DE FOE, DANtnt,, was b. in London, 1661, and was the son of James Foe, a butcher. The prefix De was not added to the family name of Foe by. our author until he had reached manhood. De F., whose father was a dissenter, was educated at a dissenting academy at Newington Green, where he remained until lie had nearly reached the age of nineteen. In 1682, he began his career as author, publishing a pamphlet which con tained strictures upon the clergy of that day. This was followed, in 1683, by another pamphlet, entitled A Treatise against the Turks. In 1685, he took part in the rebellion of the duke of Monmouth, but luckily escaped being punished on its suppression. After this he engaged in trade, but a series of misfortunes finally determined him to forsake it.
In 1701, he published his famous satirical poem, The True-born Englishman, which was written in vindication of king 'William, and in answer to a poem in which he had been attacked, called The Foreigners. This poem proved a wonderful success; 80,000 pirated copies of it were sold on the streets at a trifling price. During the same year, when the deputation that presented -the famous petition of the freeholders of Kent to the house of commons were illegally thrown into prison, De F. drew up, a few days after, a remonstrance, known in history as the Legion Memorial; and is said to have himself, in the disguise of a woman, presented it to the speaker as he entered the house. In 1703, a complaint being made in the house of commons regarding one of his recent publications, called The Shortest Why with Dissenters (1702), the whole tenor of which seems to have been misunderstood, he was apprehended, tried, found guilty, pilloried, fined, and imprisoned. While in prison, he wrote a Hymn to the Pillory; and here also he projected The Review, a periodical which he established on his release in Aug.. 1704, and continued to conduct for nine years. In 1706, lord Godolphin, who admired the practical talent and literary vigor of De F., employed him as one of the staff of the corn
mi,ssioners to Scotland to bring about the union. De F.'s knowledge of.,revenue, trade, and taxes was found to be of great value; and it is supposed that he was rewarded with a pension for his services on that occasion. His visit to Scotland enabled him to write a Higtory of the Union. For some years after, De F. seems to have lived in comfortable circumstances, but gradually his numerous political enemies gathered voice again, and De F. was literally silenced by noise and obloquy; at last, however, roused by the inso lence of the Jacobite party, he was once more tempted to write unwarily, and the result was that he was again (1713) apprehended, fined in £800, and committed to Newgate. After his release, De F. became sick of politics, and, fortunately for the world, sought rest in the sphere of imaginative literature. In 1719, appeared the famous Robinson Crusoe—the most popular of all his works. Its success was immediate. The publisher, who had accepted the book after all the others had refused it, is said.' to have cleared --C1000 by its publication—no small sum in those days. De F., in rapid succession, pro duced his other notable works of fiction. Moll Flanders (1721), Journal of the Plague (1722), Colonel Jack (1721), Adventures of Roxana (1724), and the Memoirs of a Cavalier, the last of which Chatham used to recommend as the best account of the civil wars extant, bear witness to De F.'s industry during these years. lie died in April, 1731. D.'s style, both in his political and imaginative works, is simple, clear, and vigorous. His fictitious narratives are characterized by an unparalleled appearance of truth. This is pre-eminently the case in the Journal of the Plague, which for a long time imposed upon the well-known Dr. Mead as genuine. See Life and recently discovered Writings of De b°, by Lee.