THERE’S NONE BUT FOOLS IN TIME TO COME
WILL TRUST THE ENGLISH NATION
[DEFOE, Daniel.]
[Incipit:] Ye True-born Englishmen proceed …
[London, 1701.]
4to, pp. 4; a little dusty, inner margin neatly restored.
One of a number of editions (at least seven) in 1701, priority not established, of this popular poem attacking Parliament for its failure to support the Dutch against the aggressions of Louis XIV of France. The texts ‘vary considerably’ (Moore) across the printings, which all appeared without an author or title, surreptitiously.
It is a different poem from Defoe’s ‘The true born Englishman’ of the same year. Its content largely echoes (but in verse) his provocative Legion’s Memorial, which is mentioned here: ‘A strange Memorial too there came, / Your Members to affront, / Which told you truths you dare not name’. Both were published anonymously, though Defoe’s authorship of the prose work was an open secret and the opening line here ‘sounds like a defiant acknowledgement of his own authorship’ (Bastian, Defoe’s early Life).
Foxon Y9; Moore 36.
