Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- The Authors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Poetry, Pamphleteering and the Pillory
- 2 Defoe and the Dead King
- 3 The Author of the Review
- 4 Propagandist for the Union
- 5 ‘Maintaining a Counter Correspondence’
- 6 1710: The Fateful Step
- 7 Defoe and the Whig Split
- 8 The Return of the Prodigal
- Appendices A Three Recently-Discovered Letters from Defoe to Godolphin (1708)
- Appendices B The ‘Sir Andrew Politick’ Letter (25 October 1718)
- Appendices C Defoe's An Appeal to Honour and Justice (1715)
- Notes
- Index
5 - ‘Maintaining a Counter Correspondence’
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- The Authors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Poetry, Pamphleteering and the Pillory
- 2 Defoe and the Dead King
- 3 The Author of the Review
- 4 Propagandist for the Union
- 5 ‘Maintaining a Counter Correspondence’
- 6 1710: The Fateful Step
- 7 Defoe and the Whig Split
- 8 The Return of the Prodigal
- Appendices A Three Recently-Discovered Letters from Defoe to Godolphin (1708)
- Appendices B The ‘Sir Andrew Politick’ Letter (25 October 1718)
- Appendices C Defoe's An Appeal to Honour and Justice (1715)
- Notes
- Index
Summary
The achieving of the Union was, as might have been expected, celebrated with exultation in the pages of the Review. When, later, the cannons were proclaiming the great event from Edinburgh Castle, Mr. Review begged pardon for fancying, though he knew it was childish, that they were roaring ‘UNION, UNION’.
‘Nothing but Union! Union! … I am quite tired of it, and we hope, ’tis as good as over now; prithee, good Mr. Review, let's have now and then a Touch of something else to make us merry.’ So the Review for 28 January imagines one of its readers complaining, but in reply Mr. Review offers a weighty and sarcastic rebuke.
Pray, Gentlemen, what can you expect out of Scotland? Poor, barren Scotland! where you fancy there is nothing to be had, but wild Men, and ragged Mountains, Storms, Snows, Poverty and Barrenness. Very well, Gentlemen, and what if you should be mistaken now, and I should tell you, that Scotland is quite another Country than you imagine … That the Poverty of Scotland, and the Fruitfulness of England, or rather the Difference between them, is owing not to meer Difference of the Clime, Heat of the Sun or Nature of the Soil, but to the Errors of Time and the Misery of their Constitution.
The mighty Union transaction was, he said, ‘a Sea of universal Improvement’, and he thanked his good fortune he was among the first to reveal the blessings in store for the Scots.
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- Information
- A Political Biography of Daniel Defoe , pp. 74 - 102Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014