SALON

Wednesday, May 22, 2002 7:00 PM UTC

Literary Daybook, May 22

Real and imaginary events of interest to readers.

By

Topics: Books, Richard Blumenthal,

Today in fiction

On May 22, Rathbone makes his debut as a stage hypnotist.
— “Sugar + Rum” (1988)
by Barry Unsworth

From “The Book of Fictional Days”
Know when something that did not really happen
occurred? Send it to fictiondays@yahoo.com.

- – - – - – - – - – -

Today in Literary History
On this day in 1703, Daniel Defoe was arrested for writing his satirical pamphlet “The Shortest Way With Dissenters.” Defoe was neither Church of England nor Catholic, but a Protestant “Nonconformist” or “Dissenter.” “The Shortest Way With Dissenters” was supposed to be funny, a satire of the overzealous Anglican Tories currently in power. They had recently passed the Occasional Conformity Bill requiring everyone in political office or on the public payroll to practice Anglican worship. Defoe’s anonymously written pamphlet suggested that enforcing the bill was a needless waste of time; wouldn’t the shortest way with Dissenters be to execute them, and be done with it?

“‘Tis vain to trifle in this matter! The light, foolish handling of them by mulcts, fines, etc., ’tis their glory and advantage! If the gallows instead of the Counter, and the galleys instead of the fine were the reward of going to [their places of worship], there would not be so many sufferers! The spirit of martyrdom is over!”

Defoe soon found out that he had broken the cardinal rule for satire: He hadn’t gone far enough. Many radical Anglicans, assuming that one of them had written the pamphlet, thought it a pretty good argument, and spoke out in favor of execution. Many Dissenters already holding political office were so alarmed, and so eager to hold on to their power as well as their heads, that they readily conformed to the bill, going very publicly to Anglican Chapel in the morning, and then very privately to Dissenter worship in the afternoon — a practice that Defoe called “playing Bo-Peep with God Almighty.”

When everyone realized they had been duped, and by Defoe, he was thrown into Newgate for “seditious libel” and eventually sentenced to three days in the pillory. As a hostile crowd had savagely stoned another pamphleteer a few weeks earlier, this was no bargain. Out of defiance or strategy, Defoe hurriedly composed “Hymn To The Pillory,” a vicious satire of those who had sent him there. It was smuggled out of Newgate and printed in time to be hawked to the crowd during his three-day ordeal. The London mob so enjoyed the poem, and so admired the man who had dared to cheek the high and mighty, that they drank Defoe’s health, and decked his pillory with flowers.

– Steve King

To find out more about “Today in Literary History,” e-mail Steve King.

More the Salon Books Editors.

More .

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Who is "Company Doe"? Corporations accused of wrongdoing win battle to keep identities secret
40 points41 points | 1 comment
vote
"Slave descendants seek equal rights from Cherokee Nation": long, detailed narrative of legal and historical complications in red-white-black relations
31 points32 points | 1 comment
vote
Who is "Company Doe"? Corporations accused of wrongdoing win battle to keep identities secret
6 points7 points | comment
vote
Steven Soderbergh's Liberace biopic shows the famously flamboyant entertainer as a person, not a stereotype
6 points7 points | comment
vote
Experts: Fox News spying scandal a game-changer - I think that crackdown is ideologically driven and I think it’s hard to come to a different conclusion given the vigor with which this justice department has gone after people. So I think it is about a method of control that is badly misplaced.
5 points6 points | 6 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations