Chapter VI: Part 6

Of learning and of learned men Catherine was a liberal patroness. The love of glory was her ruling passion, and those whose praise was fame were sure of her favourable regard. The French writers were the chief objects of her attention and bounty. She corresponded with Voltaire, whom she earnestly invited to Petersburg: but, as we learn from his correspondence with the Empress, he feared in old age the rigour of a northern climate; perhaps too he recollected how Frederic of Prussia had sunk the philosopher in the king, and felt reluctant to trust himself again within the reach of despotic power: at all events he declined the intended honour. Diderot, at her request, visited Petersburg, and spent several months there; contriving, if Frederic’s account be true, to weary the imperial patience by his turn for argument and repetition. Her benefactions to him had been delicate and splendid. Being informed that poverty compelled him to dispose of his library, she purchased it for 15,000 livres, and at the same time left it in his care, and for his use and enjoyment, granting to him an annual salary, under the title of her librarian. With similar liberality she purchased and entrusted to the care of Professor Pallas his own valuable collections of natural history. She sought to attract D’Alembert to Petersburg, and invited him to superintend the education of her son, the Grand-Duke Paul: but he declined her offers. She patronized all institutions for the promotion of science and literature; and the Academy of Sciences at Petersburg owes to her generous support the greater part of its foreign associates, and its high reputation. The discoveries of Billings and others in the Northern and Eastern seas, and the expedition of Pallas and his associates to explore and describe the less known portions of the empire, are also to be mentioned among the scientific honours of her reign. In the patronage of art she was splendid; she loved magnificence, was regardless of expense, and spared no cost to assemble round her throne the greatest rarities of nature, and the most admirable or wonderful productions of man. And the architectural magnificence of St. Petersburg still bears witness to the elevation and splendour of her taste, and the extent of her revenues.

By much the greater part of what has been said, may appear to vindicate Catherine’s title to be called a good, as well as a great sovereign. Such, no doubt, had her moral faculties been better educated, she might have been: but her reign was vitiated, and her talents rendered comparatively useless to her subjects, by one prevailing fault of selfishness. Her temper was averse from wanton cruelty; she loved to see prosperity around her; she loved, still more, the glory of being reputed the author of that prosperity. But she loved to see others happy, not for their sakes, but for her own; we seek in vain in the records of her life for that laborious and self-denying spirit, which is ready to sacrifice its own will for the good of others. Hence the multiplicity of her plans, and the inconstancy of her purposes: she persevered in no task which had lost the excitement of novelty, or no longer nourished the craving appetite for praise. She was too eager to build, to allow the requisite time for laying foundations: and the consequence was seen, even before her death, in the ruined and neglected state of establishments on which she had prided herself, and which men who were no flatterers had regarded as the marks of a new era of civilization in Russia. A French writer, in the Biographie Universelle, says, “Legislation, colonies, education, institutions, canals, towns, fortresses, every thing had been begun, and abandoned before completion.” This passion of Catherine, for sketching every thing and finishing nothing, is well characterised by a saying of Joseph II. In her journey to the Crimea, she invited him to lay the second stone of Ekaterinoslaf, of which she herself had just laid the first. Joseph said, after his return, “The Empress of Russia and I completed a great undertaking in one day: she laid the first stone of a city, and I the last.”

Of the more than imperial splendour—the profuse extravagance—of her court and social life, space will not allow us to speak: a number of curious and amusing anecdotes on this subject, and other details relative to her person, manners, and habits, are to be found in Coxe’s Travels in Russia, and Tooke’s Life of the Empress Catherine II. The licentiousness of her conduct we should alike pass over, but for its connexion with affairs of state: for she paraded her prostitution before the eyes of all, apparently considering herself released by supreme rank and irresponsible power, from the control of those decencies which fetter even the vicious. A lover was part of Catherine’s state furniture, and a most expensive one: since the sums lavished on her series of favourites during her reign of thirty-four years, without including the enormous annual expense of their establishment, amounted, according to Mr. Tooke, (vol. iii. p. 374,) to more than eighty millions of roubles. This, at the lowest rate of two shillings a rouble, (Mr. Tooke states it to have been then worth four,) would be more than eight millions of pounds sterling. Nor was this the only evil: though Catherine suffered none of her favourites, except Potemkin, to interfere in the chief affairs of the state, their influence at a distance and in subordinate departments was immense; and whoever enjoyed their protection was sure of advancement beyond his merits, and enabled to tyrannize over others, and trample on law with impunity. Chosen for the most part from officers of the Guard, without a particle of sentiment, solely for personal attractions, we look in vain among them for one raised above the common level by talent or accomplishment, except the celebrated Potemkin, and perhaps the coarse and brutal Orloff, her husband’s murderer, and one of the chief instruments in placing herself upon the throne. Potemkin did possess a certain barbarous grandeur of ideas, fitted to strike an answering chord in Catherine’s ambitious and ostentatious mind; together with an aptitude for affairs, and a nature born to command, had it been improved by education and self-restraint, or chastened by adversity: and he alone, after he ceased to be a lover, preserved an all-ruling influence as a friend and confidant.

