Are these Things So? (1740) The Great Man's Answer to Are These things So: (1740)

William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles
Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles
David S. Rodes, University of California, Los Angeles

ADVISORY EDITORS

Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan
James L. Clifford, Columbia University
Ralph Cohen, University of Virginia
Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles
Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago
Louis A. Landa, Princeton University
Earl Miner, University of California, Los Angeles
Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota
Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles
Lawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
James Sutherland, University College, London
H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles
Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Curt A. Zimansky, State University of Iowa

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Jean T. Shebanek, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

INTRODUCTION

The two pamphlets reproduced here belong to the fierce heightening in the pamphlet campaign against Robert Walpole that took place at the end of 1740. They represent only two efforts within a brief but furious encounter that gave rise to the publication of no fewer than nine separate poems. On Thursday, 23 October 1740, Thomas Cooper, "one of the most prolific printers and publishers of the pamphlet literature of the eighteenth century," 1 published a savage denunciation of Walpole called Are these things so? 2 This pamphlet, which took the fictional form of an open letter from Alexander Pope, "An Englishman in his Grotto," to Robert Walpole, "A Great Man at Court," set off a round of verse writing among the party hacks of the day that vividly illustrates the close relationship between literature and politics in the first half of the eighteenth century. Within the space of two months eight further pamphlets directly related to this pamphlet and to Walpole's position as First Minister were published. Such a spate of literary activity is only remarkable, however, when compared with other ages. While it is inconceivable that the publication of any poem in our own day, even by a major writer, should arouse such a response, it is reasonably typical of the first half of the eighteenth century that the publication of an occasional poem by a minor, indeed anonymous, writer should do so.

On Saturday, 8 November, two weeks after the opening blast, Cooper delivered a second volley, an equally fierce (although largely repetitive) denunciation of Walpole entitled Yes, they are:. 3 A week later still, on Saturday, 15 November, the first pro-Government riposte, called What of That!, was published, 4 followed three days later, on 18 November, by a second reply, The Weather-Menders: A proper Answer to Are these things so? 5 The second edition of What of That! was published on the following Saturday, 22 November, 6 and a third pro-Walpole poem entitled They are Not, was also published at about this time. 7 At the end of November, or early in December, a reply to all three of these defences of Walpole appeared carrying the title, Have at you All. 8 On Tuesday, 2 December, the pro-Walpole forces returned to the attack again with a poem entitled What Things? 9 This was followed on Saturday, 6 December, by the second edition, "corrected, with the addition of twenty lines omitted in the former impressions" of Are these things so?, 10 and on Thursday, 18 December, by yet another anti-Walpole poem, The Great Man's Answer 11 purporting to be "by the author of Are these things so?." But the pro-Walpole forces were still not silenced and two days later on Saturday, 20 December, published A Supplement to Are these things so?, 12 an attack on the Patriot opponents of the Ministry. A month later still, on Friday, 23 January 1741, 13 the third edition of They are Not was published. Hereafter this particular controversy seemed to burn itself out, although an anonymous poem entitled The Art of Poetry, published on 17 March 1741, contains a long attack on Are these things so?.

This confused battle is most easily summarized by saying that four separate pamphlets (not counting second and third editions) were published which attacked Walpole, and five which defended him. The poems attacking Walpole are far more poetically versatile than those defending him and it is the two most interesting of these attacks that are reproduced here. Taken together, this series of nine pamphlets forms a separate battle within that much larger and continuing war waged by Lord Bolingbroke and the various supporters of the Patriot Opposition against Sir Robert Walpole and the defenders of his Whig Ministry. From the first publication of The Craftsman on 5 December 1726 to the final resignation of the "Great Man" on 11 February 1742 it is probably true to say that no English politician has ever been so continuously and so virulently attacked by so eminent an assemblage of literary persons. Gay, Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, Chesterfield, Lyttleton, Thomson, Fielding, and Johnson each entered the fray at various stages. The fact that Walpole rode out these attacks for so long is more of a comment on the disorganized nature of the opposition politically and on the astute manoeuvring of Walpole himself, than on the ineffectiveness of the attacks.

During the protracted span of this campaign there were only two periods during which the supporters of the Patriot cause had any real chance of toppling Walpole. The first came in 1733 when sustained opposition forced Walpole to drop his proposed Excise Scheme, while the second occurred five years later in 1738 and sprang from a new deterioration in Anglo-Spanish relations. Although Walpole did not finally resign until 11 February 1742 his fall from power was a direct result of this deterioration. His position in the House of Commons, and in the country at large, was never as assured in the last four years of his "reign" as it had been in the first seventeen.

