whose reign had been a continued religious sparring between Catholicism and Church-of-Englandism, England went over in an almost bloodless revolution to the Prince of Orange. De Foe, like most of the dissenters, was strongly opposed to the Stuarts, and evinced it more decidedly than by his pen. He had joined in the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion, and was always proud of the active part he had taken in it. It has been said that fully sixty thousand persons were prosecuted upon a religious account, from the restoration to the revolution, five thousand of whom died in prison.

Parliament was quite in a quandary as to the possibility of getting rid of a tyrant, with a safe conscience. How could they, consistently with the divine right of kings, deprive James of his crown perforce? To get over the difficulty, they resolved that he had abdicated the throne; which is much of a piece with the old story of forcing a man to be a volunteer. Luckily they also found a precedent of a similar case in Sweden or Corsica or the Shetland Islands or somewhere else. But the difficulty did not end here. In order to render the oath of allegiance to the new dynasty as palatable as possible, the words "rightful and lawful king" were struck out of the usual form. Many, however, of the clergy, as well as others, still believed in the divine right of the deposed sovereign, and refused to take the oaths. From this commenced the distinction of a king de jure or de facto, and also the non-jurors. The number of the clergy stript of their places was very large, including many dignitaries of the church, distinguished for their virtues, talents, and learning. We will only mention Bishops Sancroft and Kenn, Jeremy Collier and the profound linguists Dodwell and Hickes. According to the account of Burnet, in his Own Times, none but the honest clergy were turned out of place, but that many Vicars of Bray swore allegiance with more quibbles and mental reservations than did ever sea captain in taking a custom house oath. "Alas! (says a writer speaking of the times) the motto ' of too many of the pseudo-christians whom we daily see is, ' may 'I never be found out in perjury' and that this should be the 'national sin of Englaud, more than any other countries, 'pu'det hæc opprobria nobis,' &c. I can show you a pamphlet ' of six sheets, not long ago writ by a learned man, and entitled ''Perjury the national Sin;' and the author proves his point too 'well; insomuch that he shows himself perjured too."*

Immediately after his accession to the throne, William attempted to extend political rights to all his protestant subjects, and especially to admit all indifferently to office; but bis good intentions were defeated in Parliament by a large majority. * Pepys' Corresp. 148.

The Lords, to their credit be it said, were with the king. Eventually, however, the act of toleration passed, by which dissenters were at least allowed liberty of worship, provided they would subscribe to the theological dogmas of the established church-dogmas which many churchmen did not pretend to believe, and which, of a verity, many did not understand. As for such heretics as denied the Trinity, they were utterly excluded from the benefits of the act. The king wished to extend his kindness, or rather justice, to the papists, but Parliament had stretched their liberality to its utmost bounds. Limited as were the favours granted to dissenters, the clergy, lately so humble, so affectionate to their dissenting brethren, lifted up their voices and bewailed the desolation of Zion.

Whatever credit Parliament deserved for its liberality in passing the toleration act, was obliterated by the disgraceful law for the prevention of the growth of popery in 1700. To save the trouble of reasoning on it, we will just give one specimen of its practical effects. "Paul Atkinson, a Franciscan 'friar, in the year 1700, was condemned to perpetual imprison'ment, for performing the functions of a Roman Catholic priest. 'He was confined in Hurst Castle, in the county of Southamp'ton, where he died October 15, 1729, in the seventy-fourth year 'of his age, and the thirtieth of his imprisonment. He was so 'generally esteemed for his exemplary conduct as to be visited by persons of all ranks and conditions, who commiserated his 'case." vol. i. 312.

And what was the imminent danger of popery that called for such rigorous measures? Here it is:

"While King William was engaged in his project of reconciling the religious differences of England, he was at great pains to find out the proportions between churchmen, dissenters and papists. In his chest there is the following curious report in consequence of an enquiry upon that head.

The number of Freeholders in England.

According to which account, the proportion of Confor

mists to Non-Conformists, is

Conformists to Papists, is

}

22 4-5 to one.

178 10-13

Conformists and Non-Conformists together to Papists is 186 2-3*

Yet, notwithstanding some rigorous acts, and some hard cases under them, liberty advanced during this reign, and liberty of conscience with it. For in estimating the real condition of a country we are to look as much at the temper of the times as at the statute book, and certainly a degree of knowledge and liberalitv in political matters, had been diffused throughout society, unknown in any preceding period. The works of Milton, Sidney's Treatise on government, Harrington's Oceana, and Locke's Tracts on toleration and government, laid the solid basis for English freedom, upon which the superstructure has since been slowly, but solidly built. Lord Somers, Ludlow, Blount, Tindal and Tyrrel, also did good service, while the indefatigable De Foe skirmished every where, in both politics and religion. With more boldness and more philosophy than the rest, Toland advocated universal toleration to papist as well as protestant; to Christian, Jew and Atheist.

