allad, called Chevy Chace; of which we shall only say,
that he performed this talk more successfully than he executed his
Animadversions upon Poetical Justice.

We have already taken notice of the warm attachment Mr. Dennis always
had to the Whig-Interest, and his particular zeal for the
Hanoverian succession. Ht wrote many letters and pamphlets, for the
administration of the earl of Godolphin, and the duke of Marlborough,
and never failed to lash the French with all the severity natural to
him.

When the peace (which the Whigs reckoned the most inglorious that
ever was made) was about to be ratified, Mr. Dennis, who certainly
over-rated his importance, took it into his imagination, that when the
terms of peace should be stipulated, some persons, who had been
most active against the French, would be demanded by that nation as
hostages; and he imagined himself of importance enough to be made
choice of, but dreaded his being given up to the French, as the
greatest evil that could befall him. Under the influence of this
strong delusion, he actually waited on the duke of Marlborough, and
begg'd his grace's interposition, that he might not be sacrificed to
the French, for says he, 'I have always been their enemy.' To this
strange request, his grace very gravely replied, 'Do not fear, Mr.
Dennis, you shall not be given up to the French; I have been a
greater enemy to them than you, and you see I am not afraid of being
sacrificed, nor am in the least disturbed.' Mr. Dennis upon this
retired, well satisfied with his grace's answer, but there still
remained upon his spirits a dread of his becoming a prey to some of
the enemies of Great Britain.

He soon after this retired into the country, to spend some time at a
friend's house. While he was walking one day by the sea side, he saw a
ship in full sail approaching towards the shore, which his distracted
imagination dictated, was a French ship sent to carry him off. He
hurried to the gentleman's house with the utmost precipitation,
upbraided him with treachery, as being privy to the attempts of the
French against his life, and without ceremony quitted his house, and
posted to London, as fast as he could.

Mr. Dennis, who never cared to be an unconcerned spectator, when any
business of a public or important nature was in agitation, entered
the lists with the celebrated Mr. Sacheverel, who in the year 1702
published at Oxford a piece called the Political Union, the purport
of w