The court preferments make men knaves in course,
But they, who would be in them, would be worse.
'Tis not at foreigners that we repine,
Would foreigners their perquisites resign:
The grand contention's plainly to be seen,
To get some men put out, and some put in."
It will be immediately perceived that De Foe could have no pretensions to the character of a poet; but he has, notwithstanding, some nervous and well-versified lines, and in choice of subject and moral he is in general excellent. The Trueborn Englishman concludes thus:
Could but our ancestors retrieve their fate,
And see their offspring thus degenerate;
How we contend for birth and names unknown,