Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/328

318 here. A Printer of a bad reputation collected a ſpurious and erroneous copy of ſeveral pieces of De Foe, and entitled them The Works of the Author of the True Born Engliſhman; and though he was then embroiled with the government for one of the pamphlets which this collection contained, yet had this man the impudence to print amongſt them the ſame pamphlets, preſuming ſo far upon the partiality of the public reſentment, that he ſhould paſs with impunity for publiſhing that very thing for which the author was to be proſecuted with the utmoſt ſeverity. This, however, was an irreſiſtible teſtimony, that the reſentment ſhewn to the author was on ſome other, and leſs juſtifiable account, than the publication of that book; ſo was it a ſevere ſatire on the unwarineſs of the miniſtry, who had not eyes to diſcern their juſtice plainly expoſed, and their general proceedings bantered by a Printer, for publiſhing in defiance of them that ſame book for which another man ſtood arraigned.

Mr. De Foe, who poſſeſſed a reſolute temper, and a moſt confirmed fortitude of mind, was never awed by the threats of power, nor deterred from ſpeaking truth by the inſolence of the great. Wherever he found vice he laſhed it, and frequently, as Pope ſays, he

For ſome vigorous attacks againſt the meaſures of a prevailing party, which Mr. De Foe reckoned unconſtitutional and unjuſt, he was proſecuted, and received ſentence to ſtand on the pillory; which puniſhment he underwent.

At the very time he was in the hands of the miniſtry, to ſhew the invincible force of his mind, he