are, buy them up, I beseech you, out of pity; for I hear the
conventicle is shut up, and the brother of Achitophel out of service.
Now footmen, you know, have the generosity to make a purse, for a
member of their society, who has had his livery pulled over his ears:
and even Protestant flocks are brought up among you, out of veneration
to the name. A dissenter in poetry from sense and English, will make as
good a Protestant rhymer, as a dissenter from the Church of England a
Protestant parson. Besides, if you encourage a young beginner, who
knows but he may elevate his style a little, above the vulgar epithets
of profane and saucy Jack, and atheistic scribbler, with which he
treats me, when the fit of enthusiasm is strong upon him? By which
well-manner'd and charitable expressions, I was certain of his sect,
before I knew his name. What would you have more of a man? He has
damned me in your cause from Genesis to the Revelations; and has half
the texts of both the Testaments against me, if you will be so civil to
yourselves as to take him for your interpreter, and not to take them
for Irish witnesses. After all, perhaps, you will tell me, that you
retained him only for the opening of your cause, and that your main
lawyer is yet behind. Now, if it so happen he meet with no more reply
than his predecessors, you may either conclude, that I trust to the
goodness of my cause, or fear my adversary, or disdain him, or what you
please; for the short on it is, it is indifferent to your humble
servant, whatever your party says or thinks of him.
DANIEL DEFOE.
(1661-1734)
XXI. INTRODUCTION TO THE TRUE-BORN ENGLISHMAN.
"The True-born Englishman" was a metrical satire designed to defend
the king, William III., against the attacks made upon him over the
admission of foreigners into public offices and posts of
responsibility.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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