[56] Lord Buchan was so obliging as to communicate the subjoined extract of a letter to his lordship's grandfather, the earl of Buchan, from De Foe, dated the 29th of May, 1711:--"The person, with whom I endeavoured to plant the interest of your lordship's friend, has been strangely taken up, since I had that occasion; viz., first, in suffering the operation of the surgeons to heal the wound of the assassin; and since, in accumulating honours from parliament, the queen, and the people. On Thursday evening her majesty created him earl Mortimer, earl of Oxford, and lord Harley of Wigmore: and we expect that to-morrow in council he will have the white staff given him by the queen, and be declared lord high treasurer. I wrote this yesterday; and this day, May the 29th, he is made lord high treasurer of Great Britain, and carried the white staff before the queen this morning to chapel." [57] Appeal, p. 16. [58] With the present Life of De Foe, by Mr. Chalmers, prefixed. In this year he closed the fifth volume of the Review. He goes at great length into the affairs of Scotland, especially religious. For the freedom of his remarks in protesting against innovations upon the Scotch establishment, the Review was prosecuted by the grand jury, but the prosecution was soon stopped. He also contended vigorously against licensing the press, and for the Copyright Bill, which subsequently passed. He attacked Dr. Sacheverell for his celebrated sermon on the 5th of November, at St. Paul's. And he published a sixth volume of the Review. He there exposed stock-jobbing;--he refers to his frequently repeated anticipations of the eventual defeat of Charles XII. in relation to the battle of Pultowa; and he pays great attention, as before, to Scotch affairs.--ED.