es, began to be uneasy at the partiality
their new King discovered to his countrymen. The popular discontent
rose to such a heighth, that King William was obliged to dismiss
his Dutch guards, and though he died in possession of the crown of
England, yet it proved to him a crown of thorns, and he spent fewer
peaceful moments in his regal station, than before his head was
envisioned with an uneasy diadem. De Foe, who seems to have had a
very true notion of civil liberty, engaged the enemies of the new
government, and levelled the force of his satire against those, who
valued themselves for being true-born Englishmen. He exposes the
fallacy of that prepossession, by laying open the sources from whence
the English have sprung. 'Normans, Saxons, and Danes, says he, were
our forefathers; we are a mixed people; we have no genuine origin; and
why should not our neighbours be as good as we to derive from? and I
must add[B], that had we been an unmixed nation, I am of opinion,
it had been to our disadvantage: for to go no farther, we have three
nations about us clear from mixture of blood, as any in the world, and
I know not which of them we could wish ourselves to be like; I mean
the Scotch, Welsh, and Irish, and if I were to write a reverse to the
satire, I would examine all the nations of Europe, and prove, that
these nations which are the most mixed, are the best, and have least
of barbarism and brutality amongst them.' Mr. De Foe begins his satire
with the following lines,

Wherever God erects a house of pray'r,
The devil always builds a chapel there:
And 'twill be found upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.

After passing a general censure on the surrounding nations, Italy,
Germany, France, &c. he then takes a view of England, which he charges
with the black crime of ingratitude. He enumerates the several nations
from whence we are derived, Gauls, Saxons, Danes, Irish, Scots, &c.
and says,

From this amphibious ill-born mob began
_That vain ill-natur'd thing,_ an Englishman.

This satire, written in a rough unpolished manner, without art, or
regular plan, contains some very bold and masculine strokes against
the ridiculous vanity of valuing ourselves upon descent and pedigree.
In the conclusion he has the following strong, and we fear too just,
observation.

Could but our ancestors retrieve their fate,
And see their offspring thus degenerate;
How we contend for birth, and name