The pamphlets reproduced here deal with Walpole's declining reputation and especially with his handling of Spanish policy. The causes of the English differences with Spain go back to 1713 and the Treaty of Utrecht in which the South Sea Company had been granted, amongst other privileges, the right to send one trading vessel a year to the Spanish possessions. 14 This right had been grossly abused by English merchants eager to make large profits and a great number of English trading ships annually smuggled goods to Spanish America. The Spanish governors were only too pleased to accept such contraband trade for by it they avoided payment of duties to the King of Spain. In order to defend themselves against this illegal traffic the Spanish authorities established a fleet of guarda-costas to intercept, search, and, if necessary, punish the English ships. The guarda-costas did this with great effect and, on occasion, with considerable cruelty. The most notorious example concerned the capture, near Jamaica in 1731, of Captain Robert Jenkins' ship, the Rebecca, and the ensuing removal of one of Jenkins' ears. It was with Jenkins' presentation of this ear, which "wrapt up in cotton, he always carried about him," 15 before the House of Commons seven years later in March 1738 that Anglo-Spanish differences came to a head.

The Patriots demanded war and revenge: Walpole, however, was committed to a policy of peace. Accordingly, he spent the rest of the year trying to patch things up and the ill-fated Convention of Pardo concluded on 14 January 1739 was the result. The Convention involved compromise on both sides. England claimed that Spain owed her £343,277 by way of reparation for damages done to English vessels, and Spain claimed that England owed her £180,000 by way of arrears on duties due to the King of Spain. This left a balance of £163,277 and England agreed to accept £95,000 as a total discharge in return for payment within four months. 16

On 1 February Walpole laid this Convention before Parliament, and, despite vociferous opposition, it was eventually ratified on 9 March by a vote of 244 to 214. As a result of this ratification a considerable section of the opposition, under the leadership of Sir William Wyndham, immediately seceded from Parliament. Feelings had never been higher. On 15 May, one day after the payment had fallen due, Benjamin Keene, the British Minister in Madrid, was officially informed that the £95,000 would only be paid if Admiral Haddock removed his fleet from the Mediterranean. England had no intention of recalling Haddock, for both Gibraltar and Minorca would then remain defenceless, and Spain clearly had no real intention of paying the money. From this point on war became inevitable and on 19 October 1739 the declaration was made "and was received by all ranks and distinctions of men with a degree of enthusiasm and joy, which announced the general frenzy of the nation." 17 It was on hearing the church bells pealing at the news that Walpole made his famous remark: "They now ring the bells, but they will soon wring their hands. 18

One month later, on 22 November, Admiral Vernon captured Porto Bello, the port in which the guarda-costas had been fitted out. The news of this victory did not arrive in England until nearly four months later on 13 March 1740, but it brought with it great public excitement and jubilation. Thus by the end of 1740 the revenge on the Spanish had begun. Those who had demanded war seemed justified and Walpole had been discredited. This is the political background against which these pamphlets are set.

Both pamphlets have been attributed to James Miller, but the evidence for such attribution is cumulative rather than definitive. 19 Are these things so? has been far more frequently attributed to Miller than The Great Man's Answer. The earliest attribution is found in D. E. Baker's Biographia Dramatica which, although it was not published till 1812, was originally compiled by Baker sometime before 1764. 20 Robert Watt also lists Are these things so? as Miller's work in his Bibliotheca Britannica, Edinburgh, 1824. 21 The entries under Miller in the CBEL and DNB both accept these attributions as does the British Museum Catalogue. The evidence for attributing The Great Man's Answer to Miller is far more slender and rests largely on the publisher's claim on the title page, which may well have been made for the sake of promotion, that it is "By the Author of Are these things so?".

James Miller, 1706-1744, is better known as a comic dramatist than as a poet. He was the son of a clergyman from Upcerne in Dorset, and was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, where he wrote a comedy, The Humours of Oxford, which was successfully performed at Drury Lane in January 1730. On leaving Oxford he had been expected by his relations to go into business, but "not being able to endure the servile drudgery it demanded," he took holy orders and continued to write plays "to increase his finances." 22 From 1730 until his death in 1744 he wrote ten plays, several of which were performed with considerable success. 23

