A Lord Petre had offended a Miss Fermor by stealing a lock of her hair.

She thought that he showed more gallantry than courtesy, and some unpleasant feeling resulted between the families.
Pope's friend, Caryll, thought that it might be appeased if the young poet would turn the whole affair into friendly ridicule.

Nobody, it might well be supposed, had a more dexterous touch; and a brilliant trifle from his hands, just fitted for the atmosphere of drawing-rooms, would be a convenient peace-offering, and was the very thing in which he might be expected to succeed.

Pope accordingly set to work at a dainty little mock-heroic, in which he describes, in playful mockery of the conventional style, the fatal coffee-drinking at Hampton, in which the too daring peer appropriated the lock.

The poem received the praise which it well deserved; for certainly the young poet had executed his task to a nicety.