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]