se treading on
dangerous ground, and admits of two very different interpretations. It
is especially ambiguous in writing, and should be used with caution.
Defoe's "Shortest Way with the Dissenters" was first attributed to a
High Churchman, but soon was recognised as the work of a Dissenter. He
explained that he intended the opposite of what he had said, and was
merely deprecating measures being taken against his brethren; but his
enemies considered that his real object was to exasperate them against
the Government. Even if taken ironically, it hardly seemed venial to
call furiously for the extermination of heretics, or to raise such
lamentation as, "Alas! for the Church of England! What with popery on
one hand, and schismatics on the other, how has she been crucified
between two thieves!" Experience had not then taught that it was better
to let such effusions pass for what they were worth, and Defoe was
sentenced to stand in the pillory, and suffer fine and imprisonment He
does not seem to have been in such low spirits as we might have expected
during his incarceration, for he employed part of his time in composing
his "Hymn to the Pillory,"

"Hail hieroglyphic state machine,
Contrived to punish fancy in:
Men that are men in thee can feel no pain,
And all thy insignificants disdain."

He continues in a strong course of invective against certain persons
whom he thinks really worthy of being thus punished, and proceeds--

"But justice is inverted when
Those engines of the law,
Instead of pinching vicious men
Keep honest ones in awe:
Thy business is, as all men know,
To punish villains, not to make men so.

"Whenever then thou art prepared
To prompt that vice thou shouldst reward,
And by the terrors of thy grisly face,
Make men turn rogues to shun disgrace;
The end of thy creation is destroyed
Justice expires of course, and law's made void.

"Thou like the devil dost appear
Blacker than really thou art far,
A wild chimeric notion of reproach
Too little for a crime, for none too much,
Let none the indignity resent,
For crime is all the shame of punishment.
Thou bugbear of the law stand up and speak
Thy long misconstrued silence break,
Tell us who 'tis upon thy ridge stands there
So full of fault, and yet so void of fear,
And from the paper on his hat,
Let all mankind be told for what."

These lines refer to his own condemnation, and the piece concl