ABSTRACT
Daniel Defoe echoes two intertwined and commonly-held views: that the plague was God's judgement upon a backsliding nation, and that the Restoration court was dissolute. As John Tosh has argued, masculinity involves 'socially crippling distinctions not only between men and women, but between different categories of men'. The culture of 'reformation' encompassed a number of initiatives, begun in the 1690s and extending into the late 1720s, to reform the nation's moral standing. H. F. implies that his preservation is a sign of God's especial care, and a call to a pious and civic duty to reform the revellers. The idealisation of the artisan class is aligned with an almost stoic manliness and occurs through the rejection of effeminised behaviour. H. F'. s attempt to reform the revellers in the Pye-Tavern echoes the active involvement of the urban citizens of the Societies, and as a saddler he is a member of the urban artisan class that made up the army of reform.
