printed copies, and issued a flaming advertisement announcing the
publication of Pope's letters for thirty years, and stating that the
original MSS. were lying at his shop, and might be seen by any who
chose,--although not a single MS. seems to have been delivered. Smith,
the day that the advertisement appeared, handed over, for a sum of
money, about three hundred volumes to Curll. But as in the advertisement
it was stated that various letters of lords were included, and as there
is a law amongst regulations of the Upper House that no peer's letters
can be published without his consent, at the instance of the Earl of
Jersey, and in consequence, too, of an advertisement of Pope's, the
books were seized, and Curll, and the printer of the paper where the
advertisement appeared, were ordered to appear at the bar for breach of
privilege. P.T. wrote Curll to tell him to conceal all that passed
between him and the publisher, and promising him more valuable letters
still. Curll, however, told the whole story; and as, when the books were
examined, not a single lord's letter was found among them, Curll was
acquitted, his books restored to him, the lords saying that they had
been made the tools of Pope; and he proceeded to advertise the
correspondence, in terms most insulting to Pope, who now felt himself
compelled (!) to print, by subscription, his genuine letters, which,
when printed, turned out, strange to tell, to be identical with those
published by the rapacious bookseller! On viewing the whole transaction,
we incline with Johnson, Warton, Bowles, Macaulay, and Carruthers, to
look upon it as one of Pope's ape-like stratagems--to believe that P.T.
was himself, Smith his agent, and that his objects were partly to outwit
Curll, to mystify the public, to gratify that strange love of
manoeuvring which dwelt as strongly in him as in any match-making mamma,
and to attract interest and attention to the genuine correspondence when
it should appear. Pope, it was said, could not "drink tea without a
stratagem," and far less publish his correspondence without a series of