Such is Mr.Lee's fair interpretation of the fact that his connexion with _Applebee's Journal_ terminated abruptly in March, 1726, and that he is found soon after, in the preface to a pamphlet on _Street Robberies_, complaining that none of the journals will accept his communications.

"Assure yourself, gentle reader," he says,[7] "I had not published my project in this pamphlet, could I have got it inserted in any of the journals without feeing the journalists or publishers.

I cannot but have the vanity to think they might as well have inserted what I send them, _gratis_, as many things I have since seen in their papers.

But I have not only had the mortification to find what I sent rejected, but to lose my originals, not having taken copies of what I wrote." In this preface Defoe makes touching allusion to his age and infirmities.

He begs his readers to "excuse the vanity of an over-officious old man, if, like Cato, he inquires whether or no before he goes hence and is no more, he can yet do anything for the service of his country." "The old man cannot trouble you long; take, then, in good part his best intentions, and impute his defects to age and weakness." [Footnote 7: Lee's _Life_, vol.i.p.