The enthusiasm was increased by the timely publication of a _Hymn to the Pillory_, in which Defoe boldly declared the iniquity of his sentence, and pointed out to the Government more proper objects of their severity. Atheists ought to stand there, he said, profligate beaux, swindling stock-jobbers, fanatic Jacobites, and the commanders who had brought the English fleet into disgrace. As for him, his only fault lay in his not being understood; but he was perhaps justly punished for being such a fool as to trust his meaning to irony. It would seem that though the Government had committed Defoe to Newgate, they did not dare, even before the manifestation of popular feeling in his favour, to treat him as a common prisoner. He not only had liberty to write, but he found means to convey his manuscripts to the printer. Of these privileges he had availed himself with that indomitable energy and fertility of resource which we find reason to admire at every stage in his career, and most of all now that he was in straits. In the short interval between his arrest and his conviction he carried on a vigorous warfare with both hands,--with one hand seeking to propitiate the Government, with the other attracting support outside among the people. He proved to the Government incontestably, by a collection of his writings, that he was a man of moderate views, who had no aversion in principle even to the proposals of the _New Association_. He proved the same thing to the people at large by publishing this _Collection of the writings of the author of the True-Born Englishman_, but he accompanied the proof by a lively appeal to their sympathy under the title of _More Reformation, a Satire on himself_, a lament over his own folly which was calculated to bring pressure on the Government against prosecuting a man so innocent of public wrong. When, in spite of his efforts, a conviction was recorded against him, he adopted a more defiant tone towards the Government. He wrote the _Hymn to the Pillory_. This daring effusion was hawked in the streets among the crowd that had assembled to witness his penance in the "hieroglyphic State-machine, Contrived to punish Fancy in." "Come," he cried, in the concluding lines-- "Tell 'em the M---- that placed him here Are Sc----ls to the times, Are at a loss to find his guilt, And can't commit his crimes." "M----" stands for Men, and "Sc---- ls" for Scandals. Defoe delighted in this odd use of methods of reserve, more common in his time than in ours.