t, not the subject of the book, but Defoe's indecent
handling of it, should compel the world virtually to taboo it.
"Roxana" is also on the condemned list for the same reason. But
literature could sooner spare this book than the other two. It was
completed by another hand, and Defoe's own share might have very well
been the work of the person who wrote the sequel.

Another masterpiece is his "History of the Plague." This shows his
imagination at its highest, and it is not impossible but that its
composition may have cost him more trouble than "Robinson Crusoe"
itself. There is no space left to deal with his other works. Reference
can only be made to "Captain Singleton," "A System of Magic," "A
History of the Devil," "The Family Instructor," "The Plan of English
Commerce," "A New Voyage Round the World," etc. In naming these I
abbreviate the titles. Most of Defoe's title-pages epitomize his
works, and merely as a list would fill a stout volume.

It has been suggested that Defoe in his old age became insane, and hid
himself from his family for no discoverable reasons. It is certain
that in September, 1729, he mysteriously removed from his house, and
went into hiding in the neighborhood of Greenwich. From his secret
retreat he addressed letters to his son-in-law Baker, complaining of
his having been inhumanly ill-used by someone whom Mr. Lee, one of his
biographers, conjectures was Mist, the proprietor of _Mist's Journal_,
with whom Defoe had been associated in business. Other biographers
seem to think that Defoe was merely hiding from the pursuit of his
creditors, and dodging in his old dexterous manner the obligation of
making over property to his daughter Hannah, who was married to Baker.
For two years he was homeless and fugitive; it is not asserted,
however, that he was in actual distress at the time of his death. He
died in a lodging in a then respectable neighborhood called
Ropemaker's Alley, Moor Fields, April 26, 1731, in his seventieth
year.

[Signature of the author.]

DEAN SWIFT

By SAMUEL ARCHER

(1667-1745)

[Illustration: Dean Swift.]

Jonathan Swift's father died before the boy was born, and the care of
his education was kindly undertaken by Mr. Godwin Swift, his uncle, a
very eminent attorney at Dublin, who likewise took his mother and his
sister under his protection, and thus became a guardian to the family.
When his nephew was six years of age he sent him to school at
Kilkenny, and ab