In speaking of Catherine’s foreign policy we must confine ourselves chiefly to two heads,—the humiliation of Turkey, and the spoliation of Poland. Very soon after her accession, a vacancy in the throne of Poland gave her the opportunity of imposing upon that unhappy nation as its new king one of her former lovers, Stanislaus Poniatowsky, whom she knew, from the weakness of his character, to be a fit instrument of maintaining and increasing her influence. Fear of the aggrandizement of so powerful and hostile a neighbour, and, more especially, jealousy of her designs upon Poland, induced the Porte to declare war against her in 1768. For eight years the contest continued, in all respects to the advantage of the Russians; and during the course of it a Russian fleet (conducted, however, in great measure by British officers) appeared for the first time in the Mediterranean, and signalized its prowess by the total destruction of a superior Turkish armament in the bay of Tchesme, in Lemnos. Not less successful were the Russian arms in the Black Sea, and in Moldavia and Wallachia. Still peace was desirable, even to the victor, from the exhaustion of the contest, and it was concluded in 1774, by the treaty of Kainardgi, upon terms very advantageous to Russia, yet perhaps more favourable than Turkey had cause to expect. The reason of this moderation we shall see presently. The free navigation of the Mediterranean seas and the passage of the Dardanelles were secured to Russia, and the district between the rivers Dnieper and Bog was ceded to her. The Tartars of the Crimea were declared independent, which was nearly equivalent to rendering them tributary to Russia: and in fact that country was formally ceded to Catherine in 1783, by the reigning Cham, and the Porte, unwillingly enough, yielded to that arrangement. But the insulting pomp of Catherine, which almost dared in a moment of bravado to threaten Constantinople itself with an invasion, led to a second war in 1786, which, after a bloody and exhausting conflict, terminated in 1791–2, by the treaty of Jassy, by the farther cession, on the part of Turkey, of the provinces between the Bog and the Dniester, which was declared to be thenceforward the frontier of the two empires. The Russian conquests in Bessarabia, Moldavia, and Wallachia were restored. Memorable in this war, for the desperation of their defence by the Turks, and the awful cruelties which attended their capture by the Russians, were the sieges of the strong fortresses of Oczakow at the mouth of the Dnieper, and Ismail on the Danube. On this occasion again, but for the intervention of other European powers, especially England and Prussia, Catherine might probably have obtained more favourable terms. But the importance of the acquisitions thus made by her on the Black Sea, from the Straits of Kertsh to the Dniester, is not to be measured by their wealth, scarcely by their extent. It was the command of the commerce of the Black Sea, and the opening a passage to Constantinople, which she had so much desired, and the Porte so much feared, that formed her chief triumph; and in the height of her ambition she dared to project the expulsion of the Turks from Europe, and the re-establishment of a Christian empire in Constantinople.

Not less important were her acquisitions on the western frontier. The atrocious project of partitioning Poland between her three most powerful neighbours, is said by Koch (Tableau des Révolutions) to have originated in the Turkish wars which we have just described. The occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia by the Russians was calculated to alarm the jealousy of Austria; and Koch states, that Frederic II. suggested to the Empress that if she resigned them, as was done by the treaty of Kainardgi, she might take her equivalent from Poland, to a part of which Austria had already laid claim. Other writers have maintained that the scheme originated with Catherine. Be this as it may, the two monarchs readily came to an agreement, at the end of July, 1772: and as the Poles were in no condition to resist, and the powers which had guaranteed the independence of Poland looked on in silence, no opposition beyond remonstrance was made. In 1773, the Diet made a formal act of cession at Warsaw. In this first division, about 6500 square leagues of land, and five millions of human beings were thus robbed of their nationality: and the larger share, containing more than 4000 square leagues and three millions of people, situated in Livonia and Lithuania, was transferred to Russia, and formed into the governments of Polotsk and Mohilow. At the same time the three powers formally renounced all farther claims on Poland, and guaranteed to it its constitution and existence. But treaties are seldom able to bind ambition. A coldness succeeded between Russia and Prussia; and the latter, whose conduct ought to be marked with especial infamy, excited the Polish Diet, under promises of support, to make alterations in the constitution calculated to diminish the influence and rouse the jealousy of Russia. Catherine marched an army into the country in 1792, to support her party; the Poles flew to arms; and the King of Prussia, instead of sending the assistance which he had pledged himself to give, openly joined the Empress. A second partition of the spoil ensued in 1793, in which another portion of Lithuania was assigned to Russia; and another treaty of alliance, or rather of subjection, was made. But the nation was roused by despair; and in the following spring that general insurrection broke out, which has given undying fame to the name of Kosciusko. There is a short account of this struggle in the memoir of that hero in our first volume; it terminated in the total subjection and final partition of Poland: in which Russia obtained the remainder of Lithuania, with Semigallia, Courland, &c., to the amount of about 2000 square leagues more. This took place in 1795.

