cepting it. Since the copy here
reproduced was the one examined by Professor Trent, the following
passage from his ms. notes is of interest:

The tract was advertised, for "this day," in the _St. James
Evening Post_, April 19-22, 1718. It is not included in the
chief lists of Defoe's writings, but it has been sold as
his, and the only copy I have seen, one kindly loaned me by
Dr. J.E. Spingarn, once belonged to some eighteenth century
owner, who wrote Defoe's name upon it. I was led by the
advertisement mentioned above to seek the pamphlet, thinking
it might be Defoe's; but I failed to secure a sight of it
until Professor Spingarn asked me whether in my opinion the
ascription to Defoe was warranted, and produced his copy.

Perhaps the most striking evidence for Defoe's authorship of _A
Vindication_ is the extraordinary reference to his own natural parts
and to the popularity of _The True-Born Englishman_ some seventeen
years after that topical poem had appeared [pp. 29f.]. Defoe was
justly proud of this verse satire, one of his most successful works,
and referred to it many times in later writings; it is hard to
believe, however, that anyone but Defoe would have praised it in such
fulsome terms in 1718.

The general homeliness and facility of the style, together with
characteristic phrases which occur in his other writings, indicate
Defoe's hand. Likewise homely similitudes and comparisons, specific
parallels with his known work, and characteristic treatment of matter
familiar in his other works, all furnish evidence of his authorship of
this pamphlet.

Just what motive caused Defoe to write _A Vindication of the Press_ is
not clear. Unlike his earlier _An Essay on the Regulation of the
Press_ (1704), _A Vindication_ does not seem to have been occasioned
by a specific situation, and in it Defoe is not alone concerned with
freedom of the press, but writes on a more general and discursive
level. His opening paragraph states that "The very great Clamour
against some late Performances of Authorship, and the unprecedented
Criticisms introduc'd" make such an essay as he writes "absolutely
necessary." Yet there is no clear indication of just what works
occasion this necessity. The ironic reference to Mr. Dennis at the end
of the first paragraph, taken together with the praise of Mr. Pope's
translation of Homer and the allusion to "the malicious and violent
Criticisms of a