ABSTRACT
Alexander Pope begins by castigating the 'Patriot Race' including men he had once admired. Two plays, with a political subtext, that Alexander Pope read in manuscript were banned in 1739, Henry Brooke's Gustavus Vasa, featuring Walpole as the villain, and Thomson's Edward and Eleanora. In addition to presiding over a little Whitehall at his villa again, Alexander Pope continued to advise on plays that were politically slanted. On 13 February 1739, resplendent in a red cloak, he went to see James Quin on the first night of David Mallet's Mustapha, a work on which he had offered helpful comments. Fresh restrictions were in force on the right to speak out on public affairs, even as Alexander Pope wrote Dialogue I. Alexander Pope begins his new work with a reference to Paxton. Writing to Swift in May 1739, Alexander Pope told him that he had 'written but ten lines' since his 'Protest' in the Epilogue to the Satires.
