The Great and the Good, by Daniel Defoe

❰

1 2

❱

Or is their business rather to add virtue and piety to their glory which alone will pass them into eternity and make them truly immortal? What is glory without virtue? A great man without religion is no more than a great beast without a soul. What is honour without merit? And what can be called true merit but that which makes a person be a good man as well as a great man?

If we believe in a future state of life, a place for the rewards of good men and for the punishment of the haters of virtue, how few crowned heads wear the crowns of immortal felicity!

Let no man envy the great and glorious men, as we call them! Could we see them now, how many of them would move our pity rather than call for our congratulations!

by Daniel Defoe 1660-1731

Abridged.

Abridged from The Great English Essayists (1909), edited by William J. Dawson and Coningsby W. Dawson.

Précis

Defoe contrasted the earthly glories of a Marlborough with the enduring heavenly rewards of unknown millions who had led lives that were not in any way great, yet were nonetheless good. If they have paid no attention to virtue and religion, those who receive most praise in this life might well stir only compassion in the next.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

Why, according to Defoe, should celebrities not necessarily be envied?

Suggestion

Because worldly success doesn’t guarantee heavenly glory.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

Few people knew him. He was kindhearted. They loved him.

See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.

ICircle. IIMay. IIIWin.

Précis

Questions for Critics

Sevens

Jigsaws

Tags

Read Next