What provocation De Foe had given to Pope we cannot determine, but he has not eſcaped the laſh of that gentleman’s pen. Mr. Pope in his ſecond book of his Duciad thus ſpeaks of him;
Earlefs on high ſtood unabaſh’d De Foe,
And Tutchin flagrant from the ſcourge below.
It may be remarked that he has joined him with Tutchin, a man, whom judge Jeffries had ordered to be ſo inhumanly whipt through the market towns, that, as we have already obſerved, he petitioned the King to be hanged. This ſeverity ſoured his temper, and after the depoſition and death of King James, he indulged his reſentmtnt in inſulting his memory. This may be the reaſon why Pope has ſtigmatized him, and perhaps no better a one can be given for his attacking De Foe, whom the author of the Notes to the Dunciad owns to have been a man of parts. De Foe can never, with any propriety, be ranked amongſt the dunces; for whoever reads his works with candour and impartiality, muſt be convinced that he was a man of the ſtrongeſt natural powers, a lively imagination, and ſolid judgment, which, joined with an unſhaken probity in his moral conduct, and an invincible integrity in his political ſphere, ought not only to ſcreen him from the petulant attacks of ſatire, but tranſmit his name with ſame degree of applauſe to poſterity.
De Foe, who enjoyed always a competence, and was ſeldom ſubject to the neceſſities of the poets, died at his houſe at Iſlington, in the year 1731. He left behind him one ſon and one daughter. The latter is married to Mr. Henry Baker, a gentleman well known in the philoſophical world.
