"It is better to have a lion at the head of an army of sheep, than a sheep at the head of an army of lions."
"And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who!."
Almost all works of Daniel Defoe, even the earliest, shows that narrative was the kind of writing for which he was fitted by nature. Defoe was more than a good story-teller. He was also a moralist, an essayist, a journalist, an enthusiastic and fairly wise business man, a patriot, a trusted adviser of a king, and an unscrupulous political spy.
When Defoe first took to political writing is uncertain. Probably in the reign of James II, possibly in that of Charles II, he began to write pamphlets of the kind that in those days took the place of the leading articles of our journals. After the Revolution of 1688, his pamphlets became more frequent. In 1695, in reward for his support of the government, he was made accountant to the Commissioners of the Glass Duty a position which he retained till 1699. At the beginning of 1701 Defoe wrote his True-Born Englishman in doggerel verse, in which he showed satirically that the English were a hybrid race, and that the king, with his Dutch blood, had as good a right to call himself English as Englishmen of mixed Celtic, Danish, and Norman blood. The people took the satire good-naturedly. It raised the king in their estimations, and it raised Defoe in the king's. Defoe received an audience by William III, who remained till his death a friend to Defoe.
At this time, the son of the butcher Foe took to writing his name De Foe or Defoe. Some biographers have thought the change accidental that De Foe was originally a mistake for D. Foe. The best opinion, however, is that Defoe made the change intentionally in order to give his name a less plebeian look.
Daniel Defoe achieved literary eternity when in 1719 at the age of 58 he published Robinson Crusoe.
