The document summarizes Daniel Defoe's experience being put in the pillory as punishment for his pamphlet The Shortest Way with the Dissenters. In 1703, as a Dissenter himself, Defoe published this pamphlet pretending to argue for the extermination of all Dissenters, but his true intent was to satirize the views of High Anglican Tories. He was arrested, tried, and sentenced to pay a fine, stand in the pillory, and face indefinite imprisonment until his fine was paid. While in the pillory, Defoe gained public support by reading his poem "Hymn to the Pillory," turning his punishment into a triumph rather than an ordeal

2. Aeschylus died and was buried
at Gala in 456 BC in Sicily. The
Sicilian eagles liked to eat
turtles. But, there was one
problem---how to break the
shell of the turtle? So, the
Sicilian eagles used to drop the
turtle on stones.

3. The myth was that Aeschylus met his
death from an eagle dropping a
tortoise upon Aeschylus' bald head,
presumably mistaking it for a stone
upon which to break the animal's shell.
But the irony is, the incident occurred
just when Aeschylus tried to avert a
prophecy of death by a falling body.

4.  It was foretold that Aeschylus would die of falling
bodies. In order to avert falling bodies Aeschylus
had gone outside and sat on at the top of a
hillock. But the eagle mistook his bald head a
stone and dropped the turtle. Aeschylus could
not avert the proclaimed death from a ‘falling
body’. Alas! Poor fellow.

 NB. The term Aeschylus can not be pronounced
correctly; whoever tries, commits a mistake.
 Link: http://www.answers.com

5. There is no evidence for what Shakespeare
did between 1585 and 1592, the period
when he moved to London and began his
writing career. These are called the Lost
years of the poet. Thus, there is no record
of how his career began or how quickly he
rose to fame. This has, however, raised
several legendary stories

6.  According to one such legend
Shakespeare had come to India and
stayed first in a Keralian Brahmin
family adopting the name ViVian
Sheshappa Ayer and then in a Muslim
family adopting the name Sheikh Pir.
Surprisingly both the legends are still
alive in Kerala.

7.  Cobby was the English novelist Thomas Hardy's
cat. When Hardy died in 1928 the cat disappeared
without trace. Author Frank Smyth provides us with
an amazing explanation of the cat’s disappearance.
 There was some conflict as to where Mr Hardy's
body should lie to rest. As far as the nation was
concerned it should lie in Poet's Corner at
Westminster Abbey, but as Mr Hardy had
(metaphorically) given his heart to the village of
Stinsford, near Dorchester, It was finally decided
that Mr Hardy's heart would (literally) be given to
the village..

8. Two bronze urns were prepared, one to house his ashes
for the Abbey, the other to contain his heart, to be
buried in a grave at the Church in the village. A Doctor
was called in to remove the heart and it was buried with
the usual formalities, in the village graveyard. The
tombstone can be seen today, reading, “ Here Lies the
Heart of Thomas Hardy".
 But all is not as it seems!

9.  According to Frank Smyth, the heart was removed while
the corpse was still in the house and wrapped in a tea
towel, then placed in a biscuit tin next to the body,
awaiting the undertaker’s arrival the next day. When the
undertaker arrived to collect the heart for burial, all he
found were a few gristly scraps of heart and a fat and
contented cat! As it was his duty to bury Mr Hardy's heart
in the village graveyard, he killed the cat and placed it
inside the biscuit tin and then carried on as if nothing had
happened.
 Cobby was never seen thereafter.
 Link: http://www.pawsonline.info/cobby.htm

10. Was it Cobby?

11. Chaucer was murdered, but by
whom?

12. Who murdered Chaucer?
 Terry Jones and his co-authors have made a well
researched documentation on the death of Chaucer.
The diplomat poet was reportedly died on 25th
October,1400 and surprisingly forgotten at least for 100
years.
 According to Terry Jones Chaucer was imprisoned and
murdered by Arundel, for his satiric presentation of the
corruption in Church affairs by the Church officials
Arundel. the fiery Archbishop of Canterbury who, on
being restored to his post with Henry IV's accession,
relentlessly pursued not just Henry's enemies but his
own as well, especially those who challenged either his
authority over the church or its doctrine, as he himself
defined it.

