good people that he had been put in the pillory for satirically hinting
that the High-Church favored such doctrines as Sacheverell was now
prosecuted for. In his _Hymn to the Pillory_ he had declared that
Sacheverell ought to stand there in his place. His wish was now
gratified; "the bar of the House of Commons is the worst pillory in the
nation." In the two months which elapsed before the trial, during which
the excitement was steadily growing, Sacheverell and his doctrines were
the main topic of the _Review_. If a popular tempest could have been
allayed by brilliant argument, Defoe's papers ought to have done it. He
was a manly antagonist, and did not imitate coarser pamphleteers in
raking up scandals about the Doctor's private life--at least not under
his own name. There was, indeed, a pamphlet issued by "a Gentleman of
Oxford," which bears many marks of Defoe's authorship, and contains an
account of some passages in Sacheverell's life not at all to the
clergyman's credit. But the only pamphlet outside the _Review_ which the
biographers have ascribed to Defoe's activity, is a humorous Letter from
the Pope to Don Sacheverellio, giving him instructions how to advance
the interest of the Pretender. In the _Review_ Defoe, treating
Sacheverell with riotously mirthful contempt, calls for the punishment
of the doctrines rather than the man. During the trial, which lasted
more than a fortnight, a mob attended the Doctor's carriage every day
from his lodgings in the Temple to Westminster Hall, huzzaing, and
pressing to kiss his hand, and spent the evenings in rabbling the
Dissenters' meeting-houses, and hooting before the residences of
prominent Whigs. Defoe had always said that the High-fliers would use
violence to their opponents if they had the power, and here was a
confirmation of his opinion on which he did not fail to insist. The
sentence on Sacheverell, that his sermon and vindication should be burnt
by the common hangman and himself suspended from preaching for three
years, was hailed by the mob as an acquittal, and celebrated by