We must refer to the various historical works on these times for an account of Catherine’s complicated negotiations with foreign courts, the blow which she aimed at the British dominion of the sea by the establishment, in 1780, of the celebrated Armed Neutrality, the war which she commenced against Persia at the end of her reign, and other events inferior in importance to those of which we have here given an imperfect outline. It is asserted that, having turned her arms towards the east, she had ventured to conceive the design of overturning the British empire in India. But her ambition and her life were simultaneously cut short by an attack of apoplexy, which carried her off very suddenly, November 9, 1796. She was succeeded by her grandson Paul I.

Catherine, in imitation of Frederic II., aspired to fame as an author. Besides the Instructions, she wrote moral tales and allegories, for the education of her grandchildren, and a number of dramatic pieces and proverbs acted at the Hermitage, and published under the title of Theatre of the Hermitage. Her correspondence with Voltaire and others is published.

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DEFOE.

Daniel, the son of James Foe, citizen and butcher, was born in London, in the parish of Cripplegate, in or about the year 1663: at what time, or on what account he prefixed the syllable De to his paternal name, does not clearly appear. He was a Dissenter himself, and appears to have been of a dissenting family. Early imbued with a dread of Papal ascendancy, he took up arms to support the Duke of Monmouth’s insurrection, and was fortunate in escaping not only the sword, but the legal consequences of that rash adventure. In 1685 he went into business as a hosier, in Freeman’s Yard, Cornhill. He was not successful, probably because his attention was engrossed by affairs foreign to his trade: for he not only mingled in the political and religious dissensions of that stormy time, but was too much occupied, according to his biographer Mr. Chalmers, by engagements, which became neither the conscientious dissenter, nor the steady man of business. “With the usual imprudence of superior genius, he was carried by his vivacity into companies who were gratified by his wit, and he spent those hours in the idle hilarity of the tavern, which he ought to have employed in the calculations of the counting-house; and being obliged to abscond from his creditors in 1692, he attributed those misfortunes to the war, which were doubtless owing to his own misconduct. He afterwards carried on the brick and pantile works near Tilbury Fort, though probably with no success. He was in after-times wittily reproached, ‘that he did not, like the Egyptians, require bricks without straw, but, like the Jews, required bricks without paying his labourers.’ He was born for other enterprises, which, if they did not gain him wealth, have conferred a renown, that will descend the current of time with the language wherein his works are written.” His misfortunes however, even if accompanied by some imprudence, did not alienate his friends. “I was invited,” he says in his Appeal to Honour and Justice, “by some merchants with whom I had corresponded abroad, and some also at home, to settle at Cadiz, and that with offers of very good commissions; but Providence, which had other work for me to do, placed a secret aversion in my mind. Some time after, I was, without the least application of mine, and being then seventy miles from London, sent for to be Accomptant to the Commissioners of the Glass Duty; in which service I continued to the determination of their commission.”

_Engraved by J. Thomson._

DE FOE.

_From a Print by M. Vandergucht._

Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]

Having lost this occupation, Defoe’s active mind expanded itself in a variety of schemes. He wrote, he tells us, many sheets about the coin; he proposed a law for registering seamen; he projected county banks; factories for goods; a commission of inquiry into the estates of bankrupts; a pension-office for the relief of the poor; an academy “to encourage polite learning, and to polish and refine the English tongue;” and an academy for the education of women, with a view to the improvement of society, by training them to a more exemplary discharge of their social duties. Notices of various of these schemes, and of the use or abuse of a speculative spirit in a mercantile country, will be found in his Essay on Projects, published in January, 1697. In 1701 he produced a satire in verse, called The True-born Englishman, which arose out of a personal and virulent attack, by one Tutchen, on William III., whose faults were finally summed up in the epithet “foreigner.” “This,” Defoe says, “filled me with a kind of rage against the book, and gave birth to a trifle, which I never could hope should have met with such general acceptation as it did—I mean, The True-born Englishman. How this poem was the occasion of my being known to his Majesty; how I afterwards was received by him; how employed; and how, above all my capacity of deserving, rewarded, is no part of the present case:” and history does not supply us with the particulars here left unnoticed. But whatever were Defoe’s services or their rewards, he always expressed his gratitude and affection for King William’s memory in ardent terms. In the same year he published two able tracts in support of the principles of the Revolution, entitled, one, The Original Power of the Collective Body of the People of England Examined and Asserted; the other, The Freeholder’s Plea against the Stock-jobbing Elections of Parliament-men. The following pithy sentence may give some notion of the general tenor of the latter. “It is very rational to suppose that those who buy will sell, or what seems more rational they who have bought, must sell.” In these pieces the ultimate resort of all power in the people, and the responsibility of the parliament to the people, inasmuch, to use his own words elsewhere, “as the person sent is less than the sender,” are forcibly explained and asserted. The same principles were developed more strongly in what is commonly called The Legion Letter, a remonstrance against certain exertions of the privilege of parliament, by which the subject’s right of petitioning was thought to be curtailed. This remarkable paper, which, though never clearly avowed, is believed to have been written by Defoe, and presented by him, dressed in women’s clothes, to the Speaker, was entitled, A Memorial from the Gentlemen, Freeholders, and Inhabitants of the Counties of ——, in behalf of themselves, and many thousands of the good people of England, to the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses in Parliament assembled; and ends in the following words: “For Englishmen are no more to be slaves to Parliaments than to Kings.

