even then of epistolary fame. Montaigne says that if he could
have excelled in any kind of writing it would have been in letters; but
I doubt they would not have been natural, for it is plain that all
Pliny's letters were written with a view of publishing, and I accuse
Voiture of the same crime, although he be an author I am fond of. They
cease to be letters when they become a _jeu d'esprit_." Pope seems to
have suspected that this half-direct, half-oblique criticism was
suggested by his recent collection and arrangement of his
correspondence, and he denied, in his answer of April 9, that he was
open to the censure. "I am pleased," he observed, "to see your
partiality, and it is for that reason I have kept some of your letters,
and some of those of my other friends. These if I put together in a
volume for my own secret satisfaction in reviewing a life passed in
innocent amusements and studies, not without the good will of worthy and
ingenious men, do not therefore say I aim at epistolary fame. I never
had any fame less in my head; but the fame I most covet, indeed, is that
which must be derived to me from my friendships." The poet as usual
adapted his assertions to the exigencies of the moment; for it was not
for "his own secret satisfaction in reviewing a life passed in innocent
amusements and studies," that he had deposited a duplicate of the volume
with Lord Oxford, or kept it in readiness "against the revival of
slanders, and the publication of surreptitious letters." This
suppression of facts and motives could have had no effect in deluding
Swift. Once on September 3, 1735, when his faculties were waning, and
his powers rose and fell with his malady, he echoed back Pope's former
language. "Neither," he said, "did our letters contain any turns of wit,
or fancy, or politics, or satire, but mere innocent friendship. I
believe we neither of us ever leaned our head upon our hand to study
what we should write next." But by the 21st of October he had already
returned to his old conviction, and after mentioning the publication of
the poet's correspondence by Curll, he added, "I believe my letters have
escaped being published because I writ nothing but nature and
friendship, and particular incidents which could make no figure in
writing,"--a plain intimation that the opposite qualities had, in his
opinion, caused the letters of Pope to be communicated to the world.

The poet made the volume of 1735 the plea for pressing Swi