The great advantage of the revolution of 1688 was not that it changed a dynasty only, but that it settled a principle for England and for the world. It recognized the people; it gave back the power which had been wrested from them, and which they have since continued to hold with a vigorous grasp. "This 'revolution (says Lord John Russell)† is the mighty stock from which all other revolutions have sprung: Montesquieu and 'Voltaire spread the knowledge and admiration of it in France: 'the Americans caught its spirit in the declaration of their own 'freedom: the French, again, imitated the Americans: the other 'nations of Europe have copied France." True, however, as the observation is, we must look back for the impetus that set the ball in motion to the commonwealth from which more than one Milton survived, to hand down the torch through the gloomy period of the last Stuarts. The gain in William's reign to civil was more apparent than to religious liberty, but the exercise of the boxer invigorates the arm that is to wield the sword, and be whose head and heart have fought, on principle, for one portion of his rights, is prepared for battle in defence of the rest. That the new monarch was not popular, and that a large Jacobite interest long continued, we are disposed to think depended much on matters disconnected with the policy of either. The * Sir John Dalrymple's Memoirs, ii. part. 2. b. i. 39. Lond. 1790.

Essay on the Hist. of the Eng. Gov. London, 1823. See also, Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. ii. 439. 4to. 1827.

Stuarts possessed elegance, wit, urbanity of manners, kind bearing to their friends, the effect of which also accounts for the great personal popularity of Louis XIV., even in the decline of his glory, and which made George IV. a favorite with the people, without any other striking qualities, and with many striking defects. Independently of the cold, reserved manners of William, he was, in a measure, a stranger at home; his correspondence was even carried on with his officers and friends in French.* To such an indecent length was the animosity against him carried, that, after his decease, it was common to drink the health of the little gentleman in velvet; meaning the mole that had burrowed the ground so as to cause his horse to stumble and throw him, and eventually to produce his death.

De Foe, with most of the dissenters, had hailed the arrival of William, and had joined him, armed, at Henly. As soon as the act of toleration passed, he established a congregation of dissenters. In business, he was not fortunate, for he failed; and to avoid an ill-tempered creditor, and the hard bankrupt laws of the period, was obliged to abscond for awhile. His creditors afterwards accepted a composition on his single bond, which he faithfully paid, and afterwards settled fully with some of his creditors who had fallen into distress. Soon after, he was offered a lucrative employment abroad, but thinking the state of things demanded his pen at home, he declined the proposition through conscience. He next engaged in pantile works, and appears to have lived comfortable through that reign.

With King William and his Queen, De Foe was well acquainted, and he always continued to vindicate that monarch and his policy after his decease. Many of De Foe's best pamphlets were written during that reign, in favour of the measures of William, which indeed were, with few exceptions, those of sound policy and justice. Among these we may mention his Enquiry into the occasional conformity of the dissenters." "The free-holder's plea against stock jobbing elections." "The original power of the collective body of the people of England." &c. The last, in particular, is a strong and sensible work, often reprinted, and among other times, during the Wilkes hubbup. When the freeholders of Kent remonstrated with parliament on account of some illegal proceeding, and the Kentish committele were thrown into prison for their boldness, De Foe wrote, and handed into the Commons a memorial written in uncommon ly spirited and threatening language, signed "Legion." In what disguise, or in what manner this was handed in, his biographers

See his letters in Coxe's Life of Marlborough, and in the Talbot Correspondence. London, 1821.

have not discovered, but it certainly required no little audacity to dare thus the vengeance of an irritated parliament. Shortly after his bankruptcy, he was engaged with others in devising ways and means for King William to carry on the war against Louis XIV., which is something like Hogarth's picture of the debtor in prison writing a plan for the payment of the national debt. De Foe was an eternal projector, and, among his other books, printed "An Essay on Projects," which contains many excellent notions on politics, commerce and public benevolence. Many of his suggestions have been since carried into operation, and there are others which deserve to be. Among other things, he proposed a military academy, gymnastics in education, ameliorations in the bankrupt laws, lunatic asylums, &c. all of which have been put in operation in succeeding times. He urged also the establishment of an accademy for the advancement of the English language and literature, somewhat after the fashion of the French academy. He also suggests the importance of institutions for female education, which, to the shame of all Christendom, are as much needed now as they were in his day. We have colleges from Maine to Florida for young men, but the talents of an Agnesi, a Montague, a Sèvignè or de Staël, have no resource but schools set up on speculation, with teachers picked up at hazard, without libraries, without apparatus of any kind. Our State legislatures meet annually, and take into consideration, with befitting gravity, the important subject of education, leaving out of their deliberation exactly one half of the whole community.

De Foe, who had heretofore attracted notice as a prose writer, now appeared as a poet, with some eclat, though forgotten in our day. Tutchin, a writer then of some note, wrote a poem called "The Foreigners," in which the King and the Dutch were not very civilly treated. To this, De Foe replied in a satire, entitled "The True-born Englishman," in which he reproaches his countrymen with their ingratitude to King William, and shows the mongrel character of the nation. It must be admitted, that one John Dryden, who lived about that time, wrote rather better satires, but hirsute as was De Foe's verse, it had good sense, and took with the people. This, as many of his other after poems, run through innumerable editions. Speaking of Charles II, who dignified the English peerage, by adding to it six of his own offspring, by means of his mistresses, he writes,

"And carefully repeopled us again
Throughout his lazy, long, lacivious reign

VOL. VII.-No. 13.

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