two thieves! _Now let us crucify the thieves!_ Let her foundations be established upon the destruction of her enemies: the doors of mercy being always open to the returning part of the deluded people; let the obstinate be ruled with a rod of iron!' It gives a pleasant impression of the spirit of the times, to remember that this could be taken for a genuine utterance of orthodoxy; that De Foe was imprisoned and pilloried, and had to write a serious protestation that it was only a joke, and that he meant to expose the nonjuring party by putting their secret wishes into plain English. ''Tis hard,' he says, 'that this should not be perceived by all the town; that not one man can see it, either Churchman or Dissenter.' It certainly was very hard; but a perusal of the whole pamphlet may make it a degree more intelligible. Ironical writing of this kind is in substance a _reductio ad absurdum_. It is a way of saying the logical result of your opinions is such or such a monstrous error. So long as the appearance of logic is preserved, the error cannot be stated too strongly. The attempt to soften the absurdity so as to take in an antagonist is injurious artistically, if it may be practically useful. An ironical intention which is quite concealed might as well not exist. And thus the unscrupulous use of the same weapon by Swift is now far more telling than De Foe's comparatively guarded application of it. The artifice, however, is most skilfully carried out for the end which De Foe had in view. The 'Shortest Way' begins with a comparative gravity to throw us off our guard; the author is not afraid of imitating a little of the dulness of his supposed antagonists, and repeats with all imaginable seriousness the very taunts which a High Church bigot would in fact have used. It was not a sound defence of persecution to say that the Dissenters had been cruel when they had the upper hand, and that penalties imposed upon them were merely retaliation for injuries suffered under Cromwell and from Scottish Presbyterians; but it was one of those topics upon which a hot-headed persecutor would naturally dwell, though De Foe gives him rather more forcible language than he would be likely to possess. It is only towards the end that the ironical purpose crops out in what we should have thought an unmistakable manner. Few writers would have preserved their incognito so long. The caricature would have been too palpable, and invited ridicule too ostentatiously. An impatient man soon frets under the mask and betrays his real strangeness in the hostile camp.