“Our name is LEGION,
“And we are MANY.

“If you require to have this Memorial signed with our names, it shall be done on your first orders, and formally presented.”

Of this attempt to intimidate the House no open notice was taken, nor does it appear to have been known at the time who was the author. But any ill-will which the Tories might have against Defoe, if suspected, was gratified by the consequences of a pamphlet which he published in 1702, entitled, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, or Proposals for the Establishment of the Church. In this ironical performance, which ostensibly recommends the total extirpation of Dissenters from England, he intended to satirize the blind prejudices and headstrong zeal of the high Tory faction: but he had the misfortune to raise up enemies on every side. Some of the Dissenters took it literally, and raised an outcry against him as a persecutor: the Tories understood it better, and had influence enough to get a prosecution commenced against him, and a reward offered for his apprehension, by the government. The House of Commons voted the book a libel, and ordered it to be burnt by the hangman. The printer and the publisher of it were taken into custody, upon which Defoe, who had secreted himself, came forward, “to throw himself upon the favour of Government, rather than that others should be ruined for his mistakes.” He was tried in July, 1703, found guilty of composing and publishing a seditious libel, and, by a very oppressive sentence, was condemned to be imprisoned, to stand in the pillory, to pay a fine of 200 marks, and to find security for his good behaviour during seven years. It is in allusion to this that Pope, who ought to have better appreciated such a man, has made an unworthy attack upon Defoe in the Dunciad,

Earless on high stood unabashed Defoe.

He had no reason to be, and was not, abashed; and he composed a Hymn to the Pillory, and an Elegy on the Author of a True-born Englishman, esteeming himself defunct as an author, when he was obliged to find sureties for good behaviour. These, like all his works, contain the energetic expression of an independent spirit: to poetical merit they have no claim.

Early in 1704, while he was still in prison, Defoe commenced a periodical paper, entitled The Review, which, in addition to the usual topics of news, contained a report of the proceedings of a “Scandal Club, which discusses questions in divinity, morals, war, trade, language, poetry, love, marriage, drunkenness, and gaming. Thus it is easy to see that the Review pointed out the way to the Tatlers, Spectators, and Guardians, which may be allowed, however, to have treated these interesting topics with more delicacy of language, more terseness of style, and greater depth of learning: yet has Defoe many passages, both of prose and poetry, which for refinement of wit, neatness of expression, and efficacy of moral, would do honour either to Steele or Addison.” (Chalmers.) This periodical was published three times a week, until May, 1713, when it was brought to a close. Defoe continued in Newgate until August, 1704, when Harley procured his release, and recommended him to Queen Anne, who seems to have thought that he had been hardly used, and contributed generously towards the relief of his family, reduced to poverty by the misfortunes of its head. She employed him, he says, in “several honourable, though secret services;” and he speaks, in his Appeal to Honour and Justice, of a “special service, in which I ran as much risque of my life as a grenadier upon the counterscarp.” These seem to have been rewarded by a pension, or by some subordinate office; but the exact nature of the recompense is not known. In October, 1706, he was dispatched to Scotland, to assist in promoting the union between the two kingdoms. In addition to his talents and readiness as an author, he possessed great practical knowledge of commerce and matters connected with the revenue: he frequently attended the committees of the Scottish parliament, and made a variety of calculations, relative to trade and taxes, for their use; and he was very serviceable, as a popular writer, in replying to the various attacks which were made upon that hated measure. His intimate acquaintance with the transactions of this period qualified him well for a work, which now probably is known to few readers, but which contains a great body of minute information concerning the condition and the history of Scotland at that period,—The History of the Union between England and Scotland: of which Mr. Chalmers says, “The minuteness with which he describes what he saw and heard upon that turbulent stage, where he acted a conspicuous part, is extremely interesting to us, who wish to know what actually passed, however this circumstantiality may have disgusted contemporaneous readers. History is chiefly valuable, as it transmits a faithful copy of the manners and sentiments of every age. This narrative of Defoe is a drama, in which he introduces the highest peers and the lowest peasants speaking and acting, according as they were each actuated by their characteristic passions; and while the man of taste is amused by his manner, the man of business may draw instruction from the documents, which are appended to the end, and interspersed in every page. This publication had alone preserved his name, had his Crusoe pleased us less.” Chalmers naturally makes the most of its merits, for his Life of Defoe was originally prefixed to a reprint of it in 1786: but the author would have been little known if his popularity had depended on this work only.

