and in lines seventeen and eighteen he shows that he knew Walpole had once visited Pope at Twickenham.[ 27 ]
These allusions to Pope's actual life have been carefully chosen by the author in order to give dramatic credibility to his chosen spokesman rather than to persuade the reader that Pope was the real author. The impersonation of Pope is meant to be transparent: the poet is demonstrating his versatility at imitating Pope and has considerable fun in doing so. The only evidence that could be brought in to support an interpretation that stressed the author's serious intent to make Pope seem the real author concerns a Dublin reprint of the poem that actually carried Pope's name as author on the title page. But it is extremely unlikely that the true author had anything to do with this since the Dublin publisher did not even bother to incorporate the corrections and additions that the poet had made to the second edition.
To point out that the device of creating a spokesman is meant to be seen through is not the same thing, however, as saying that the author could afford to admit his authorship. There were good reasons why the author of a poem that was primarily an attack on the First Minister, and who was himself probably without any great influence or reputation, should need to hide the fact of his authorship. For such a person the choice of Pope as spokesman could hardly have been more appropriate.[ 28 ]
In May and July 1738 Pope had published his devastating attacks on the state of the country known as The Epilogue to the Satires. On 31 January 1739 Paul Whitehead published his attack on the artificialities and disguises of Walpole's Ministry and the Court favourites in a poem (which Boswell refers to as "brilliant and pointed"[ 29 ]) called Manners: A Satire. At this point the government decided that it was time they attempted to stop, or at least stem, these attacks. They were not keen to confront Pope himself, but Whitehead presented a less formidable opponent.[ 30 ] Consequently, in February 1739, he and his publisher Robert Dodsley were summoned before the bar of the House of Lords to account for the attacks on named individuals in Manners. On Monday, 12 February, the poem "was voted scandalous, etc. by the Lords, and the author and publisher ordered into custody, where Mr. Dodsley, the publisher, was a week; but Mr. Paul Whitehead, the author, absconds."[ 31 ] Whitehead anticipated this summons when he wrote in the poem:
Pope writes unhurt—but know, 'tis different quite
To beard the lion, and to crush the mite.
Safe may he dash the Statesman in each line,
Those dread his satire, who dare punish mine (p. 15).
Pope was then the ideal spokesman for our author's purposes: the mite must dress up as the lion. It was admittedly almost two years since Whitehead's original summons, but the incident was well enough remembered to spur a gossip columnist writing in The Daily Gazetteer on 11 November 1740 to suggest that Whitehead was the author of Are these things so? Whitehead, too, evidently felt the danger of the situation for he deemed it necessary to publish a denial four days later.[ 32 ]
In choosing Pope for his spokesman the author of Are these things so? showed a full awareness of the political realities. He also showed a detailed familiarity with Pope's life and work. There is nothing, however, to indicate that such knowledge was reciprocal, or even to indicate that Pope knew of the poem's existence. The only evidence that Pope knew anything about Miller's work, if indeed Miller was the author, comes in a letter Pope wrote to Caryll on 6 February 1731 in which he praises Harlequin Horace although he does not seem to know the author's name.[ 33 ]
Are these things so? opens with Pope challenging Walpole to explain why Britain has fallen as low as she has and why France and Spain have been allowed "to limit out her sea." Walpole is then imagined defending his measures, especially the Excise Scheme, the Convention of Pardo, Placement and the Secret Service. In the second half of the poem the satirist repeats the charges and invites Walpole to turn his eyes inward and imagine that he dies guilty. Pope then begs Walpole to resign and, failing that, begs the King to intervene. The poem closes in a positive way by turning from Walpole and listing other persons (all members of the Opposition) that George II might appoint to a new Ministry.
In the first edition (23 October) these persons were given fictitious names. The second edition (6 December) not only substituted their real names but also added twenty lines at the end which included Cobham and Argyle in the list of worthies. It is this edition,which carries an Advertisement explaining these changes, that we have reproduced here.
Finally it seems helpful to append a few notes to help identify some of the allusions. In line 63 (p. 4) the "ONE more noble than the rest" is presumably Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke who was stripped of his title by Act of Attainder in 1725. In line 73 (p. 5) the "brave and honest Adm'ral" is Vernon who captured Porto Bello on 22 November 1739. The "sturdy Beggars" mentioned in line 100 (p. 6), was the appelation used by Walpole in referring to the mob outside the door of Parliament on 14 March 1733, and was taken up by the Opposition as pertaining to all the merchants and individuals opposed to the Excise.[ 34 ] In line 129 (p. 8) the "C—n——n" is the Convention of Pardo described earlier in this introduction. In line 139 (p. 8) the "BROTHER" referred to is Horatio Walpole who was a frequent ambassador abroad for Robert Walpole's government. In line 218 (p. 12) "HE whose Fame to both the Poles is known" is George II.