onduct once more betrayed that he was the author of the P.
T. plot. Curll had all along persisted in printing the P. T. letters. He
immediately seized the new letters in the quarto, and inserted them in
his fifth volume of "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence." He was not
content with usurping Pope's property. He insulted, defied, and accused
him. Pope had the strongest motive in self-vindication to grapple with
the charges of Curll, and he shrunk from the contest. He resented the
infringement of his copyright by an indifferent person, and he could not
willingly have endured to be despoiled by his mocking antagonist, and
sit down quietly under the contumely and wrong. The bill filed against
Watson discovers the cause of his forbearance. There we find that Pope
in applying for an injunction was obliged to state that his quarto
edition was the first publication of his letters "with his consent,
direction, or approbation,"[116] and if he had filed a similar bill
against Curll, the bookseller would have proved that he had purchased
the P. T. edition, and that Pope had printed and sold it. Curll
announced in September, 1735, that he had filed a bill against Smythe to
compel the fulfilment of his contract, and he made Gilliver a party to
the suit in consequence of his confession that Pope had purchased of him
the old sheets of the Wycherley, and directed the rest of the P. T.
collection to be printed to match them.[117] Smythe was a shadow who
could not be reached. The facts remained, and Pope could not attempt to
convict Curll of piracy without being himself convicted of having sold
him the work. He had been worsted on this very point when he fought with
his best weapon, the pen, and he did not dare to renew the conflict in a
court of law where allegations could neither be passed over in silence,
nor be met by evasions and quibbles. Any doubt that the motive for his
toleration was fear was done away by his filing a bill against Curll the
instant he pirated the Swift Correspondence which was entirely distinct
from the P. T. transaction.

Pope had shown earlier that he was afraid to join issue with Curll
before a legal tribunal. Curll inserted an advertisement in "Fog's
Journal" of July 26, 1735, in which he accused Pope of having printed
the P. T. collection, and of telling falsehoods in self-defence. The
proprietor of "Fog's Journal" was induced by a threat of prosecution to
apologise for the insertion of the advertisement, an