Page:A Key to the Lock. Or, A Treatise Proving, Beyond All Contradiction, the Dangerous Tendency of a Late Poem, Entituled, The Rape of the Lock, to Government and Religion - Pope (1715).djvu/16

 liberally at the Author, with a Passion extremely well counterfeited, for having (as he said) reflected upon him in the Character of Sir Plume. Upon his going out, I enquired who he was, and they told me, a Roman Catholick Knight.

I was the same Evening at Will's, and saw a Circle round another Gentleman, who was railing in like manner, and showing his Snuffbox and Cane to prove he was satyrized in the same Character. I asked this Gentleman's Name, and was told, he was a Roman Catholick Lord.

A Day or two after I was sent for, upon a slight Indisposition, to the young Lady's to whom the Poem is dedicated. She also took up the Character of Belinda with much Frankness and good Humour, tho' the Author has given us a Key in his Dedication, that he meant something further. This Lady is also a Roman Catholick. At the same time others of the Characters were claim'd by some Persons in the Room; and all of them Roman Catholicks.

But to proceed to the Work it self.

In all things which are intricate, as Allegories in their own Nature are, and especially