforts, added to the endeavours of other writers, England has been rendered the 'Paradise of Europe.' To sum up his merits, no words can better express those which relate to style and manner than the praise of Johnson: Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.' As a critic we ought ever to cherish his memory. Independently of the tone he gave to periodical literature, we owe to him the appreciation of Paradise Lost,' in despite of the prevalent indifference of the world to that work. The old blind schoolmaster,' wrote Edmund Waller, in one of his letters, 'hath published a tedious poem on the Fall of Man. If its length be not considered as merit it hath no other.' 6 It was reserved, as fate would have it, for Addison to make the insensible and the prejudiced aware that one passage written by the old blind schoolmaster' was worth a thousandfold all that Waller ever composed. CHAPTER VII. DANIEL DEFOE. ANECDOTE OF HARLEY'S PATRONAGE. DEFOE IN PRISON. -HE VISITS SCOTLAND. CRIPPLEGATE IN 1731. DIES IN C HISTORY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE.' EDUCATION. BECOMES AMANUENSIS TO SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. SWIFT'S HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH STELLA. MAKES A GETS INTRODUCED TO ADDISON'S LITTLE DR. SOUTH'S BALLAD OF THE SAILOR AND CAPITAL COUNTRY CLERGYMAN. THE SOLDIER.- ESTHER VANHOMRIGH; SWIFT'S TREATMENT OF HER. HIS PRIVATE MARRIAGE WITH STELLA. HER MELANCHOLY END. APPLICATION TO HARLEY FROM DEFOE. 153 CHAPTER VII. Ir was about the end of the year 1704 that a message came to a poor forgotten wretch, who lay, hopeless and ruined, in Newgate, to ask, 'What could the Secretary of State do for him?' The minister who asked that question was Robert Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford; the man who answered it was Daniel Defoe. Happily for Defoe, statesmen were literary in those times. Harley, indeed, wrote little, and what he did produce were dull essays, the one on Public Credit,' the other on 'Loans;' but he mixed intimately with literary men. One of the ablest was, he judged, not to be caged, and starved, and heart-stricken for ever; so he sent to that den of misery, and then went, full of a sad tale of distress, to stolid Queen Anne. Let us here interpose a reflection. It is good for ministers to have near them, if they have it not, as Harley had it, in themselves, some person au courant to the literature of the century. When the late Miss Jane Porter applied to the late Sir Robert Peel for a pension, he coldly refused it; yet there never was a kinder heart than his to merit in pauperis. Witness numerous instances. He had never, it seems, heard of Thaddeus of Warsaw,' that touching tale; never of 'Wallace," which, Scott owned, suggested to him his historical romance; and so that gentle, once lovely, elegant, and talented being died—dependent. 154 DEFOE OF LOW ORIGIN. Harley, however, knew better; or, if he did not, there were many around him who had known poor Daniel's hapless circumstances. How, the son of a butcher, in St. Giles's,(what can well be more anti-sympathetic ?)—he had made the most of a four years' education at Newington Green Dissenting Academy; how he had forsworn the blue apron and the cleaver, and been put to some trade, which he would not name; but never, he indignantly declared, was he either an hosier, or an apprentice. Whatever he was,-Harley knew well that he had long been getting poorer and poorer, absconding from his creditors, then looking up again and making tiles near Tilbury; and though it was said, he did not want, like the Egyptians, to make bricks without straw, he certainly, like the Jews, required bricks without paying the labourers. He was, in fact, a projector: what can one say worse of a man without capital? Projects for banks, projects for factories, projects for inquiries into bankruptcies (written, no doubt, con amore), all failed, all;—yet he wrote an Essay on Projects. This Murad the Unlucky was, at last, appointed Accountant to Commissioners for managing Duties on Glass: no sooner was he in employ, than the tax was repealed, and in 1699, Daniel was truly a gentleman in difficulties. He rose again, and wrote "The True-born Englishman,' which, strange to say, was in compliment to King William. That monarch admitted him into his presence. Had it been any one else, good fortune would have ensued: but just as adversity was taking her leave of Defoe, William died. In an evil hour, poor man! Defoe reprinted his 'Shortest Way with the Dissenters.' It was considered a libel on the House of Commons, and ordered to be burnt by the common hangman, in New Palace Yard. A reward of 50%. was offered for his apprehension, and a proclamation by the Secretaries of State, dated 1703, January, thus describes him : |