It seems likely that the poem was completed in the summer of 1729. The most recent events that Bramston alludes to are Thomas Woolston's trial for blasphemy of 4 March (p. 27) and Sir Paul Methuen's resignation as Treasurer of the King's Household, which was reported in May (p. 13).[D] * * * * * Horace's _Ars Poetica_ was one of the most fertile sources for eighteenth-century imitations and adaptations. Some were completely serious attempts to marry one art to another or to show that all arts share the same fundamental principles; an example of this type is John Gwynn's _Art of Architecture_ (1742; ARS 144). Others, like William King's _Art of Cookery_ (1708) are downright burlesques. Bramston's usual method falls somewhere between these extremes. He often uses the dignity of poetry to show up the indignity of politics or political writing, as on pp. 5-6 where Horace's advice on choice of subject is transformed into advice to "_Weekly Writers_ of seditious _News_," or on page 7, where the rise and fall of South Sea stock fills the place of Horace's famous comparison of archaic and new-coined words to the leaves of the forest. But Bramston's poem more often aspires to the same level as its model; in this respect it resembles _Absalom and Achitophel_ more than _Mac Flecknoe_. Several factors help to bring _Ars Poetica_ and _The Art of Politicks_ together. Perhaps most important, Bramston conceives of politics primarily as a verbal art, the use of speech to persuade others to a course of action. Bribes and other crasser incentives appear in the poem, of course, but they are clearly the result of declining standards. For Bramston, rhetoric should govern politics; the House of Commons is a reincarnation of a Roman senate or courtroom. Bramston's inclusion of political writing as well as politics itself in his poem also helps to keep him in Horace's orbit. On Horace's side, his conception of poetry is basically rhetorical and persuasive; it should instruct and delight, move to laughter or tears. Horace's readiness to digress into literary history gives Bramston many opportunities to bring in political history. The _Ars Poetica_ is very much concerned with the world of men; poets are seen in their social roles, and Horace's standards of literary decorum are usually based on social norms: young men in plays should behave the way young men are observed to behave in real life. The _Ars Poetica_ also contains several sharp satiric darts; Horace's contrast between the eloquence of ancient Greece and the commercial arithmetic of modern Rome slides easily into a contrast between Elizabethan learning and Hanoverian place-hunting (pp.32-33). Finally, Horace's urbane and chatty style is as suitable for other subjects as it is for poetry. To appreciate Horace's adaptability, one need only imagine the difficulty of writing an art of politics in imitation of Archibald MacLeish's "Ars Poetica" or Aristotle's _Poetics_.