His confinement in Newgate, from which the first number of the _Review_ was issued on the 19th February, 1704, had in no way impaired his clear-sighted daring and self-confident skill.

There was a sparkle of paradox and a significant lesson in the very title of his journal--_A Review of the Affairs of France_.

When, by and by, he digressed to the affairs of Sweden and Poland, and filled number after number with the history of Hungary, people kept asking, "What has this to do with France ?" "How little you understand my design," was Defoe's retort.

"Patience till my work is completed, and then you will see that, however much I may seem to have been digressing, I have always kept strictly to the point.

Do not judge me as you judged St.Paul's before the roof was put on.