Mr. Dennis, who was restless in attacking those writers, who met with success, levelled some more criticisms against the Spectators; and amongst the rest endeavoured to expose Mr. Addison’s Illustrations of the Old Ballad, called Chevy Chace; of which we shall only say, that he performed this talk more successfully than he executed his Animadversions upon Poetical Justice.

We have already taken notice of the warm attachment Mr. Dennis always had to the Whig-Interest, and his particular zeal for the Hanoverian succession.  Ht wrote many letters and pamphlets, for the administration of the earl of Godolphin, and the duke of Marlborough, and never failed to lash the French with all the severity natural to him.

When the peace (which the Whigs reckoned the most inglorious that ever was made) was about to be ratified, Mr. Dennis, who certainly over-rated his importance, took it into his imagination, that when the terms of peace should be stipulated, some persons, who had been most active against the French, would be demanded by that nation as hostages; and he imagined himself of importance enough to be made choice of, but dreaded his being given up to the French, as the greatest evil that could befall him.  Under the influence of this strong delusion, he actually waited on the duke of Marlborough, and begg’d his grace’s interposition, that he might not be sacrificed to the French, for says he, ‘I have always been their enemy.’  To this strange request, his grace very gravely replied, ’Do not fear, Mr. Dennis, you shall not be given up to the French; I have been a greater enemy to them than you, and you see I am not afraid of being sacrificed, nor am in the least disturbed.’  Mr. Dennis upon this retired, well satisfied with his grace’s answer, but there still remained upon his spirits a dread of his becoming a prey to some of the enemies of Great Britain.

He soon after this retired into the country, to spend some time at a friend’s house.  While he was walking one day by the sea side, he saw a ship in full sail approaching towards the shore, which his distracted imagination dictated, was a French ship sent to carry him off.  He hurried to the gentleman’s house with the utmost precipitation, upbraided him with treachery, as being privy to the attempts of the French against his life, and without ceremony quitted his house, and posted to London, as fast as he could.

Mr. Dennis, who never cared to be an unconcerned spectator, when any business of a public or important nature was in agitation, entered the lists with the celebrated Mr. Sacheverel, who in the year 1702 published at Oxford a piece called the Political Union, the purport of which was to shew, that the Church and the State are invariably connected, and that the one cannot subsist without the other.  Mr. Dennis in answer to this, in a letter to a member of parliament, with much zeal, force of argument, and less ferocity than usual, endeavours to overthrow the proposition, and shew the danger of priestcraft, both to religion and government.