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genuine that the moderns may pretend to, I cannot recollect; unless it be a large vein of wrangling and satire, much of a nature and substance with the spider's poison; which, however they pretend to spit wholly out of themselves, is improved by the same arts, by feeding upon the insects and vermin of the age. As for us the ancients, we are content, with the bee, to pretend to nothing of our own beyond our wings and our voice: that is to say, our flights and our language. For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labour and search, and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference is, that instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.

V. DANIEL DEFOE.

DANIEL DEFOE was born in London in 1663. His father was a small tradesman and a Dissenter, and young Daniel's education was, consequently, very limited, being confined to a few years' instruction in a Dissenting academy near London. On leaving school he was apprenticed to a hosier; but his ambition prompting him to something higher than the counter, he joined in Monmouth's rebellion, and having fortunately escaped the notice of Jeffreys and Kirke, he returned again to his former occupation. But Defoe was not adapted for mercantile life, he neglected his business, devoted his whole attention to literature and politics, and spent his time in writing pamphlets, from which he derived scarce any profit, lost all his money, and became bankrupt. Once only did his prospects brighten: in 1689 he wrote his famous poem the "True-born Englishman," in vindication of William and the Dutch, which was very popular and proved equally remunerative; but his prosperity was short-lived; in the beginning of the next reign the Commons voted one of his books libellous, and ordered it to be burned by the hangman, and the unfortunate author was fined, pilloried, and imprisoned. In prison his pen was indefatigably employed, chiefly in writing a periodical called the "Review," till at length, Harley having occasion for his talents, employed him on some government missions of importance, for which he was rewarded with a pension. Still untaught by experience, he again engaged in political controversy, and was once more fined and imprisoned; and profiting by this severe lesson, on his release he abandoned politics, and devoted himself to the composition of works of fiction. In 1719 appeared "Robinson Crusoe," and before his death in 1731, it was followed by " Moll Flanders," " Captain Singleton," "Colonel Jack," History of the Plague," &c. Considering the universal popularity of "Robinson Crusoe," it can hardly be necessary to say that Defoe is entitled to stand in the very foremost rank of our writers of fiction. Without any high power of imagination, with very little ability in delineating character or exciting the emotions, he notwithstanding surpasses every other author in the faculty of producing in the mind

INCIDENT DURING THE PLAGUE IN LONDON.

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of his reader a thorough conviction of the truth of his story. His narrative is so circumstantial, and is told with such an air of truth, and there is such a total freedom from all appearance of art or studied invention, that one irresistibly believes in its reality.

1. INCIDENT DURING THE PLAGUE IN LONDON.(FROM DEFOE'S 66 HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE.")

John Hayward was at that time under-sexton of the parish of St Stephen, Coleman Street; by under-sexton was understood at that time grave-digger and bearer of the dead. This man carried, or assisted to carry, all the dead to their graves which were buried in that large parish, and who were carried in form; and after that form of burying was stopped, went with the dead-cart and the bell, to fetch the dead bodies from the houses where they lay, and fetched many of them out of the chambers and houses; for the parish was, and is, still remarkable, particularly, above all the parishes in London, for a great number of alleys and thoroughfares, very long, into which no carts could come, and where they were obliged to go and fetch the bodies a very long way, which alleys now remain to witness it; such as White's Alley, Cross Keys Court, Swan Alley, Bell Alley, White Horse Alley, and many more. Here they went with a kind of handbarrow, and laid the dead bodies on, and carried them out to the carts; which work he performed, and never had the distemper at all, but lived about twenty years after it, and was sexton of the parish to the time of his death. His wife at the same time was a nurse to infected people, and tended many that died in the parish, being for her honesty recommended by the parish-officers; yet she never was infected neither.

He never used any preservative against the infection other than holding garlic and rue in his mouth, and smoking tobacco; this I also had from his own mouth; and his wife's remedy was washing her head in vinegar, and sprinkling her head-clothes so with vinegar as to keep them always moist; and if the smell of any of those she waited on was more than ordinary offensive, she snuffed vinegar up her nose, and sprinkled vinegar upon her head-clothes, and held a handkerchief wetted with vinegar to her mouth.

