ction_ of any other person." They
never appeared. Lintot, the son of the great rival of Curll, told Dr.
Johnson, that his father had been offered the same parcel of printed
books, and that Pope knew better than anybody else how Curll obtained
the copies.

Dr. Johnson, although he appears not to have been aware of the subtle
intricacy of this extraordinary plot, has justly drawn this inference:
"To make the copies perfect was the only purpose of Pope, because the
numbers offered for sale by the private messengers, showed that hope
of gain could not have been the motive of the impression. It seems
that Pope, being desirous of printing his letters, and not knowing how
to do, without imputation of vanity, what has in this country been
done very rarely, contrived an appearance of compulsion; when he could
complain that his letters were surreptitiously printed, he might
decently and defensively publish them himself."

I have observed, how the first letter of P. T. pretending to be
written by one who owed no kindness to Pope, bears the evident
impression of his own hand; for it contains matters not exactly true,
but exactly what Pope wished should appear in his own life. That he
had prepared his letters for publication, appears by the story of the
two MS. books--that the printed ones came by water, would look as if
they had been sent from his house at Twickenham; and, were it not
absurd to pretend to decipher initials, P. T. might be imagined to
indicate the name of the owner, as well as his place of abode.

Worsdale, an indifferent painter, was a man of some humour in
personating a character, for he performed Old Lady Scandal in one of
his own farces. He was also a literary adventurer, for, according to
Mrs. Pilkington's Memoirs, wishing to be a poet as well as a mimic, he
got her and her husband to write all the verses which passed with his
name; such a man was well adapted to be this clergyman with the
lawyer's band, and Worsdale has asserted that he was really employed
by his friend Pope on this occasion.

Such is the intricate narrative of this involved transaction. Pope
completely succeeded, by the most subtile manoeuvres imaginable; the
incident which perhaps was not originally expected, of having his
letters brought before the examination at the House of Lords, most
amply gratified his pride, and awakened public curiosity. "He made the
House of Lords," says Curll, "his tools." Greater ingenuity,
perplexity, and se