Daniel Defoe
A BIOGRAPHY of Defoe is a hunt for a bidden man. His son- in-law wrote to Sophia Defoe, "lour father loves to hide himself in mists," and in mists he remains. For what kind of man was he ? There are a dozen DefoeS: the pious, or the hypocritical, Dissentet prefacing his tale of Moll Flanders :
" As the whole relation is carefully garbled of all the levity and looseness that was in it, so it is applied, and with the utmost care, to virtuous and religious uses " ;
the lewd story-teller describing the rape of Roxana's maid Amy ; the loyal Whig ; the pamphleteer who sold himself for party purposes ; or, darkest figure of all, the spy, who when his Jacobite friend Lord Belhaven lay imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle and implored Defoe to visit him, wrote to his paymaster Godolphin : " I have been in doubt whether I should go or no, but, as I cannot tell the occasion, and am sure I shall either make a right use of it or no use at all, I purpose to see his Lordship, and shall not fail to let your Lordship know, if it be worth while what his mighty buiiness can be.. I shall not fail on all occasions to acquaint your Lordship with every thing that appears worth your Lordship's note.", Even his enemies could not pierce the mist. The author of .7ndas Discovered wrote of him as " an animal who shifts his shape oftener than Proteus, and that goes backwards and forwards like a Hunted Hare." It was true. Until the .last prosperous years he was always Minted and very seldom caught. At Bury or Chadwell, Newington cr Hafifax, Scotland or the West, sometimes under his own name, some- Vanes as Christopher Hart or Clande-Gniffitlie spied, agitated,
electioneered, raising a barrage of pamphlets between himself and his enemies : Mr. Wright catalogues over two hundred and fifty. One quality he certainly possessed : if he had the infamy he also had the courage of the spy.
But through the mystery of this character Mr. Wright moves too easily. The new bicentenary edition of the life (first published in 1893) contains much new inforMation, is scrupulously accurate and hopelessly misleading. Mr. Wright is a Whig and writes with contemporary passion of the faded polities of Harley and Bolingbroke. No conduct is dis- honourable as long as it is opposed to the Tory Party :
"At this age of enlightenment, we can scarcely realize how far the bigotry and wickedness of this party had carried them."
So under the Hanoverian no-Popery banner of the Whigs Defoe marches as a great good man.
The portrait is of doubtful authenticity. When all is said we know little more of him than this, taken from an advertise- ment offering a reward for his capture :
" He is a middle-sized, spare man, of a brown complexion, and dark brown coloured hair, but wears a wig ; a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes and a large mole near his mouth."
He was also the author of Robinson Crusoe.
GRAHAM GREEN'S.
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