It must be confessed, that, though the plague was chiefly among the poor, yet were the poor the most venturous and fearless of it, and went about their employment with a sort of brutal courage. I must call it so, for it was founded neither on religion or prudence; scarce did they use any caution, but run into any business which they could get any employment in, though it was the most hazardous; such was that of tending the sick, watching houses shut up, carrying infected persons to the pest-house, and, which was still worse, carrying the dead away to their graves.

It was under this John Hayward's care, and within his bounds, that the story of the piper, with which much people have made themselves so merry, happened, and he assured me that it was true.

It is said that it was a blind piper; but, as John told me, the fellow was not blind, but an ignorant, weak, poor man, and usually went his rounds about ten o'clock at night, and went piping along from door to door, and the people usually took him in at public-houses where they knew him, and would give him drink and victuals, and sometimes farthings; and he in return would pipe and sing, and talk simply, which diverted the people, and thus he lived. It was but a very bad time for this diversion, while things were as I have told, yet the poor fellow went about as usual, but was almost starved; and when anybody asked how he did, he would answer, the dead-cart had not taken him yet, but that they had promised to call for him next week.

It happened one night that this poor fellow, whether somebody had given him too much drink or no (John Hayward said he had not drink in his house, but that they had given him a little more victuals than ordinary at a public-house in Coleman Street), and the poor fellow having not usually had a bellyful, or, perhaps, not a good while, was laid all along upon the top of a bulk or stall, and fast asleep at a door, in the street near London-wall, towards Cripplegate, and that, upon the same bulk or stall, the people of some house, in the alley of which the house was a corner, hearing a bell, which they always rung before the cart came, had laid a body really dead of the plague just by him, thinking too that this poor fellow had been a dead body as the other was, and laid there by some of the neighbours.

Accordingly, when John Hayward with his bell and the cart came along, finding two dead bodies lie upon the stall, they took them up with the instrument they used, and threw them into the cart; and all this while the piper slept soundly.

From hence they passed along, and took in other dead bodies, till, as honest John Hayward told me, they almost buried him alive in the cart, yet all this while he slept soundly; at length the cart came to the place where the bodies were to be thrown into the ground, which, as I do remember, was at Mountmill; and as the cart usually stopt some time before they were ready to shoot out the melancholy load they had in it, as soon as the cart stopped, the fellow awaked, and struggled a little to get his head out from among the dead bodies, when, raising himself up in the cart, he called out, Hey, where am I? This frighted the fellow that attended about the work, but, after some pause, John Hayward, recovering himself, said, Lord bless us! there's somebody in the cart not quite dead. So another called to him, and said, Who are you? The fellow answered, I am the poor piper: Where am I? Where are you: says Hayward; why, you are in the dead-cart, and we are going to bury you. But I an't dead though, am I? says the piper; which made them laugh a little, though, as John said, they were heartily frightened at first: so they helped the poor fellow down, and he went about his business.

I know the story goes, he set up his pipes in the cart, and frighted

ROBINSON CRUSOE'S DIFFICULTY WITH HIS HARVEST, ETC. 269

the bearers and others, so that they ran away; but John Hayward did not tell the story so, nor say anything of his piping at all; but that he was a poor piper, and that he was carried away as above, I am fully satisfied of the truth of.

2. ROBINSON CRUSOE'S DIFFICULTIES WITH HIS HARVEST, AND HIS ATTEMPTS TO MAKE EARTHENWARE.—(“ CRUSOE,” CHAPS. VIII., IX.)

It might be truly said, that I now worked for my bread. It is a little wonderful, and what I believe few people have thought much upon, viz., the strange multitude of little things necessary in the providing, producing, curing, dressing, making, and finishing this one article of bread.

I, that was reduced to a mere state of nature, found this to be my daily discouragement, and was made more and more sensible of it every hour, even after I got the first handful of seed-corn, which, as I have said, came up unexpectedly, and indeed to a surprise.

