guished himself by writing in 1699 a poetical satire
entitled "The True Born Englishman," in honour of King William and the
Dutch, and in derision of the nobility of this country, who did not much
appreciate the foreign court. The poem abounded with rough and rude
sarcasm. After giving an uncomplimentary description of the English, he
proceeds to trace their descent--

"These are the heroes that despise the Dutch
And rail at new-come foreigners so much,
Forgetting that themselves are all derived
From the most scoundrel race that ever lived;
A horrid race of rambling thieves and drones
Who ransacked kingdoms and dispeopled towns;
The Pict and painted Briton, treacherous Scot,
By hunger, theft, and rapine hither brought;
Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes,
Whose red-haired offspring everywhere remains;
Who joined with Norman-French compound the breed
From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed.
Dutch, Walloons, Flemings, Irishmen, and Scots,
Vaudois, and Valtolins and Huguenots,
In good Queen Bess's charitable reign,
Supplied us with three hundred thousand men;
Religion--God we thank! sent them hither,
Priests, protestants, the devil, and all together."

The first part concludes with a view of the low origin of some of our
nobles.

"Innumerable city knights we know
From Bluecoat hospitals and Bridewell flow,
Draymen and porters fill the City chair,
And footboys magisterial purple wear.
Fate has but very small distinction set
Betwixt the counter and the coronet.
Tarpaulin lords, pages of high renown
Rise up by poor men's valour, not their own;
Great families of yesterday we show
And lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who."

So much keen and clever invective levelled at the higher classes of
course had its reward in a wide circulation; but we are surprised to
hear that the King noticed it with favour; the author was honoured with
a personal interview, and became a still stronger partizan of the court.
Defoe called the "True Born Englishman",

"A contradiction
In speech an irony, in fact a fiction;"

and we may observe that he was particularly fond of an indirect and
covert style of writing. He thought that he could thus use his weapons
to most advantage, but his disguise was seen through by his enemies as
well as by his friends. Irony--the stating the reverse of what is meant,
whether good or bad--is often resorted to by tho