would have told a very different tale had he been in command from the
first, for he keeps sticking in a good word for the crafty little poet
whenever he decently can. And this is how it should be. Mr. Courthope's
_Life_, which will be the concluding volume of Mr. Murray's edition, is
certain to be a fascinating book.

It is Pope's behaviour about his letters that is now found peculiarly
repellent. Acts of diseased egotism sometimes excite an indignation
which injurious crimes fail to arouse.

The whole story is too long to be told, and is by this time tolerably
familiar. Here, however, is part of it. In early life Pope began
writing letters, bits of pompous insincerity, as indeed the letters of
clever boys generally are, to men old enough to be his grandparents, who
had been struck by his precocity and anticipated his fame, and being
always master of his own time, and passionately fond of composition, he
kept up the habit so formed, and wrote his letters as one might fancy the
celebrated Blair composing his sermons, with much solemnity, very slowly,
and without emotion. A packet of these addressed to a gentleman owning
the once proud name of Cromwell, and who was certainly 'guiltless of his
country's blood'--for all that is now known of him is that he used to go
hunting in a tie-wig, that is, a full-bottomed wig tied up at the
ends--had been given by that gentleman to a lady with whom he had
relations, who being, as will sometimes happen, a little pressed for
money, sold them for ten guineas to Edmund Curll, a bold pirate of a
bookseller and publisher, upon whose head every kind of abuse has been
heaped, not only by the authors whom he actually pillaged, but by
succeeding generations of penmen who never took his wages, but none the
less revile his name. He was a wily ruffian. In the year 1727 he was
condemned by His Majesty's judges to stand in the pillory at Charing
Cross for publishing a libel, and thither doubtless, at the appointed
hour, many poor authors flocked, with their pockets full of the bad eggs
that should have made their breakfasts, eager to wreak vengeance upon
their employer; but a printer in the pillory has advantages over others
traders, and Curll had caused handbills to be struck off and distributed
amongst the crowd, stating, with his usual effrontery, that he was put in
the pillory for vindicating the blessed memory of her late Majesty Queen
Anne. This either touched or tickled the mob--it