But it is as a poet that we are primarily interested in Miller. He was the author of several occasional poems of which his Harlequin Horace, or the Art of Modern Poetry, 1731, was the best known. This poem, yet another imitation of Horace's Ars Poetica is an attack on John Rich, the manager of Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent-Garden. The poem is ironically full of perverse modern advice on how to write poetry. Miller adopts the persona of a modern Grub Street poet who scorns the classical values. Consequently Pope, who insists on standards of excellence, is seen by the persona as the great enemy of modern poets. At the same time it is quite clear that for Miller himself Pope is the greatest of poets. The poem includes an attack on Walpole (ll. 209-216), and perhaps it was this that led the agents of the Ministry to make him the large offer referred to in the biography of Miller found in Cibber's Lives. But, as the anonymous writer of this life goes on to point out, Miller "had virtue sufficient to withstand the temptation, though his circumstances at that time were far from being easy." 24

A second verse satire in the manner of Horace, Seasonable Reproof, 1735, has also been attributed to Miller. The poem is a general satire on Britain's "State of Reprobation," and only makes a passing glance at Walpole. London has been so forsaken by people all rushing to the Italian opera that

By Excisemen, it might now be taken,
And great Sir Bob ride through, and save his Bacon (ll. 6-7).

But more significant in our context is that, as Maynard Mack has shown, the author creates a speaker "who by his careful echoings of the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot seems to labor to be mistaken for Pope." 25

If Miller was the author of both Seasonable Reproof and Are these things so? his fascination with the persona of the poet in his grotto emerges as no sudden whim of wit, but as a continuing concern with the symbolic significance of Pope's actual life. Furthermore, the poet who attacked Walpole so violently in October 1740 emerges as no upstart Patriot cashing in on Walpole's current unpopularity, but as a consistent and courageous opponent of Walpole since at least 1731.

In Are these things so? Pope is imagined to be speaking throughout, although he in turn imagines what Walpole might say at various points. The poem is full of allusions and references intended to support the pretense that Pope is speaking. In line eight the speaker says his luxury is "lolling in my peaceful Grot"; in lines fifteen and sixteen he echoes Pope's famous claim in To Fortescue that he is "TO VIRTUE ONLY and HER FRIENDS, A FRIEND," 26 when he says:

Close shut my Cottage-Gate, where none pretends
To lift the Latch but Virtue and her Friends;

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.

The persons named at the end of the poem as possible replacements for Walpole are all persons who were at one time members of the Whig party but who had joined the opposition because of their dislike for Walpole. John Carteret, Earl Granville (ll. 231-236, p. 13, and referred to as Camillus in the first edition), had a long struggle with Walpole for control of the Whig party and joined the Opposition Whigs after he returned from the lord lieutenancy of Ireland in 1730. It was Carteret who was to move the unsuccessful resolution on 13 February 1741, requesting the King to remove Walpole from his "presence and counsels for ever." William Pulteney, Earl of Bath (ll. 237-242, p. 13, and referred to as Demosthenes in the first edition) was also an early ally of Walpole's who later broke with him to form the Patriot party. He became one of the editors of The Craftsman. Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield (ll. 243-245, p. 13, and referred to as Atticus in the first edition) was also a lifelong Whig who joined Carteret in leading the opposition to Walpole in the Lords. Hugh Hume, Lord Polwarth and Earl of Marchmont (ll. 246-257, p. 14, and referred to as "that fam'd Caledonian Youth" in the first edition), had been a persistent and relentless opponent of Walpole in the Commons, but on the death of his father in February 1740 had acceded to the Earldom of Marchmont and been unable to get elected as a representative peer. Although twenty years younger than Pope (he was only 32 in 1740) he became a close friend and was appointed an executor of his will. Pope refers to his friendship in his Verses on a Grotto: "And the bright Flame was shot thro' MARCHMONT'S Soul." 35 Sir Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham (ll. 258-261, p. 14), was also a staunch Whig who broke with Walpole and joined the Patriots. He, too, was an intimate friend of Pope's who addressed the first moral essay to him and praised his famous gardens at Stowe in the fourth. John Campbell, Duke of Argyle (ll. 262-265, pp. 14-15) was a distinguished soldier who joined the Opposition during the discussion of Spanish affairs. Both Pope and Thomson had celebrated his eloquence, and ll. 262-263 here are a direct recollection of lines 86-87 in Pope's Epilogue to the Satires: Dialogue II:

ARGYLE, the State's whole Thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the Senate and the Field.

With the exception of Carteret each of the persons named at the end of the poem was either an acquaintance or a close friend of Pope's. We have here one last example of the remarkable degree to which the author of this pamphlet had assimilated the true facts of Pope's life into his fictional re-creation.

