Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/232

222 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 ſtiong 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 fail 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 which was to ſhew, that the Church and the State are invariably connected, and that the one cannot ſubſiſt without the other.