s
_Discourse on the Plague_ (1744), quotes the book as an authority.

Highly characteristic of Defoe's style, and of his art as a moralist is
the _Religious Courtship_, also published in 1722. It is the fictitious
history of a family told partly in dialogue, and so written as to
attract the reader in spite of repetitions and of reflections as
praiseworthy as they are commonplace. It appeals to a class whose
attention would not be won by fine literature, and has not appealed in
vain, for the book, after passing through a large number of editions,
has not yet lost its popularity. Morally the work is unobjectionable,
though not a little narrow, and it is strange that it should have
appeared about the same time as a story so offensively coarse as _Moll
Flanders_.

The most veracious book written by Defoe is _A Tour through the Whole
Island of Great Britain, By a Gentleman_, 1724, in three volumes. The
full title of the work is too long to quote, but it may be observed that
the promises it holds out under five headings are satisfactorily
fulfilled. The _Tour_ bears the marks of having been written with great
care and from personal observation throughout. Defoe states that before
publishing the book he had made seventeen large circuits or separate
journeys, and three general tours through the whole island. It contains
curious information as to the state of England and Scotland one hundred
and seventy years ago, and readers interested in our social progress and
the industrial life of the country will find much to interest them in
the traveller's shrewd observations and careful details. The love of
mountain and lake scenery felt by Gray more than forty years later was a
passion unknown to Defoe and to most of his contemporaries. In the
_Tour_ Westmoreland is described as the wildest, most barbarous and
frightful country of any which the author had passed over. He observes
that it is 'of no advantage to represent horror,' and the impassable
hills with their snow-covered tops 'seemed,' he says, 'to tell us all
the pleasant part of England was at an end.' The _Tour_ exhibits Defoe's
literary gift of expressing what he has to say in the clearest language.
A homely style which fulfils its purpose has a merit deserving of
recognition. For steady work upon the road the sober hackney is of more
service than the race-horse.

Defoe was a husband and father and a man of affairs, yet, like his own
Crusoe, he lived a lonely life, and in