[59] Mr. Chalmers here seems to be mistaken. De Foe wrote neither of these works. The first Mr. Wilson tells us was written by Oldmixon. De Foe, indeed, in order to expose the folly of the high tory party, who had procured several addresses to the queen, and which were published by them as an indication, "that the sense of the nation is express for the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance, and for her majesty's hereditary title to the throne of her ancestors," published a counter manifesto, A New Test of the Sense of the Nation: being a modest Comparison between the Addresses to the late King James and those to her present Majesty. In order to show how far the sense of the nation may be judged of by either of them. 1710. His object is of course to expose the folly of supposing that the addresses represented the real feeling of the country. In a strain of great irony, he says; "The practice of addressing has cheated many already; a jest that was put upon Richard Cromwell, and yet they deprived him three weeks afterwards. It was a second time put upon king James II. and they all flew in his face a year after. And I could give some instances of the little value that has been put upon it since, even such as one would think the very people themselves expect,--that for time to come addressing should pass for nothing with their princes."--ED. [60] Review, vol. vii. No. 95. [61] The following letter to Mr. J. Dyer, in Shoe-lane, who was then employed by the leaders of the tories, in circulating news and insinuations through the country, will show the literary manners of those times, and convey some anecdotes, which are nowhere else preserved. The original letter is in the Museum, Harl. MSS. No. 7001. fol. 269. Mr. Dyer, I have your letter. I am rather glad to find you put it upon the trial who was aggressor, than justify a thing which I am sure you cannot approve; and in this I assure you I am far from injuring you, and refer you to the time when long since you had wrote I was fled from justice: one Sammon being taken up for printing a libel, and I being then on a journey, nor the least charge against me for being concerned in it by anybody but your letter:--also many unkind personal reflections on me in your letter, when I was in Scotland, on the affair of the Union, and I assure you, when my paper had not in the least mentioned you, and those I refer to time and date for the proof of. I mention this only in defence of my last letter, in which I said no more of it than to let you see I did not merit such treatment, and could nevertheless be content to render any service to you, though I thought myself hardly used.