After his return from Scotland, Defoe resided for some time at Newington. He incurred great obloquy, he says, for trying to make the best of the peace of Utrecht after it was concluded, and bore infinite reproaches as having been hired and bribed to defend a bad peace, upon the supposition that he was the author of pamphlets in which he had no share. To escape from this persecution he went to Halifax, in Yorkshire, where he had ample opportunity to observe the confidence of the Jacobite party, and the success with which they laboured to make converts among the lower ranks. To counteract these plottings, he wrote A Seasonable Caution, Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover, and some other pamphlets with similar titles; intending, he says, by means of their apparent drift, to put them into the hands of persons whom the Jacobites had deluded. But Defoe was unfortunate as an ironical writer: perhaps the same qualities which gave his fictions such an air of truth tended to give his irony too much the appearance of earnest. On this, as on a former occasion, some persons were foolish or malicious enough to misconstrue his meaning, and to accuse him of writing seditious libels in favour of the Pretender. On this frivolous charge an information was filed against him in the spring of 1713, on which he was taken into custody, and obliged to find bail to a large amount; and the consequences might have been still more serious, but for a second intervention of Harley, who procured a free pardon for him in the following November. Speaking of these very publications in his Appeal, he protests that “if the Elector of Hanover had given me a thousand pounds to have written for the interests of his succession, and to expose, and render the interest of the Pretender odious and ridiculous, I could have done nothing more effectual to these purposes than these books were.”

Well intended and valuable as his labours might be, his only recompense for them was a bare immunity from persecution. After the accession of George I. he was discountenanced and neglected. In 1715 he wrote An Appeal to Honour and Justice, comprising a defence of his character, and a general account of his life, principles, and conduct. He was struck by apoplexy before he had quite completed this work, but recovered the full possession of his faculties, and lived until April 26, 1731. After this attack, whether from the wish to avoid excitement and anxiety, or from the little advantage which his political writings had produced to him, he almost ceased to handle controversial subjects, and devoted himself with unwearying industry to works of a more popular and lucrative kind. Upon the profits of his pen he seems to have depended for his livelihood; and to the necessity of courting popular favour it may probably be attributed, that the subjects of some of his works are vulgar, and the style coarse: but even out of vicious and revolting subjects he had the art of extracting a wholesome moral. The following are the names and dates of the principal productions of his declining years; and it is very remarkable, considering the circumstances in which they were composed, that they should comprise all those fictions to which he owes his imperishable name in British literature:—Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719. Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton, 1720. Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, 1721. Religious Courtship; Journal of the Plague Year, 1722. Life of Colonel Jack, 1723. Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, 1724–7. New Voyage round the World, 1725. Political History of the Devil, 1726. Complete English Tradesman, 1727. Plan of English Commerce, 1728. Memoirs of a Cavalier—date uncertain. But notwithstanding the unceasing industry which enabled him to produce these, and many other works, in the time specified, he appears to have died insolvent, for a creditor took out letters of administration on his effects.

A catalogue of the numerous works known, or confidently believed by the compiler to be Defoe’s, and of those also which are attributed to him on more doubtful evidence, is given by Mr. Chalmers at the end of that edition of his Life which is subjoined to Stockdale’s edition of Robinson Crusoe, in 2 vols. 8vo., 1790; hardly one in four of them has been named in this short account. Defoe was a very rapid, as well as a laborious composer: it is said that he once wrote two shilling pamphlets in a single day. His controversial works however have long lost their interest; and his principal historical work, that on the Union, is too prolix and minute to find general acceptation in our days. In his acquaintance with commerce, and insight into the principles by which it is governed, he is entitled to rank with the most skilful of his contemporaries; but the progress of economical science has of course deprived his commercial writings of most of their value, except as records of the past. Of his numerous works of fiction, we may notice the History of the Plague of London in 1665, Memoirs of a Cavalier, and Robinson Crusoe, as the best known and the most deserving. The first, which professes to be the journal of a saddler resident in Whitechapel during the awful visitation which he describes, is said to have been received as genuine even by Dr. Mead, as no doubt it has been by very many of those who are unacquainted with its real history. There is a homely pathos, a minute and scrupulous adherence to verisimilitude in it which almost irresistibly persuades the reader that none but an eyewitness could have written such an account. The Memoirs of a Cavalier possess the same air of truth. They relate the campaigns of a young Englishman of good family, first in Germany under Gustavus Adolphus, afterwards on the royal side in our civil wars; and depict with great vividness and fidelity the principal events of those interesting and stirring times. But popular as these works have been and deserve to be, they sink into obscurity when compared with the universal acceptation of Robinson Crusoe; the only thing, according to Dr. Johnson, written by mere man, that was ever wished longer by its readers, except Don Quixote and the Pilgrim’s Progress. And Bunyan and Defoe had some points in common. Both came of the people, and both, without the advantages or trammels of a learned education, wrote for and to the people; they slighted no source of pathos or eloquence as being too humble, and cared little for homeliness of phrase, if it expressed their meaning clearly and strongly. It is needless to give any account of a book, which in one shape or other, for in the numerous reprints it has often been curtailed and mutilated, must be familiar to every reader. The story is well known to be identical with that of Alexander Selkirk, who, after a solitary abode of four years on the island of Juan Fernandez, returned to England in 1709. Defoe has been charged with surreptitiously obtaining and making an unfair use of this man’s papers; but there seems to be no ground whatever for the accusation. Selkirk’s story had been made public in several forms seven years at least before Robinson Crusoe was written, and it was free to Defoe or to any man to take it as the ground upon which to build a tale. And far from Selkirk’s papers having been traced into Defoe’s hands, it does not even appear that these pretended papers ever were in existence: indeed Selkirk seems, from the published accounts of him, to have been so much below the fictitious Crusoe in the extent of his resources, and the fertility of his ingenuity (and we say this with no desire to undervalue his active spirit and contented temper), that it is hardly possible that he should have furnished more than the first hint, which Defoe has expanded into so instructive, fascinating, and varied a story.

