DANIEL DEFOE.

The two earliest notable writers of the period, however, though they display some of these characteristics, were men of strong individual traits which in any age would have directed them largely along paths of their own choosing. The first of them is Daniel Defoe, who belongs, furthermore, quite outside the main circle of high-bred and polished fashion. Defoe has the outlook and the style of the plain middleclass Englishman, with a few strong basic religious and social beliefs; in another light he appears as a clever and unscruplous journalist and propagandist, too clever for his own good; and then at last he appears to be beyond all else a man of genius, the author of one of the world's most famous books. His complex career still baffles biographers at many points; the list of his authenticated works now runs to over four hundred titles, and even this figure does not tell the whole story.