13. Who murdered Chaucer?
 Terry Jones have viewed ‘The Canterbury Tales’ as the
biggest suicide note ever written by any man.
 Chaucer had placed himself in peril with the harsh
anticlericalism of his depictions of the Monk, Pardoner,
Friar, and Summoner and by daring, moreover, to
present his criticism of the church in English, which
would allow its dissemination beyond the community of
the church itself.
 But, the authors nullified the earlier suspicion of John
Gower’s possible involvement in the murder because of
professional rivalry.
 It was Arundel, who is perhaps best remembered for
introducing the public burning of heretics to England,
murdered Chaucer with the help of his men.

14.  Edgar Allan Poe
originally wanted a parrot
to repeat the word
“nevermore” in his poem
‘Raven’.
 But, realizing finally that a
parrot would not fit the
melancholy tone that his
poem was going for, and
he settled on a raven.

15. In the book, Les
Miserables, Victor Hugo
wrote one sentence of 823
words long. When Victor
Hugo wrote to his editor
inquiring about their
opinion of the manuscript,
he wrote,"?".
They answered, "!".
It is said that he preferred to
write in the nude.
Link:
 i.http://ideasofindian.blogspot.in/2008/05/
 ii.http://www.warriorforum.com/copywriting
/541916-21-fascinating-facts-tidbits-great-writers.
html

16. Steinbeck’s puppy,
, was left alone
one evening and
effectively ate some
really important
homework that he did
for his book ‘Of Mice &
Men’. Steinbeck wrote
of the incident to his
agent and said, “I was
pretty mad, but the
poor little fellow may
have been acting

17.  The Monster in Frankenstein
has no name, but Mary Shelley
once referred to him as
“Adam.” Many people
mistakenly think that the
Monster is named
Frankenstein, when in fact he’s
never given a name in the
novel. But during a reading of
the book, Shelley referred to
the Monster as “Adam,” a nod
to the Garden of Eden.
 Link:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinla
rosa/20-literary-facts-to-

18.  Link:http://www.toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/History+of+Lead+Use

19.  Link:http://www.toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/History+of+Lea
d+Use

20. Daniel Defoe (1659-
1731) Glorifies the
Pillory, Instrument of
His Shame and
Punishment.
In 1702,he wrote
an anonymous
pamphlet called
The Shortest Way

22.  The death of William III in 1702 created a
political upheaval as the king was replaced by
Queen Anne, who immediately began her
offensive against Nonconformists.
 Defoe being a natural target, his
pamphleteering and political activities resulted
in his arrest and placement in a pillory on 31
July 1703, principally on account of his
December 1702 pamphlet entitled The
Shortest-Way with the Dissenters; Or,
Proposals for the Establishment of the
Church, purporting to argue for their

23. Himself a Dissenter he mimicked the
bloodthirsty rhetoric of High Anglican
Tories and pretended to argue for the
extermination of all Dissenters.
The pamphlet argued that the best way
of dealing with the dissenters was to
banish them abroad and send their
preachers to the hangman.
Nobody was amused; Defoe was
arrested in May 1703
He was charged with seditious libel.

25.  After a trial at the Old Bailey in front of the
notoriously sadistic judge Salathiel Lovell, Defoe
was to a punitive fine, to public humiliation in a
pillory and to an indeterminate length of
imprisonment which would only end upon the
discharge of the punitive fine. While in prison Defoe
wrote a mock ode, Hymn to the Pillory (1703). The
poem was sold in the streets, the audience drank to
his health while he stood in the pillory and read
aloud his verses.
 "Actions receive their tincture from the times,
And as they change are virtues made of crimes."
(from 'A Hymn to the Pillory')

26.  Defoe was put in the pillory on the last three days of
July, for an hour each time in three of the busiest
places in London – outside the Royal Exchange in
Cornhill (near his own home), near the conduit in
Cheapside and finally in Fleet Street by Temple Bar.
It seems to have been raining steadily most of the
time, which though uncomfortable would have kept
the crowds down, and the experience proved
more of a triumph than an ordeal.
 According to legend, the publication of his poem
Hymn to the Pillory caused his audience at the
pillory to throw flowers instead of the customary
harmful and noxious objects and to drink to his
health.

29.  Collected from---
Daybook
 Defoe in the Pillory
 Posted by Steve King × July 7, 2012