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.
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:
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