tood; but he was perhaps justly punished for being such
a fool as to trust his meaning to irony. It would seem that though the
Government had committed Defoe to Newgate, they did not dare, even
before the manifestation of popular feeling in his favour, to treat him
as a common prisoner. He not only had liberty to write, but he found
means to convey his manuscripts to the printer. Of these privileges he
had availed himself with that indomitable energy and fertility of
resource which we find reason to admire at every stage in his career,
and most of all now that he was in straits. In the short interval
between his arrest and his conviction he carried on a vigorous warfare
with both hands,--with one hand seeking to propitiate the Government,
with the other attracting support outside among the people. He proved to
the Government incontestably, by a collection of his writings, that he
was a man of moderate views, who had no aversion in principle even to
the proposals of the _New Association_. He proved the same thing to the
people at large by publishing this _Collection of the writings of the
author of the True-Born Englishman_, but he accompanied the proof by a
lively appeal to their sympathy under the title of _More Reformation, a
Satire on himself_, a lament over his own folly which was calculated to
bring pressure on the Government against prosecuting a man so innocent
of public wrong. When, in spite of his efforts, a conviction was
recorded against him, he adopted a more defiant tone towards the
Government. He wrote the _Hymn to the Pillory_. This daring effusion was
hawked in the streets among the crowd that had assembled to witness his
penance in the

"hieroglyphic State-machine,
Contrived to punish Fancy in."

"Come," he cried, in the concluding lines--

"Tell 'em the M---- that placed him here
Are Sc----ls to the times,
Are at a loss to find his guilt,
And can't commit his crimes."

"M----" stands for Men, and "Sc---- ls" for Scandals. Defoe delighted
in this odd use of methods of reserve, more common in his time than in
ours.

The dauntless courage of Defoe's _Hymn to the Pillory_ can only be
properly appreciated when we remember with what savage outrage it was
the custom of the mob to treat those who were thus exposed to make a
London holiday. From the pillory he was taken back to Newgate, there to
be imprisoned during her Majesty's pleasure. His confinement must have
been much less disagr