Daniel Defoe and His Novel Robinson Crusoe — страница 5

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histories; he worked as a journalistic double agent, writing for Tory journals while in the employ of the Whigs; he delighted in printing anti-Catholic drivel (and spent a lifetime seething about "Popish Plots," including, so he thought, the Great London Fire of 1666); he raked up scandal wherever he could, insulting enemies and shocking friends. On the other hand, he vigorously defended his faith and accepted a prison term as the price of principle. Although it is not always acknowledged by his biographers—West does better here than many—Defoe's professional life focused on the place of religion in personal and public life. All his writings, from novels to marriage manuals, from occult studies to political broadsides, stem from the viewpoint of a devout Dissenter

fighting for survival in an Anglican nation. It was for Scotland he used different arguments, even the opposite of those he used in England, for example, usually ignoring the English doctrine of the Sovereignty of Parliament, telling the Scots that they could have complete confidence in the guarantees in the Treaty. Some of his pamphlets were purported to be written by Scots, misleading even reputable historians into quoting them as evidence of Scottish opinion of the time. The same is true of a massive history of the Union which Defoe published in 1709 and which some historians still treat as a valuable contemporary source for their own works. Defoe took pains to give his history an air of objectivity by giving some space to arguments against the Union, but always having the

last word for himself. He disposed of the main Union opponent, Andrew Fletcher of Slaton, by just ignoring him. Nor does he account for the deviousness of the Duke of Hamilton, the official leader of the Squadron Volant against the Union, who finally acted against his comrades in the decisive stages of the debate. Hamilton was to lead an Anti-Union Rebellion of 1708, where Covenanters had marched from Galloway (and were betrayed at Dumfries) to unite with Jacobites at Edinburgh. A Highland Army camped outside Edinburgh were given the keys by the town guard to let them in. The Illustrious Duke failed to turn up, due to a toothache, and the French frigates in the Forth had to turn back. Defoe made no attempt to explain why the same Scottish Parliament which was so vehement for its

Independence from 1703 to 1705 became so supine in 1706. He received very little reward from his paymasters and, of course, no recognition for his services by the government. He made use of his Scottish experience to write his Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain, published in 1726, where he actually admitted that the increase of trade and population in Scotland, which he had predicted as a consequence of the Union, was "not the case, but rather the contrary." Defoe's description of Glasgow (Glaschu) as a "Dear Green Place" has often been misquoted as a Gaelic translation for the town. The Gaelic Glass could mean grey or green, chu means dog or hollow. Glaschu probably actually means 'Green Hollow'. The "Dear Green Place", like much of

Scotland, was a hotbed of unrest against the Union. The local Tron minister urged his congregation "to up and anent for the City of God". The 'Dear Green Place' and "City of God" required government troops to put down the rioters tearing up copies of the Treaty, as at almost every merchant cross in Scotland. When Defoe revisited in the mid 1720's he claimed that the hostility towards his party was, "because they were English and because of the Union, which they were almost universally exclaimed against." Reviewed by Philip Zaleski J the best physical description of Daniel Defoe comes to us, fittingly, from a wanted poster: "a middle sized spare man, about 40 years old, of a brown complexion, and dark brown-colored hair, but wears a wig; a hooked

nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes and a large mole near his mouth." This unappealing description was issued by the Earl of Nottingham in 1702 against "Daniel de Foe, alias Defoe," sought for "high crimes and misdemeanor" for publishing an anonymous parody of Tory religious invective. The poster, and the accusation that spawned it, neatly encapsulate much of Defoe's life: a writer on the lam, a lover of aliases, given to anonymous and pseudonymous productions; a middle-class merchant bewigged to pass as an aristocrat; a literary pugilist who scorned the orthodoxies of the day; a man judged by many of his contemporaries to be a ferret, a sneak, a public menace. this issue that produced his first best-seller, The True-Born Englishman (1700), a poem of high