articles, and when we turn these worn and yellowing pages we find much that, interesting in those days, has lost interest for us.  But we also find articles which, worded in clear, strong, truly English English, seem to us as fresh and full of life as when they were written more than two hundred years ago.  We find as well much that is of keen historical interest, and we gain some idea of the undaunted courage of the author when we remember that the first numbers of the Review at least were penned in a loathsome prison where highwaymen, pirates, cut-throats, and common thieves were his chief companions.

Chapter LXII DEFOE—­“ROBINSON CRUSOE”

FOR more than a year and a half Defoe remained in prison; then he was set free.

A new Government had come into power.  It was pointed out to the Queen that it was a mistake to make an enemy of so clever an author as Defoe.  Then he was set at liberty, but on condition that he should use his pen to support the Government.  So although Defoe was now free to all seeming, this was really the beginning of bondage.  He was no longer free in mind, and by degrees he became a mere hanger-on of Government, selling the support of his pen to whichever party was in power.

We cannot follow him through all the twists and turns of his politics, nor through all his ups and downs in life, nor mention all the two hundred and fifty books and pamphlets that he wrote.  It was an adventurous life he led, full of dark and shadowy passages which we cannot understand and so perhaps cannot pardon.  But whether he sold his pen or no we are bound to confess that Defoe’s desire was towards the good, towards peace, union, and justice.

One thing he fought for with all his buoyant strength was the Union between England and Scotland.  It had been the desire of William III ere he died, it had now become the still stronger desire of Queen Anne and her ministers.  So Defoe took “a long winter, a chargeable, and, as it proved, hazardous journey” to Scotland.  There he threw himself into the struggle, doing all he could for the Union.  He has left for us a history of that struggle,* which perhaps better than any other makes us realize the unrest of the Scottish people, the anger, the fear, the indecision, with which they were filled.  “People went up and down wondering and amazed, expecting every day strange events, afraid of peace, afraid of war.  Many knew not which way to fix their resolution.  They could not be clear for the Union, yet they saw death at the door in its breaking off—­death to their liberty, to their religion, and to their country.”  Better than any other he gives a picture of the “infinite struggles, clamor, railing, and tumult of party.”  Let me give, in his own words, a description of a riot in the streets of Edinburgh:—­

History of the Union of Great Britain.