VII.

                   "Be still! Be silent!
                       Ye do a sin!
                   Shame be his portion
                       "Who dares begin!"—
                   'Twas Father O'Connor
                       Just entered in;
      And all looked shamed, and the row was done:
      Sorry and sheepish looked every one;
      But the priest just smiled quite easy and free —
      "Would you wake the poor boy from his sleep?" said he.
      And he said a prayer, with a shining face,
      Till a kind of a brightness filled the place;
      The women lit up the dim corpse-light;
      The men were quieter at the sight; —
      And the peace of the Lord fell on all that night
                   At the Wake of Tim O'Hara.

A GENTLEMAN OF THE PRESS.

IN TWO CHAPTERS. CHAPTER II.

WE left Defoe in our last, emerging from
the chrysalis of his prison into the full-
fledged butterfly state of liberty. As soon
as he had paid his fees, and left the doors
of Newgate behind him, he sought the
fresh breezes of the rural districts. With
his bodily health somewhat impaired by
his long confinement, but with a spirit
undaunted as of old, he retired for awhile
to Bury St. Edmunds with his family, to
recruit his energies. But the brain, and
the right hand with the pen in it, were
not idle. Pamphlet followed upon
pamphlet, treatise upon treatise, book upon
book, in such profusion, that the mere
catalogue of them would occupy pages. But
in addition to his writings in support of
the Whig government, he seems to have
been otherwise employed in its behalf.
Writing ten years afterwards of this period
of his life, he states that "being delivered
from the distress I was in, her Majesty,
who was not satisfied to do me good by a
single act of her bounty, had the goodness
to think of taking me into her service, and
I had the honour to be employed in
honourable though secret services by the
interposition of my first benefactor." But
Defoe, notwithstanding this royal and
ministerial favour, was not yet in smooth water.
The ruin of the brick and pantile business
sat heavily upon him, and merciless
creditors (some of them let loose upon him by
his political enemies), harassed him with
vexatious law-suits and exorbitant demands.
To such an extent did the persecution
prevail, that he found it expedient for awhile
to absent himself from his home, and travel
incognito in the south-west of England.
But even in this emergency Harley
continued to be his friend, and gave him a
commission, wherever he could act with
safety, to lend a helping hand at the general
election to any Whig and liberal
candidate in the south-western boroughs who
might need the support of his pen or his
advice. During this somewhat mysterious
peregrination, Defoe travelled about eleven
hundred miles on horseback, and not only
found time to attend meetings, public,
private, and social, to advise and consult with
candidates and local celebrities, but to
carry on his Review, and write the whole
of it from beginning to end.

Defoe's most important work after this
time, and when he had settled with his
pantile creditors under the supervision of
the Court of Bankruptcy, was his Essay
on Removing National Prejudices against
a Union with Scotland: Part the First.
This union, as Defoe well knew, had been
the favourite project of his beloved master,
King William; and when the idea was
taken up by the administration of which
his friend Harley was the leading spirit.
Defoe went into the matter with heart
and soul. The First Part of the Essay
being well received, was followed by Part
the Second, and rendered such good service
that the author was employed by the
government on a mission to Scotland, to
carry on in that country the good work he
had performed in England, by rendering
popular the proposed legislative union of
the two countries. Before starting on his
mission, Defoe was introduced for the first
time to Queen Anne, and had the honour
of kissing hands on his appointment. He
resided in Edinburgh for three years, and
appears to have made many friends in the
Scottish capital, and to have taken a liking
both to the people and the country.

He had been two years in Edinburgh,
doing his utmost to popularise the Union,
which was still under debate in the Scottish
Parliament, when he published his first
avowed work since he had quitted London,
entitled Caledonia: a Poem in Honour of
Scotland and the Scots Nation: in Three
Parts. The love for Scotland exhibited in
this composition remained in his heart as
long as he lived. At one time, indeed, he
had serious thoughts of taking up his
permanent residence in that country. He paid
it several visits in the service of the government,
edited for awhile the Edinburgh
Courant, and interested himself in plans for
the development of its trade and commerce,
its linen manufactures, and its fisheries.
He also published his ideas on the subject
of the improvements to be effected in the
picturesque old city of Edinburgh, recommended