First, I had no plough to turn the earth, no spade or shovel to dig it. Well, this I conquered by making a wooden spade, as I observed before; but this did my work but in a wooden manner; and though it cost me a great many days to make it, yet, for want of iron, it not only wore out the sooner, but made my work the harder, and made it be performed much worse.

However, this I bore with too, and was content to work it out with patience, and bear with the badness of the performance. When the corn was sowed, I had no harrow, but was forced to go over it myself, and drag a great heavy bough of a tree over it, to scratch the earth, as it may be called, rather than rake or harrow it.

When it was growing, or grown, I have observed already how many things I wanted to fence it, secure it, mow or reap it, cure or carry it home, thresh, part it from the chaff, and save it. Then I wanted a mill to grind it, sieves to dress it, yeast and salt to make it into bread, and an oven to bake it in; and all these things I did without, as shall be observed; and yet the corn was an inestimable comfort and advantage to me too. But all this, as I said, made everything laborious and tedious to me, but that there was no help for: neither was my time so much loss to me, because I had divided it; a certain part of it was every day appointed to these works; and as I resolved to use none of the corn for bread till I had a greater quantity by me, I had the next six months to apply myself wholly, by labour and invention, to furnish myself with utensils proper for the performing all the operations necessary for making the corn, when I had it, fit for my use.

But first I was to prepare more land, for I had now seed enough to sow above an acre of ground. Before I did this, I had a week's work at least to make me a spade, which, when it was done, was a very sorry one indeed, and very heavy, and required double labour to work with it; however, I went through that, and sowed my

seeds in two large flat pieces of ground, as near my house as I could find them to my mind, and fenced them in with a good hedge, the stakes of which were all cut off that wood which I had set before, which I knew would grow; so that in one year's time I knew I should have a quick or living hedge, that would want but little repair. This work was not so little as to take me up less than three months, because great part of that time was in the wet season, when I could not go abroad.

Within-door-that is, when it rained and I could not go outI found employment on the following occasion, always observing that, all the while I was at work, I diverted myself with talking to my parrot and teaching him to speak; and I quickly learnt him to know his own name; at last, to speak it out pretty loud-Pol, which was the first word I ever heard spoken in the island by any mouth but my own. This, therefore, was not my work, but an assistant to my work; for now, as I said, I had a great employment upon my hands, as follows, viz. :-I had long studied, by some means or other, to make myself some earthen vessels, which, indeed, I wanted sorely, but knew not where to come at them. However, considering the heat of the climate, I did not doubt but, if I could find out any such clay, I might botch up some such pot as might, being dried by the sun, be hard enough and strong enough to bear handling, and to hold anything that was dry, and required to be kept so; and as this was necessary in preparing corn, meal, &c., which was the thing I was upon, I resolved to make some as large as I could, and fit only to stand like jars to hold what should be put into them.

It would make the reader pity me, or rather laugh at me, to tell how many awkward ways I took to raise this paste; what odd, misshapen, ugly things I made; how many of them fell in, and how many fell out, the clay not being stiff enough to bear its own weight; how many cracked by the overviolent heat of the sun, being set out too hastily; and how many fell to pieces with only removing, as well before as after they were dried; and, in a word, how, after having laboured hard to find the clay, to dig it, to temper it, to bring it home, and work it, I could not make above two large earthen ugly things, I cannot call them jars, in about two months' labour. However, as the sun baked these two very dry and hard, I lifted them very gently up, and set them down again in two great wicker baskets which I had made on purpose for them, that they might not break; and, as between the pot and the basket there was a little room to spare, I stuffed it full of the rice and barley straw; and those two pots being to stand always dry, I thought they would hold my dry corn, and perhaps the meal, when the corn was bruised.

Though I miscarried so much in my design for large pots, yet I made several smaller things with better success, such as little round pots, flat dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, and anything my hand turned to; and the heat of the sun baked them strangely

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