ts a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found upon examination
The latter has the largest congregation."

Or, again, this keen and spirited description of the origin of the
English race:--

"These are the heroes that despise the Dutch,
And rail at newcome foreigners so much,
Forgetting that themselves are all derived
From the most scoundrel race that ever lived;
A horrid crowd of rambling thieves and drones,
Who ransacked kingdoms and dispeopled towns:
The Pict and painted Briton, treach'rous 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."

Strange to say, the English people were so pleased with this humorous
sketch of themselves, that they bought eighty thousand copies of the
work. Not often is a truth teller so rewarded.

Not unnaturally elated by the success of this experiment, the next year
Defoe came out with his famous "Shortest Way with the Dissenters," a
satire upon those furious High Churchmen and Tories, who would devour
the dissenters tooth and nail. Unfortunately, the author had
overestimated the capacity of the average Tory to see through a stone
wall. The irony was mistaken for sincerity, and quoted approvingly by
those whom it was intended to satirize. When the truth dawned through
the obscuration of the Tories' intellect, they were naturally enraged.
They had influence enough to have Defoe arrested, and confined in
Newgate for some eighteen months. He was also compelled to stand in the
pillory for three days; but it is not true that his ears were cropped,
as Pope intimates in his

"Earless on high stood unabashed Defoe."

What are the exact terms Defoe made with the ministry, and on exactly
what conditions he was released from Newgate, have not been ascertained.
It is certain he never ceased to write, even while in prison, both
anonymously and under his own name. For some years, in addition to
pamphlet after pamphlet, he published a newspaper which he called the
"Review,"[1] in which he generally sided with the moderate Whigs,
advocated earnestly the union with Scotland, and gave the English people
a vast deal of good advice upon foreign policy and domestic trade. There
is no doubt that during this time he was i