DEFOE'S ROBINSON CRUSOE FAME.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 195, 28 July 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

DEFOE'S ROBINSON CRUSOE FAME.

On April 26, 1731, Daniel Deioa, journalist and novelist, died from lethargy in Ropemakers' Alley, Moorfields, London, he having been born in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, in lti'jO or 1661; he was interred in the neighbouring Bunhill Fields Burial Ground. Finsbury. He thus lived from the Restoration of Charles the Second through five reigns and on into that of George the Second. During that time ho wrote 250 published works. One of these which was produced in 1702, just after the accession of Queen Anne, was entitled ''The Shortest Way with the Dissenters," of whom he was one by birth; the House of Commons ordered this book to be burned, and for the authorship of it he was tried at the Old Bailey in 1703, and placed in the pillory on July 29, 30; and 31 that year. A person thus publicly punished had his head put through a hole, and his hands through two others, and was thus unable to defend himself if pelted by alarms and conspiracies than it had and putrid flesh, which was often done; but the people formed a guard to defend Defoe on this occasion, covered the pillory with flowers, and drank his health. Ho was ordered to pay a fine of 200 marks, each of which was equal to 13s. 4d; to be- imprisoned as long as Queen Ann,e pleased; and was re' quired to find securities for good !>ehaviour during seven years. All this lie suffered for a satirical pamphlet against what was ca-l'ed occasional conformity, wheh required a Lord Mayor of London, though a Nonconformist, to ittend Churhc of England worship on some occasions. Very few people know that such a publication existed, compared with the millions who have read n's " Robinson Crusoe," of which one of the best free libraries contains five copies, while it has not one of the condemned work. The subject of ''Robinson Cruesoe" was suggested by Alexander Selkirk, a Scotchman, having lived alone for nearly five years on Juan Fernandez, an uninhabited island off the Pacific coast of Chili, in South America, and left there at his own request in 1700, when he had quarrelled with his master, the idaptain of the ship. Such was the lasting fame which De.foe thus obtained that in A.D. 1877 Queen Victoria granted a pension to three old ladies of that name who had directly descended from him.