The next satire of any consequence which De Foe wrote, was entitled Reformation of Manners, in which some private characters are severely attacked. It is chiefly aimed at some persons, who being vested with authority to suppress vice, yet rendered themselves a disgrace to their country, encouraging wickedness by that very authority they have to suppress it.
Poetry was far from being the talent of De Foe. He wrote with more perspicuity and strength in prose, and he seems to have understood, as well as any man, the civil constitution of the kingdom, which indeed was his chief study.
In the first volume of his works there is a prose essay, which he entitles The Original Power of the Collective Body of the People of England, Examined and Asserted; this was intended to refute a very ridiculous opinion, which politicians, more zealous than wise, had industriously propagated, viz. 'That the representatives of the people, i.e. the House of Commons had a right to enact whatever laws, and enter into whatever measures they please, without any dependence on, or even consulting the opinion of, their constituents; and that the collective body of the people have no right to call them to an account, or to take any cognizance of their conduct.' In answer to which Mr. De Foe very sensibly observes, 'that it is possible for even a House of Commons to be in the wrong. They may be misled by factions and parties, and it is as ridiculous to suppose them infallible; as to suppose the Pope of Rome, or the Popish conclave infallible, which have more than once determined against one another. It is possible (says he) for them to be bribed by pensions and places, and by either of those extremes to betray their trust, and abuse the people who entrust them; and if the people should have no redress in such a case, then would the nation be in hazard of being ruined by their own representatives. And it is a wonder to find it asserted in a certain treatise, That it is not to be supposed, that ever the House of Commons can injure the people who entrust them. There can be no better way to demonstrate the possibility of a thing, than by proving that it has been already; and we need go no further back than to the reign of King Charles II. in which we have seen lists of 180 members, who received private pensions from the court; and if any body should ask whether that parliament preserved the ballance of power in the three branches of our constitution, in the due distribution some have mentioned? I am not afraid to answer in the negative. And why, even to this day, are gentlemen so fond of spending their estates to sit in the House, that ten thousand pounds have been spent at a time to be chosen, and now that way of procuring elections is at an end, private briberies, and clandestine contrivances are made use of to get into the House? No man would give a groat to sit, where he cannot get a groat himself for sitting, unless there were either parties to gratify, profits to be made, or interest to support. In this case it is plain a people may be ruined by their representatives, and the first law of nature, self-preservation, give the people a right to resent public encroachments upon their valuable liberties.'
In the same volume is a tract entitled The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, which contained reflexions against some ecclesiastics in power, for breathing too much a spirit of perfection. He became obnoxious to the ministry on this account, and was obliged to justify himself by writing an explanation of it. Mr. De Foe in his preface to the second volume of his works, collected by himself, takes occasion to mention the severe hardships he laboured under, occasioned by those Printers, more industrious than himself, who make a practice of pirating every work attended with success. As an instance of this kind of oppression, he mentions the True Born Englishman, by which, had he enjoyed the full profit of his own labours, he must have gained near a thousand pounds; for besides nine editions which passed under his own inspection, this poem was twelve times pirated: but the insolence of those fraudulent dealers did not stop here. A Printer of a bad reputation collected a spurious and erroneous copy of several pieces of De Foe, and entitled them The Works of the Author of the True Born Englishman; and though he was then embroiled with the government for one of the pamphlets which this collection contained, yet had this man the impudence to print amongst them the same pamphlets, presuming so far upon the partiality of the public resentment, that he should pass with impunity for publishing that very thing for which the author was to be prosecuted with the utmost severity. This, however, was an irresistible testimony, that the resentment shewn to the author was on some other, and less justifiable account, than the publication of that book; so was it a severe satire on the unwariness of the ministry, who had not eyes to discern their justice plainly exposed, and their general proceedings bantered by a Printer, for publishing in defiance of them that same book for which another man stood arraigned.
Mr. De Foe, who possessed a resolute temper, and a most confirmed fortitude of mind, was never awed by the threats of power, nor deterred from speaking truth by the insolence of the great. Wherever he found vice he lashed it, and frequently, as Pope says, he
Dash'd the proud gam'ster from his gilded car,
Bar'd the mean breast that lurk'd beneath a star.
For some vigorous attacks against the measures of a prevailing party, which Mr. De Foe reckoned unconstitutional and unjust, he was prosecuted, and received sentence to stand on the pillory; which punishment he underwent.
At the very time he was in the hands of the ministry, to shew the invincible force of his mind, he wrote a Hymn to the Pillory, as a kind of defiance of their power. 'The reader (says he)[C] is desired to observe this poem was the author's declaration, even when in the cruel hands of a merciless, as well as unjust ministry; that the treatment he had from them was unjust, exorbitant, and consequently illegal.' As the ministry did not think proper to prosecute him for this fresh insult against them, that forbearance was construed a confession of guilt in their former proceedings.
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In the second volume of our author's works, is a piece entitled More Reformation, a satire upon himself. We have already taken notice of a satire of his called Reformation of Manners, in which some personal characters are stigmatized, which drew much odium on Mr. De Foe. This satire called More Reformation, is a kind of supplement to the former. In the preface he complains of the severe usage he had met with, but, says he, 'that the world may discern that I am not one of those who practice what they reprove, I began this satire with owning in myself those sins and misfortunes which I am no more exempted from, than other men; and as I am far from pretending to be free from human frailties, but forwarder to confess any of the errors of my life, than any man can be to accuse me; I think myself in a better way to reformation, than those who excuse their own faults by reckoning up mine.