o boasts a Superiority of Charms: or in privately
transcribing and passing for his own, the elaborate Studies of some
more learned Genius."[5]

Such an attack upon the sensitive poet's person and pride did not go
unnoticed. More than a year later he returned the slur with interest
upon the head of the supposed author. The lines on Eliza, which still
remain the coarsest in the satire, were in the original "Dunciad" even
more brutal.[6] Nothing short of childish personal animus could account
for the filthy malignity of Pope's revenge.

"See in the circle next, Eliza plac'd;
Two babes of love close clinging to her waste;
Fair as before her works she stands confess'd
In flow'r'd brocade by bounteous _Kirkall_ dress'd,
Pearls on her neck, and roses in her hair,
And her fore-buttocks to the navel bare."[7]

The Goddess of Dullness offers "yon Juno of majestic size" as the chief
prize in the booksellers' games. "Chetwood and Curll accept this
glorious strife," the latter, as always, wins the obscene contest, "and
the pleas'd dame soft-smiling leads away." Nearly all of this account is
impudent slander, but Mr. Pope's imputations may have had enough truth
in them to sting. His description of Eliza is a savage caricature of her
portrait by Kirkall prefixed to the first edition of her collected
novels, plays, and poems (1724).[8] Curll's "Key to the Dunciad," quoted
with evident relish by Pope in the Variorum notes, recorded on the
authority of contemporary scandal that the "two babes of love" were the
offspring of a poet[9] and a bookseller. This bit of libel meant no more
than that Mrs. Haywood's relations with Savage and other minor writers
had been injudiciously unconventional. As for the booksellers, Curll had
not been professionally connected with the authoress before the
publication of "The Dunciad," and the part he played in the games may be
regarded as due entirely to Pope's malice. W. R. Chetwood was indeed the
first publisher of Eliza's effusions, but his name was even more
strongly associated with the prize which actually fell to his lot.[10]
In 1735 Chapman was substituted for Chetwood, and in the last revision
Thomas Osborne, then the object of Pope's private antipathy, gained a
permanent place as Curll's opponent. Taken all in all, the chief
virulence of the abuse was directed more against the booksellers than
against Mrs. Haywood.

The second mention of Eliza was also in connection with Corin