Cleveland's Memoirs, &c. are also said to be his. Considered as a poet, Daniel De Foe is not so eminent, as in a political light: he has taken no pains in verification; his ideas are masculine, his expressions coarse, and his numbers generally rough. He seems rather to have studied to speak truth, by probing wounds to the bottom, than, by embellishing his verification, to give it a more elegant keenness. This, however, seems to have proceeded more from carelessness in that particular, than want of ability: for the following lines in his True Born Englishman, in which he makes Britannia rehearse the praises of her hero, King William, are harmoniously beautiful, and elegantly polished. BRITANNIA. The fame of virtue 'tis for which I found, And heroes with immortal triumphs crown'd. Fame built on solid virtue swifter flies, Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. The gath'ring air returns the doubling sound, And long repeating thunders force it round: Ecchoes return from caverns of the deep; Old Chaos dreamt on't in eternal sleep, Time helps it forward to its latest urn, From whence it never, never shall return; Nothing is heard so far, or lasts so long; 'Tis heard by ev'ry ear, and spoke by ev'ry tongue. My hero, with the sails of honour furl'd, Rises like the great genius of the world. By fate, and fame, wisely prepared to be The soul of war, and life of victory. He spreads the wings of virtue on the throne, And every wind of glory fans them on. Immortal trophies dwell upon his brow, Fresh as the garlands he has won but now. 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 Dunciad thus speaks of him; Earless on high flood 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 resentment 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 conduit, 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 some degree of applause to posterity.