* * * * *

The standard Life of Defoe is by William Lee (London, J.C. Hotten,
1869). William Minto, in the "English Men of Letters Series," has an
excellent short biography of Defoe. For criticism, the only good
estimate I am acquainted with is by Leslie Stephen, in "Hours in a
Library, First Series." The nature of the article on Defoe in the
"Britannica" may be indicated by noticing that the writer (Saintsbury)
seriously compares Defoe with Carlyle as a descriptive writer. It would
be consoling to think that this is intended as a joke.

Those who wish to know more about the plague than Defoe tells them
should consult Besant's "London," pp. 376-394 (New York, Harpers).
Besant refers to two pamphlets, "The Wonderful Year" and "Vox
Civitatis," which he thinks Defoe must have used in writing his book.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] At first, a weekly; with the fifth number, a bi-weekly; after the
first year, a tri-weekly.

[2] Preface to his pamphlet entitled Street Robberies.

[3] For a very different estimate, see Saintsbury's Selections from
Defoe's Minor Novels.

HISTORY
OF
THE PLAGUE IN LONDON.

It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, among
the rest of my neighbors, heard in ordinary discourse that the
plague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very
violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in
the year 1663, whither, they say, it was brought (some said from
Italy, others from the Levant) among some goods which were
brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought
from Candia; others, from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence
it came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again.[4]

We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days, to
spread rumors and reports of things, and to improve them by the
invention of men, as I have lived to see practiced since. But
such things as those were gathered from the letters of merchants
and others who corresponded abroad, and from them was handed
about by word of mouth only; so that things did not spread instantly
over the whole nation, as they do now. But it seems that
the government had a true account of it, and several counsels[5]
were held about ways to prevent its coming over; but all was
kept very private. Hence it was that this rumor died off again;
and people began to forget it, as a thing we were very little concerned
in and that we hoped was not true, till the latter end o