. C----";
but it was separated from the former group, and it is from the Caryll
copy that we learn how to fill up the blank. Both in the edition of 1735
and 1737 Pope published a letter to the "Hon. James Craggs, Esq.," which
induced Roscoe to conclude that he was the person indicated by the
initials, and it is not improbable that the poet designed to mislead his
readers, especially as the claim of Caryll to be styled Honourable was
only a Jacobite assumption, derived from his being heir to his uncle,
who had been created a peer by the exiled James II. But though Pope did
not wish to repeat in public his profuse professions in private, and
appear as the familiar friend and constant correspondent of a Roman
Catholic country gentleman, he as little desired to suppress the choicer
portions of the effusions he had addressed to him. He conceived the idea
of re-directing them, and compiled from them, in whole or in part, four
fictitious letters to Blount, four to Addison, two to Congreve, and one
each to Wycherley, Steele, Trumbull, and Digby. A second letter to
Digby, which appeared in the edition of 1735, was transferred to
Arbuthnot in the quarto of 1737. Half a dozen letters at most were
allotted to the initials of the Sussex squire, while fifteen were
assigned to more imposing names, and a sixteenth was printed in a group
of three to the "Hon. ----" Rather than credit an imposition so
childish, and yet so unwarrantable, we should have recourse to the
theory that Pope sometimes sent the same letter to different persons.
Swift assured him that the best system extant for the conduct of human
life might be collected from his epistles, and they certainly abound in
generalities which, like the clown's answer, that suited all questions,
might have been written to anybody. But a comparison of the printed
letters with the Caryll copies, shows that this solution is
inadmissible, and the observation of the clown, when his answer proved
inopportune, is equally applicable to the contrivance of Pope--"I see
things may serve long, and not serve ever."[164]

The "Spectator" of the 10th of November, 1712, contained some remarks by
Pope on the verses which the Emperor Hadrian composed when he was dying.
The poet asked Caryll's opinion of the criticism, and the substance of
his reply is embodied in the rejoinder of Pope. "The supposition you
draw from the suspicion that Adrian was addicted to magic, seems to me a
little uncharitable,--that