Pope raved, but
the judicious even then opined that he protested somewhat too much. He
promptly got a bookseller to pirate Curll's edition--a proceeding on his
part which struck Curll as the unkindest cut of all, and flagrantly
dishonest. He took proceedings against Pope's publisher, but what came
of the litigation I cannot say.

The Caryll copy of the correspondence as it actually existed, after long
remaining in manuscript, has been published, and we have now the real
letters and the sham letters side by side. The effect is grotesquely
disgusting. For example, on September 20th, 1713, Pope undoubtedly wrote
to Caryll as follows:--

'I have been just taking a walk in St. James's Park, full of the
reflections of the transitory nature of all human delights, and giving
my thoughts a loose into the contemplation of those sensations of
satisfaction which probably we may taste in the more exalted company
of separate spirits, when we range the starry walks above and gaze on
the world at a vast distance, as now we do on those.'

Poor stuff enough, one would have thought. On re-reading this letter
Pope was so pleased with his moonshine that he transferred the whole
passage to an imaginary letter, to which he gave the, of course
fictitious, date of February 10th, 1715, and addressed to Mr. Blount; so
that, as the correspondence now stands, you first get the Caryll letter
of 1713, 'I have been just taking a solitary walk by moonshine,' and so
on about the starry walks; and then you get the Blount letter of 1715, 'I
have been just taking a solitary walk by moonshine;' and go on to find
Pope refilled with his reflections as before. Mr. Elwin does not, you
may be sure, fail to note how unlucky Pope was in his second date,
February 10th, 1715; that being a famous year, when the Thames was frozen
over, and as the thaw set in on the 9th, and the streets were impassable
even for strong men, a tender morsel like Pope was hardly likely to be
out after dark. But, of course, when Pope concocted the Blount letter in
1735, and gave it any date he chose, he could not be expected to carry in
his head what sort of night it was on any particular day in February
twenty-two years before. It is ever dangerous to tamper with written
documents which have been out of your sole and exclusive possession even
for a few minutes.

A letter Pope published as having been addressed to Addison is made up of
fragments of three let