The following lively criticism of this remarkable work is extracted from Dunlop’s History of Fiction:—

“Defoe and Swift, though differing very widely in education, opinions, and character, have at the same time some strong points of resemblance. Both are remarkable for the unaffected simplicity of their narratives—both intermingle so many minute circumstances, and state so particularly names of persons, and dates, and places, that the reader is involuntarily surprised into a persuasion of their truth. It seems impossible that what is so artlessly told should be a fiction, especially as the narrators begin the account of their voyages with such references to persons living, or whom they assert to be alive, and whose place of residence is so accurately mentioned, that one is led to believe a relation must be genuine, which could, if false, have been so easily convicted of falsehood. The incidents too are so very circumstantial, that we think it impossible they could have been mentioned, except they had been real....” Speaking of the moral of Robinson Crusoe, he continues, “We are delighted with the spectacle of difficulty overcome, and with the power of human ingenuity and contrivance to provide not only accommodation but comfort, in the most unfavourable circumstances. Never did human being excite more sympathy in his fate than this shipwrecked mariner: we enter into all his doubts and difficulties, and every rusty nail which he acquires fills us with satisfaction. We thus learn to appreciate our own comforts, and we acquire, at the same time, a habit of activity; but above all we attain a trust and devout confidence in Divine mercy and goodness. The author also, by placing his hero in an uninhabited island in the Western Ocean, had an opportunity of introducing scenes which, with the merit of truth, have all the wildness and horror of the most incredible fiction. _That_ foot in the sand—_Those_ Indians who land on the solitary shore to devour their captives, fill us with alarm and terror; and after being relieved from the fear of Crusoe perishing by famine, we are agitated by new apprehensions for his safety. The deliverance of Friday, and the whole character of that young Indian, are painted in the most beautiful manner; and, in short, of all the works of fiction that have ever been composed, Robinson Crusoe is perhaps the most interesting and attractive.”

]

_Engraved by W. Holl._

DAVID HUME.

_From a Print by A. Smith, after a Picture by Allen Ramsay._

Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]

HUME.

David Hume was born in Edinburgh, April 26, 1711. His father, who was descended from a branch of the Earl of Home’s, or Hume’s, family, died while David was an infant, leaving him, with an elder brother and sister, to the care of his mother, the daughter of Sir Edward Falconer, who devoted the remainder of her days to the welfare of her children. Her property was inconsiderable, and that which fell to David, as a younger son, was very slender. His family, observing the manner in which he acquitted himself at college, would have fixed his attention on the law; but his growing passion for philosophy and general learning rendered him averse to that pursuit, and after a fruitless attempt at Bristol to reconcile himself to a more active kind of employment, he went to France, where he laid down that plan of life to which he ever afterwards adhered. It now became his fixed resolve to secure his independence by means of the most rigid frugality; and to deem every acquisition contemptible, except the improvement of his talents in literature. This was in 1734.

During his three years’ residence in France, Hume composed his Treatise of Human Nature, which he published on his return to England in 1738. The work failed to attract the slightest notice from friend or foe. But our young aspirant was not dismayed; and his buoyant spirit was much strengthened by the degree of success which attended the appearance of the first part of his Essays, which were published at Edinburgh in 1742.

In 1745 Hume quitted the residence of his mother and brother, in compliance with an invitation from the Marquis of Annandale; the friends of that young nobleman having thought that his health and mind required the aid which such a tutorship, or companionship, for we hardly know which to call it, would afford. Hume states, that his employment during the twelve months thus passed in England made a considerable accession to his small fortune. “I thus received,” he says, “an invitation from General St. Clair to attend him as a secretary to his expedition, which was at first meant against Canada, but ended in an incursion on the coast of France. Next year, to wit 1747, I received an invitation from the General to attend him in the same station in his military embassy to the courts of Vienna and Turin. I then wore the uniform of an officer, and was introduced at those courts as aid-de-camp to the General, along with Sir Harry Erskine, and Captain Grant, now General Grant. These two years were almost the only interruptions my studies received during the course of my life.”

