with France_. All these, with many others, appeared within the
compass of the years 1700-1702. The three together touched upon the
three most burning questions of the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries--parliamentary factiousness, an aggressive policy
abroad, and toleration at home. Little or no annotation is required
for their comprehension, but the reader may amuse himself if he likes
by meditating whether the _Shortest Way_ is irony or not. My own
opinion is that it is not; being a simple statement of the actual
views of the other side. The anecdotic history of the piece--how it
was taken for serious by both sides, was prosecuted by Government, the
author proclaimed, and a reward offered for his detection; how, the
printer and publisher being arrested, Defoe surrendered, was tried,
pleaded guilty, was fined, pilloried, and imprisoned--may be read in
the biographies. His imprisonment lasted till August 1704, when Harley
let him out, and he entered upon a course of rather mysterious service
as a Government free-lance, which was continued under various
ministries, and has not on the whole brought him credit with
posterity. For many years, his remarkable _Review_, a political
journal which he conducted single-handed, served as his chief organ;
but he never gave up writing pamphlets till his death in 1731, though
he never approached either the merit or the effect of that here
given._)


Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of
the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable
among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for
him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses
jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life,
he gives them this grave advice, 'Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand