Prosaic commentators are always asking, Who is meant by a poet, as though a poem were a legal document.

It may be interesting, for various purposes, to know who was in the writer's mind, or what fact suggested the general picture.

But we have no right to look outside the poem itself, or to infer anything not within the four corners of the statement.

It matters not for such purposes whether there was, or was not, any real person corresponding to Sir Balaam, to whom his wife said, when he was enriched by Cornish wreckers, "live like yourself," When lo! two puddings smoked upon the board, in place of the previous one on Sabbath days.

Nor does it even matter whether Atticus meant Addison, or Sappho Lady Mary.