In 1747 Hume re-cast the first part of his Treatise of Human Nature, and published it under the title of an Inquiry concerning Human Understanding. But this amended performance also failed to produce any immediate effects; and a new edition of his Essays Moral and Political, published about the same time in London, found scarcely a better reception. Still looking to the hopeful side of things, our author composed during 1749 and 1750 the second part of his Essays, which were called Political Discourses; and also his Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, which was another part of his ill-fated Treatise of Human Nature, in a new form. By this time some of the more obnoxious parts of that treatise began to call forth opponents, and it became evident that its author, though much more frequently censured than applauded, was a man of rising reputation. This result was favoured by his determination never to reply to any of his critics, a resolve which the peculiarities of his temper enabled him to act upon to the end of life.

In 1751 he removed to Edinburgh, and being chosen librarian by the Faculty of Advocates in the following year, the plan of writing his History of England was formed. This memorable work commenced with the accession of the House of Stuart; and the author, who was sanguine as to its success, relates that “on the publication of the first volume, he scarcely knew a man in the three kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the book.” After a sale of less than fifty copies in the first year, the work seemed fast sinking into oblivion. This disappointment appears to have affected Hume more than any event which had befallen him; and, had not the war with France at that juncture prevented it, he would probably have gone to that country, never again to have seen his own. But the habits induced by a passion for literature are not easily put in abeyance. Soon after receiving this discouragement, Hume published his Natural History of Religion. In 1756 the second volume of the History of England made its appearance, “which not only rose itself, but helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother.” The third volume, relating to the House of Tudor, appeared in 1759, and was censured hardly less than the first. In 1761, the two volumes embracing the early period of our history were published, and, according to their author “with tolerable, and but tolerable success.”

Hume now formed the purpose of spending the remainder of his days in philosophical retirement in Scotland; but was induced in 1763 to visit Paris, in connexion with the embassy of the Earl of Hertford to that city. The honours paid to our philosopher and historian in that capital once disposed him to think of settling there for life. He had now passed his fiftieth year, and his official residence in Paris extended, with a slight intermission, to six years—from 1763 to 1769. From the period of his leaving Paris, to 1775, when his last sickness came upon him, his time appears to have been given chiefly to the enjoyment of his friends; his authorship, and other employments, having secured him an income of not less than 1000_l._ a year. A disorder in the bowels, which reduced him considerably, but without becoming the occasion of much pain, or at all affecting his spirits, ended his life, August 25, 1776, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

Hume’s character as a man has been sketched by himself, and his account may be admitted as, in most respects, substantially accurate. He describes himself as mild in disposition, possessing a command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in his passions. “Even my love of literary fame,” he adds, “my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a word, though most men any wise eminent, have found reason to complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked by her baleful tooth: and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their wonted fury. My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of my character and conduct.” Much to this effect is the testimony of Dr. Adam Smith, the intimate friend of Hume. This writer, indeed, does not hesitate to speak of him “as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit.” Some deduction should of course be made from this language, as that of a natural self-love in the one instance, and of an ardent friendship in the other. It is no proof, for example, of Hume’s exemption from the irascible passions, that he should have been so rarely capable of adverting to the opponents of his favourite speculations in morals or religion, without indulging in reproachful and degrading language; “bigots” and “zealots” being the designations flung at such persons on almost all occasions. In the same spirit the name of a “faction,” is his favourite one for that large class of politicians in this country whose principles did not embrace so much of “the monstrous creed of many made for one,” as belonged to his own. And it is worthy of notice, that a passage in his memoirs, which was inserted by him as an evidence of his exemption from this sort of prejudice and resentment, affords one of the most decisive proofs that he shared in this common weakness much more than himself or his admirers were willing to allow. “Though I had been taught by experience,” he writes, “that the Whig party were in possession of bestowing all places, both in the state and in literature, I was so little inclined to yield to their senseless clamour, that in above a hundred alterations, which further study, reading, or reflection, engaged me to make in the reigns of the two first Stuarts, I have made all of them invariably to the Tory side.” Now what reader can suppose that the inaccuracies detected by a mind without bias, could possibly have occurred in this shape—a hundred on one side, and not one on the other! The fact itself, and the tone in which it is recorded, disclose what our philosopher would fain have concealed. We leave the moral conduct of Hume in the spotless state set forth by his own description of it, though we cannot forbear to remark that such language comes somewhat strangely from a gentleman who had been so fascinated with the manner of the Parisian fashionables under Louis XV., as to have thought of never leaving them. We believe, however, that in his case, the principal attraction of such society was its polish, and not its almost incredible licentiousness. We learn, that in one of those gay assemblies, Hume was induced to make his appearance in the character of a Sultan, placed on a sofa between two of the most beautiful women in Paris. It was his province to solicit the favours of these ladies, and it was theirs to act the part of fair ones who were not to be subdued, and in the dialogue, or rather trilogue, which lasted some quarter of an hour, the author of the Treatise of Human Nature, and of the History of England, acquitted himself, we are told, much to the edification of all who were present[3]. In these moments of relaxation, the philosopher was regarded as discovering his amiable sympathy with the ordinary feelings of humanity. It does not appear to have occurred to him, or to his flatterers, to consider the much stronger evidence of the want of such sympathy, which was afforded by his approval of the system of government which had so long spread its terrors and its wrongs over the length and breadth of that splendid, miserable country. Our limits will not allow of any reference to the particulars of the public dispute between Hume and Rousseau, and we therefore abstain from expressing any opinion respecting it.