According to the title page, The Great Man's Answer is by the same author as Are these things so?. Once again, the setting is Pope's grotto, but this time the poet engages Walpole in a direct dialogue. The poem begins with the poet being disturbed in his retreat by someone "thundering at the gate." It is Walpole who has come to answer the questions asked in Are these things so?. He maintains that Britain has not fallen as low as Pope claims and that the Honour of the Fleet is still intact. He defends his handling of Parliament, his fiscal policies, his appointment of Placemen and Pensioners, his attitude to Commerce, and the self-aggrandisement involved in many of his contracts. These defences, which only bring out a severer irony in Pope, lead up to Walpole's version of his own epitaph in contrast to that given him in Are these things so?. Where Pope had stressed his role as the grave-digger of British Liberty, Walpole sees himself as the healer of factions. Finally he falls back on his ultimate weapon of bribery. But his offers of money, pension, place, title, and honour are turned down by the poet with increasing scorn, and the poem ends with appropriate focus on Pope's incorruptibility.

The following notes are offered to help with the topical allusions. 36 The poem opens with Pope directing his servant, John Serle (1. 7, p. 1), to see who is thundering at his gate. This is a playful allusion to the famous opening of An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot where Serle had been urged to an exactly opposite course of action. The "Gazetteer Abuse" scornfully mentioned by Pope (1. 37, p. 3) is a reference to The Daily Gazetteer, a pro-Government newspaper which ran from 30 June 1735-20 June 1745. The incomplete words, "Se—s" (1. 66, p. 4) and "P———ts!" (1. 79, p. 5) refer to Senates and Parliaments respectively. Walpole's claim (1. 89, p. 5) that "Gin would then be drank without control" refers to the government's Gin Act of 1736, which placed an excise of five shillings a gallon on gin. His later claim that there would be "No License on the Press, or on the Stage" (1. 98, p. 6) refers to the Stage Licensing Act of 1737, which placed the theatre under the control of the Lord Chamberlain.

For Pope's ironic application of the epithet "sturdy" (1. 164, p. 9) to the London Merchants see the notes to Are these things so?. Pope's mention of "Angria" (1. 204, p. 11) is a comparison of Walpole to a Mahrattan pirate chief of the early part of the century. Walpole's introduction to his own epitaph, "They best can speak it, who will feel it most" (1. 223, p. 12) is an allusion to Pope's Eloisa to Abelard (1. 366): "He best can paint 'em who shall feel 'em most."

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NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

1 H. R. Plomer, A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers Who Were at Work in England. 1726-1775 (Oxford, 1932), p. 61.

2 The London Daily Post and General Advertiser, 23 October 1740. "This Day is Published. Are these things so? The previous question from an Englishman in his Grotto, to a Great Man at Court."

3 The London Daily Post and General Advertiser, 8 November 1740. "This Day is Published. Yes, they are: Being an answer to Are these things so?"

4 The Daily Gazetteer, 15 November 1740. "This Day is Published. What of That! Occasioned by a Pamphlet intituled Are these things so? And its Answer, Yes, They are:"

5 The London Daily Post and General Advertiser, 17 November 1740. "Tomorrow will be published. The Weather-Menders. A proper Answer to Are these things so? By Mr. Spiltimber."

6 The Daily Gazetteer, 22 November 1740. "This Evening will be Published; The Second Edition of What of That!"

7 I have been unable to find an advertisement for this pamphlet, but it must have been published at the end of November or very early in December since Have at you All (see following footnote) lists it as one of the pamphlets it is replying to.

8 The London Magazine, December 1740. The Monthly Catalogue. Item 13. "Have at you all. By the Author of Yes they are."

This listing can only be taken as giving a terminal date. The pamphlet may well have been published in late November. Are these things so?, for example, is listed in the Monthly Catalogue for November.

9 The London Daily Post and General Advertiser, 1 December 1740. "Tomorrow, at Noon, will be published. What Things? or, An Impartial Inquiry What Things are so, and What Things are not so. Occasion'd by two late Poems, the one entitled Are these things so? And the other entitled Yes, they are."

10 The Daily Post, 6 December 1740. "This Day is Published. (The Second Edition, corrected; with the Addition of twenty lines omitted in the former Impressions) Are these things so? The previous question from an Englishman in his Grotto to a Great Man at Court."

11 The Daily Post, 18 December 1740. "This Day is Published. The Great Man's Answer. In a Dialogue between his Honour and the Englishman in his Grotto. By the author of Are these things so?"

