in this
affair, Defoe escaped the hue and cry that followed the battle of
Sedgemoor, and after some months' concealment set up as a wholesale
merchant in Cornhill. When James II. was deposed in 1688, and the
Protestant William of Orange elected to the English throne, Defoe
hastened to give in his allegiance to the new dynasty. In 1691 he
published his first pamphlet, "A New Discovery of an Old Intrigue, a
Satire leveled at Treachery and Ambition." This is written in miserable
doggerel verse. That Defoe should have mistaken it for poetry, and
should have prided himself upon it accordingly, is only a proof of how
incompetent an author is to pass judgment upon what is good and what is
bad in his own work.

In 1692 Defoe failed in business, probably from too much attention to
politics, which were now beginning to engross more and more of his time
and thoughts. His political attitude is clearly defined in the title of
his next pamphlet, "The Englishman's Choice and True Interest: in the
Vigorous Prosecution of the War against France, and serving K. William
and Q. Mary, and acknowledging their Right." "K. William" was too astute
a manager to neglect a writer who showed the capacity to become a
dangerous opponent. Defoe was accordingly given the place of accountant
to the commissioners of the glass duty (1694). From this time until
William's death (1702), he had no more loyal and active servant than
Defoe. Innumerable pamphlets bear tribute to his devotion to the King
and his policy,--pamphlets written in an easy, swinging, good-natured
style, with little imagination and less passion; pamphlets whose
principal arguments are based upon a reasonable self-interest, and for
the comprehension of which no more intellectual power is called for than
Providence has doled out to the average citizen. Had Defoe lived in the
nineteenth century, instead of in the seventeenth, he would have
commanded a princely salary as writer for the Sunday newspaper, and as
composer of campaign documents and of speeches for members of the House
of Representatives.

In 1701 Defoe published his "True-born Englishman," a satire upon the
English people for their stupid opposition to the continental policy of
the King. This is the only metrical composition of prolific Daniel that
has any pretensions to be called a poem. It contains some lines not
unworthy to rank with those of Dryden at his second-best. For instance,
the opening:--

"Wherever God erec