Footnote 3:

‘Mémoires et Correspondance de Madame d’Epinay.’ III., 284, 285.

In the philosophical writings of Hume, the great element is scepticism. He had many precursors in that sort of amusing speculation which tends to throw doubt over received opinions; and which, as a natural effect of human vanity, does so the more in regard to those notions which happen to be retained most generally and with the greatest confidence. But these limits did not satisfy the author of the Treatise of Human Nature. The drift of his philosophy is to prove, not only that nothing _is_ known, but that nothing _can_ be known; that the human race are shut up in the most entire ignorance, partly from the character of the objects around them, but mainly from the very framework and nature of the human understanding. Much ingenuity and acuteness was required to give any plausible appearance to a theory so contrary to the natural impressions of mankind, and Hume’s philosophical works afford evidence enough of the sort of talent necessary to his object. But he well knew, that however proper, and however felicitous it might be, to lay low the giant spirit of dogmatism by such means, his own conclusions, in every instance of importance, were hardly less dogmatic than those of his opponents, the principal difference being, that the sources of _his_ assumptions were somewhat more difficult to detect and expose. For what assumption can be greater than that of a right to believe in all unbelief? In this case, the very faculty that doubts must be a figment of vanity. The writer who determines to assail everything, forces on mankind a suspicion of caprice and insincerity, and is not likely to demolish anything. By attempting less, Hume would have accomplished more; and he would not then have called forth that array of philosophic power against himself, which has done so much damage to his reputation in this department of his labours. His miscellaneous Essays abound in valuable observations, and are fine models of English composition. The manner in which he met his death is the stock theme with the superficial, as illustrating the power of philosophy. But the man of reflection may perhaps see as much of the weakness of humanity in that event, as of the strength of philosophy; and certainly he will not need to be told, that nothing can be more delusive than the use generally made of such scenes.

It is not however as the philosopher, but as the historian, that Hume is known to the majority of persons, both in this country and on the continent. Those habits of close thought, and that careful use of language, to which he had been so long accustomed in his philosophical studies, qualified him, in a high degree, to treat the topics of history with discrimination, simplicity, and clearness. The evil to be feared was, that he would often allow the sprightliness of narrative to sink into the dullness of disquisition; and that even his narrative would be deficient in that selection of familiar anecdote, and in those picturesque descriptions, which, while having little relation to the great lessons of history, are certainly among its great attractions. But it happens that the narrative of Xenophon himself is not more easy and uninterrupted than that of Hume; nor has the former writer shown a stronger disposition to dwell on domestic incidents, or to throw a dramatic colouring over public occurrences, than the latter. Never did any man bring so much of the power of abstruse thought to the writing of history, and appear to be so much served and so little inconvenienced by it. His station and intercourse in society added much of the feeling and manners of the gentleman to the more grave attainments of the man of learning, and tended to produce that combination of qualities, which made his society at all times agreeable, and has thrown a nameless and irresistible charm over his historical writing. His style was the result of great elaboration, but has every appearance of being that which must have been adopted without effort. It is open, indeed, in almost every page, to much verbal criticism, no book perhaps of the same standing being in this respect so vulnerable. But these lesser blemishes are forgotten amid the many natural and delightful graces with which it is adorned; graces which no one can help feeling, but which it would be as difficult to describe as to imitate.

Having however spoken thus of Mr. Hume’s style, and remarked the general acuteness and frequent justice of his observations, we have fairly exhausted our topics of praise. With regard to the two most valuable qualities of a historian—research and integrity, the claims of Hume are in the inverse position of his pretensions in other respects. Instead of seeking, as the author of the Essay on Miracles might have been expected to do, for the best possible testimonies, for these in the greatest possible number, and then sifting them to the utmost, we find him committing himself, with apparent unconsciousness, to the most incompetent guides, often to a single authority where several were accessible, and where several are adduced, attaching no more credit to the depositions of an intelligent writer contemporary with what he records, than to that of some worthless chronicler, who lived some centuries later! This is particularly the case with regard to that portion of our history which precedes the Reformation; and there cannot be a greater mistake than to suppose that his references at the foot of the page in these earlier volumes indicate the sources from which the material of his text was derived. “Ingenious but superficial” is the description of these volumes which Gibbon recorded in his diary, after reading them. In the more modern period of our history, as the authorities relating to it may be consulted by an indolent man with less labour, and by a man of taste with less disgust, we find a little more research and discrimination, but by no means sufficient to render his accounts worthy of implicit confidence, even when not liable to be affected by any of his known partialities. It is to this deficient industry, and to the consequent want of a steady mastery of his subject before beginning to write upon it, that we have mainly to attribute the perpetual contradictions which occur in his description of the great contest under the Stuart princes; contradictions which are so many and so irreconcilable as to make his book one of the most inconsistent that ever emanated from a man of ordinary powers. We have not, of course, space in which to exhibit the proofs of this statement;—but we are confident that inquiry will prove it to be correct.