forsaken him." He also composed in this
interval his celebrated Hymn to the Pillory,
in which he placed his persecutors in a
moral pillory, worse than the physical
pillory, in which he was to stand; and gibbeted
their names, not for a day only, but for
all time.

Both of these works were published on
the 29th of July, on the very day on which
he was first made a public spectacle before
the Royal Exchange in Cornhill. But a
strong reaction had set in in favour of this
martyr of liberty, and lest any Tory in
the crowd should think it incumbent to
pelt Defoe with eggs, cabbages, filth, or
stones, with which it was the custom to
pelt the petty criminals exhibited in the
pillory, the crowd merely pelted his feet
with summer flowers, and formed a guard
of honour to protect him from insult or
injury, ornamented the steps and beams of
the pillory with wreaths and garlands,
drank to his health, long life, and
prosperity, in bumpers of flowing liquor;
intermingling their expressions of gratitude to
Defoe with shouts of execration against
the judge who had sentenced him, and the
ministers of the crown who had incited his
prosecution. On the following day he was
again placed in the pillory, opposite the
conduit in Cheapside, and on the third day
on the Westminster side of Temple Bar,
on both of which occasions his shame was
turned into his triumph by the crowd, and
he whom the pillory had failed to shame,
sanctified the very pillory by his bravery
and innocence. The Hymn to the Pillory,
which in a manner recommitted the offence
which had brought the author face to face
with the law, had a large sale among the
crowd assembled to witness his exposure.
Expostulating with the Pillory, he
indignantly bade it speak to the people and

Tell them the men that placed him there
Are scandals to the times,
Are at a loss to find his guilt,
And can't commit his crimes.

The government was politic enough to
take no notice of this new composition.

After these three exposures, which might
have been called ovations, Defoe was
reconsigned to Newgate, where, it is to be
supposed, he had private accommodation
not accorded to ordinary prisoners,
inasmuch as he continued his literary labours
in the cause which he had at heart, and to
support a wife and six children by their
sale. Having, as it seemed, ruined Defoe
pecuniarily, the Tory government of Queen
Anne bethought themselves whether, in
his misery and distress, he might not be
bought over to their side, and whether,
for a valuable consideration, release from
prison, and the promise of employment, he
might not be induced to betray the
confidence of the late king. The Earl of
Nottingham appears to have either gone or sent
to him in Newgate on this errand; but
Defoe, to use his own brave words, "scorned
to come out of Newgate at the price of
betraying a dead master, or discovering those
things which nobody would have been the
worse (or the better) for." During the
next six or eight months, while he lay in
prison, he wrote, or published, having
previously written, a whole library of
pamphlets, the mere list of which, if it prove
nothing else, proves a marvellous industry,
—a marvellous courage; and a soul that
no misfortune, or adverse circumstance,
could daunt, as long as there was work to
undertake in the service of the people.
These pamphlets, amounting in all to
sixteen, and supplemented before his release
from prison by almost as many more, were
but the recreations of the massive intellect
that still craved for work. On the 19th of
February appeared the first number of a
weekly periodical, entitled The Review, s
tarted by Defoe, and carried on by him,
alone and unaided, and in the midst of all
but incredible difficulties, for nine years
afterwards. It was published once a week
for the first two months, afterwards twice a
week, and finally, when he had recovered
his liberty, thrice a week; and claims notice,
not only as being Defoe's, but as being the
forerunner, and to some extent the model, of
the weekly reviews and newspapers of the
present day. While thus working, striving,
and, like the equally brave John Milton
before him, "bating no jot of heart or
hope," a gleam of better fortune shone into
his prison. Legion's Address to the Lords,
supporting the House of Peers in their
hostility to the reactionary policy of the
Jacobite and Tory majority in the Commons,
excited more than ordinary attention, and
was generally suspected, but not positively
known, to be Defoe's. It has never been
included in the list of his works, but is
traced to his pen by Mr. Lee, on what
appear to be satisfactory grounds.
However this may be, the pamphlet did good
service to the Protestant and liberal cause,
and, like a straw upon the wind, showed
the way in which the current of opinion
was blowing. Towards the end of the
month in which it appeared a ministerial
crisis occurred: the Tory administration
was dismissed, the Whigs returned to
power: and Harley, afterwards Earl of