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]