"
The first part concludes with a view of the low origin of some of our
nobles.
"Innumerable city knights we know
From Bluecoat hospitals and Bridewell flow,
Draymen and porters fill the City chair,
And footboys magisterial purple wear.
Fate has but very small distinction set
Betwixt the counter and the coronet.
Tarpaulin lords, pages of high renown
Rise up by poor men's valour, not their own;
Great families of yesterday we show
And lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who."
So much keen and clever invective levelled at the higher classes of
course had its reward in a wide circulation; but we are surprised to
hear that the King noticed it with favour; the author was honoured with
a personal interview, and became a still stronger partizan of the court.
Defoe called the "True Born Englishman",
"A contradiction
In speech an irony, in fact a fiction;"
and we may observe that he was particularly fond of an indirect and
covert style of writing. He thought that he could thus use his weapons
to most advantage, but his disguise was seen through by his enemies as
well as by his friends. Irony--the stating the reverse of what is meant,
whether good or bad--is often resorted to by those treading on
dangerous ground, and admits of two very different interpretations.
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