They were tickled by the hard blows as we may suppose a rhinoceros to be tickled by the strokes of an oaken cudgel.

Defoe suddenly woke to find himself the hero of the hour, at least with the London populace.

The pamphlet was pirated, and eighty thousand copies, according to his own calculation, were sold in the streets.

Henceforth he described himself in his title-pages as the author of the _True-Born Englishman_, and frequently did himself the honour of quoting from the work as from a well-established classic.

It was also, he has told us, the means of his becoming personally known to the King, whom he had hitherto served from a distance.
Defoe was not the man to be abashed by his own popularity.