12 The London Daily Post and General Advertiser, 20 December 1740. "This Day is Published. A Supplement to a late excellent Poem, entitled Are these things so?"

13 The Daily Post, 23 January 1741. "This Day is Published. The Third Edition. They are Not."

14 At the same time the South Sea Company agreed to pay a duty of 25% on all profits to the King of Spain. It was the question of the payment of this duty for illegal trips that became the basis of Spain's later claim for reparation. These details are taken from William Coxe, Memoirs of the Life and Administration of Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford, 3 vols. (London, 1798), I, 589.

15 Coxe, I, 579.

16 These figures are taken from H.W.V. Temperley, "Chapter II, The Age of Walpole and the Pelhams," The Cambridge Modern History, ed. A. W. Ward, G. W. Prothero, and Stanley Leathes (Cambridge, 1909), VI, 66.

17 Coxe, I, 617.

18 Coxe, I, 618 n.

19 I have been unable to do any more to settle the authorship and have had to be content here with presenting the evidence.

20 D. E. Baker, I. Reed, and S. Jones, Biographia Dramatica, 3 vols. (London, 1812), I, ii, 512-515.

21 Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica, 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1824), II, 670.

22 Most of the details in this brief biography, including these quotations, are taken from "The Life of the Revd. Mr. James Millar," The Lives of the Poets of Great-Britain and Ireland, By Mr. Theophilus Cibber, and other hands (London, 1753), V, 332-334.

23 One of these, The Man of Taste, 1735, has sometimes been mistakenly confused with a pamphlet written three years earlier, Mr. Taste, The Poetical Fop, which viciously attacked Pope. See James T. Hillhouse, "The Man of Taste," MLN, XLIII (1928), 174-176. There is no evidence that Miller ever attacked Pope and, indeed, his political and literary sympathies put him strongly on Pope's side.

24 Cibber, p. 333.

25 Maynard Mack, The Garden and the City (Toronto, 1969), p. 190. Mack is the first critic to pay any attention to these pamphlets and this reprint is largely offered to supplement his illuminating and suggestive book.

26 A. Pope, The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace Imitated (London, 1733), l. 121. It is perhaps interesting to note that according to J. V. Guerinot, Pamphlet Attacks on Alexander Pope 1711-1744 (London, 1969), p. xlviii, "No other line more infuriated the dunces, it was for them Pope's ultimate hypocrisy."

27 Walpole visited Pope sometime in the summer of 1725. See Pope's letter to Fortescue, 23 September 1725. The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, ed. G. Sherburn (Oxford, 1956), II, 323.

28 For a full account of the ways in which Pope's actual retired life in his Twickenham villa, garden, and grotto became, in the 1730's, emblematic of the ideal of cultivated virtue, see Maynard Mack, The Garden and the City, especially Chapter VI. According to Mack, Pope becomes "spiritual patron of the poetical opposition to Walpole" (p. 190).

29 James Boswell, Life of Johnson, ed. R. W. Chapman (Oxford, 1953), p. 91.

30 This assumption is based on Johnson's comment in his life of Pope that "the whole process was probably intended rather to intimidate Pope than to punish Whitehead." S. Johnson, Lives of the English Poets, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill (Oxford, 1905), III, 181.

31 The Gentleman's Magazine, IX, 104.

32 The London Daily Post and General Advertiser, Saturday, 15 November 1740. "WHEREAS it has been generally reported that I am the Author of a Poem, lately publish'd, entitled ARE THESE THINGS SO? I think it necessary to assure the Public, that the said Report is without any Foundation, being entirely a Stranger both to that Piece and the Author of it. P. Whitehead."

33 "There is just now come out another imitation of the same original [Ars Poetica], Harlequin Horace, which has a good deal of humour." Sherburn, III, 173.

34 See Fog's Weekly Journal, 14 April 1733.

35 For an account of the publication of these verses see Mack, p. 70, n. 1.

36 It should be noted that the pamphlet is full of typographical errors. Lines 104-106, p. 6, should be prefixed by "G.M.," since Walpole must be the speaker, as should the last two lines in the poem, lines 251-252, p. 13. Page ten mistakenly carries the number twelve at the top of the page.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The facsimiles of Are these things so? (1740; the Second Edition, corrected; 163.n.57) and of The Great Man's Answer (1740; 11630.h.50) are reproduced from copies in the British Museum by kind permission of the Trustees.

Are these Things So?

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