hereas A. P. hath received a letter from E. C., bookseller,
pretending that a person, the initials of whose name are P. T., hath
offered the said E. C. to print a large Collection of Mr. P.'s
letters, to which E. C. required an answer: A. P. having never had,
nor intending to have, any private correspondence with the said E. C.,
gives it him in this manner. That he knows no such person as P. T.;
that he believes he hath no such collection; and that he thinks the
whole a forgery, and shall not trouble himself at all about it."

Curll replied, denying he had endeavoured to _correspond_ with Mr.
Pope, and affirms that he had written to him by _direction_.

It is now the plot thickens. P. T. suddenly takes umbrage, accuses
Curll of having "betrayed him to 'Squire Pope,' but you and he both
shall soon be convinced it was no forgery. Since you would not comply
with my proposal to advertise, I have printed them at my own expense."
He offers the books to Curll for sale.

Curll on this has written a letter, which takes a full view of the
entire transaction. He seems to have grown tired of what he calls
"such jealous, groundless, and dark negotiations." P. T. now found it
necessary to produce something more than a shadow--an agent appears,
whom Curll considered to be a clergyman, who assumed the name of R.
Smith. The first proposal was, that P. T.'s letters should be
returned, that he might feel secure from all possibility of detection;
so that P. T. terminates his part in this literary freemasonry as a
nonentity.

Here Johnson's account begins.--"Curll said, that one evening a man in
a clergyman's gown, but with a lawyer's band, brought and offered to
sale a number of printed volumes, which he found to be Pope's
Epistolary Correspondence; that he asked no name, and was told none,
but gave the price demanded, and thought himself authorised to use his
purchase to his own advantage." Smith, the clergyman, left him some
copies, and promised more.

Curll now, in all the elation of possession, rolled his thunder in an
advertisement still higher than ever.--"Mr. Pope's Literary
Correspondence regularly digested, from 1704 to 1734:" to lords,
earls, baronets, doctors, ladies, &c., with their respective answers,
and whose names glittered in the advertisement. The original MSS. were
also announced to be seen at his house.

But at this moment Curll had not received many books, and no MSS. The
advertisement produced the effect design