“THE TRUE-BORN ENGLISHMAN.” 17

He now began to pay off his debts rapidly, and yearly to increase in
worldly prosperity. He supported with indefatigable pen the principal
measures of William III.; advocated the formation of a small standing
army; defended the great principle of religious toleration; and lent his
powerful influence to the creation in England of an enlightened public opin-
ion on these and other important subjects. His second poetical satire,
“The Pacificator,” appeared in 1700, and is superior to the first in cogency
and point. Early in the following year he published the best of his poems,
“The True-born Englishman;” which, more than any of his previous works,
tended to attract the attention of the public. It was designed as a reply to
‘a vile abhorred pamphlet, in very ill verse, written by one Mr. Tutchin, and
called The Foreigners; in which the author fell personally upon the King
himself, and then upon the Dutch nation.” The satire is strong and
trenchant, and commanded such general popularity that it passed through
nine genuine editions in a twelvemonth, and through twelve pirated editions
in less than three years. Its object was to show the composite character of.
the English race—

“Saxon, and Norman, and Dane are we ;”

and to prove that its success was owing to its very admixture of blood. Tho
first four lines have become familiar as household words—

“Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there ;
And ’twill be found, upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.”

But the satire itself has now fallen into oblivion, simply because, clever

the year 1860,” he says, ‘when the London, Tilbury, and Southend Railway was com-
pleted, thinking that the excavations might discover some remains of De Foe’s tile-works,
I made a day’s excursion to the locality. Immediately on the west side of the Tilbury
Station a large plot of land was being dug over to form potato-ground for the railway
servants ; and a deep trench had been previously cut through the same to the river to
drain the company’s estate. In this way the whole of De Foe’s brick and pan-tile works
had been laid open, including the clay-pits, drying-floors, foundations of kilns, and other
buildings. Large quantities of bricks and tiles had been excavated, and thrown into
heaps, to clear the land for its intended purpose. The pan-tiles appear to have attracted
very little notice ; but the narrowness of the bricks, and the peculiar forms of certain
tobacco-pipes, found mixed with both, had excited some little wonderment among the
labourers. I asked several how they thought these things came there, and was answered
by an ignorant shake of the head. But when I said, ‘These bricks and tiles were made
a hundred and sixty years since, by the same man that made Robinson Crusoe !’ Itouched
a chord that connected these railway ‘navvies’ with the shipwrecked mariner, and that
bounded over the intervening period in a single moment. Every eye brightened, every
tongue was ready to ask or give information, and every fragment became interesting.
Porters, inspector, and station-master soon gathered round me, wondering at what was
deemed an important historical revelation. The pan-tiles made at Tilbury were of
excellent manufacture, and still retain a fine red colour, close texture, and are quite
sonorous. Neither the Dutch nor any other tiles could have driven them out of the
market, and the maker would have been able, from proximity to London and facilities of
conveyance, either to undersell the foreign dealer or to realize a proportionately larger
profit.”—Lee, “‘ Daniel De Foe,” i. 32.

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