of his subject; he had read every history that he could lay his hands
on, and his connexion with King William had guided him to the
mainsprings of political action, and fixed in his mind clear principles
for England's foreign policy. Such a mass of facts and such a maze of
interests would have encumbered and perplexed a more commonplace
intellect, but Defoe handled them with experienced and buoyant ease. He
had many arts for exciting attention. His confinement in Newgate, from
which the first number of the _Review_ was issued on the 19th February,
1704, had in no way impaired his clear-sighted daring and self-confident
skill. There was a sparkle of paradox and a significant lesson in the
very title of his journal--_A Review of the Affairs of France_. When, by
and by, he digressed to the affairs of Sweden and Poland, and filled
number after number with the history of Hungary, people kept asking,
"What has this to do with France?" "How little you understand my
design," was Defoe's retort. "Patience till my work is completed, and
then you will see that, however much I may seem to have been digressing,
I have always kept strictly to the point. Do not judge me as you judged
St. Paul's before the roof was put on. It is not affairs _in_ France
that I have undertaken to explain, but the affairs _of_ France; and the
affairs of France are the affairs of Europe. So great is the power of
the French money, the artifice of their conduct, the terror of their
arms, that they can bring the greatest kings in Europe to promote their
interest and grandeur at the expense of their own."

Defoe delighted to brave common prejudice by throwing full in its face
paradoxes expressed in the most unqualified language. While we were at
war with France, and commonplace hunters after popularity were doing
their utmost to flatter the national vanity, Defoe boldly announced his
intention of setting forth the wonderful greatness of the French nation,
the enormous numbers of their armies, the immense wealth of their