e arts of "working the public" and of
advertising. When the notorious Jack Sheppard was condemned, he visited
him at Newgate, wrote his life, and had the highwayman, standing under
the gallows, send for a copy and deliver it as his "last speech and
dying confession." There is a certain breadth and originality in this
stroke, hardly to be paralleled in modern journalism. Defoe had the
knack of singling out from the mass of passing events whatever would be
likely to interest the public. He brought out an account in some
newspaper, and if successful, made the occurrence the subject of a
longer article in pamphlet or book form. He was always on the lookout
for matter, which he utilized with a pen of marvelous rapidity. The
gazette or embryonic newspaper was at first confined to a rehearsal of
news. Defoe invented the leading article or "news-letter" of weekly
comment, and the society column of Mercure Scandaleuse.

The list of Defoe's political pamphlets is a large one, but they are of
more interest to the historian than to the general reader. While they
are far inferior in construction and victorious good sense to Sydney
Smith's magazine articles on kindred topics, and to Swift's 'Drapier's
Letters' in subtle appeals to the prejudices of the ignorant, they show
a remarkable command over the method of reaching the plain people,--to
use President Lincoln's phrase, and taking it to mean that great body of
quiet persons who desire on the whole to be fair in their judgments, but
who must have their duty made quite evident before they see it. Defoe is
never vituperative--that is, vituperative for a time when Pope and Swift
and Dennis made their personal invective so much higher flavored than
modern taste endures. He seems to have been tolerant by nature; and
although this proceeds in his case from the fact that his moral
enthusiasm was never very warm, and not from any innate refinement of
nature, he is entitled to the credit of moderation in the use of abusive
language. He is tolerant, too, of those who differ from him in politics
and religion; and though it is absurd to suppose, as some of his
biographers have done, that he was so far in advance of his century as
to have advocated the political soundness of free trade, he shows in
his treatment of commercial questions the marks of a broad and
comprehensive mind. He speaks of foreigners in a cosmopolitan spirit,
with the exception of the Portuguese, for whom he seems to feel a l