and Swift the innocent dupe; and when having traded successfully in the
mental afflictions of his friend, he proceeded to hold up his victim, as
the criminal. But the simulated indignation is less revolting than the
simulated fondness. "When the heart is full of tenderness," he said to
the Dean, in the letter of March 22, 1741, "it must be full of concern
at the absolute impotency of all words to come up to [it]. I value and
enjoy more the memory of the pleasure and endearing obligations I have
formerly received from you than the perfect possession of any other.
Think it not possible that my affection can cease but with my last
breath. If I could think yours was exhausted I should grieve, but not
reproach you. If I felt myself even hurt by you I should be confident
you knew not the blow you gave, but had your hand guided by another."
The hand which guided him was the same hand that was at that moment
aiming a blow at his reputation. Taking advantage of his cruel malady
and prostrate understanding, Pope was even then endeavouring to fasten
upon him the stigma of his own personal treachery, and this pretended
magnanimity in forgiving a deed which he had contrived and instigated
was in itself a calumny and a fraud.

If any doubt could exist that it was Pope who put forth the collection
of 1735, and the Swift collection of 1741, we have still in the quarto
of 1737 his own avowed version of a large portion of his correspondence.
He published it with the express object of correcting the corrupt text
of spurious editions, and there remains the inquiry whether he published
it truly. When he burnt three-fourths of it, and deposited copies of the
rest in the library of Lord Oxford, he professed to have preserved the
originals from which the copies were taken. Lord Bolingbroke discovered
a great number of returned letters among his papers after his death, and
told Dr. Heberden that they contained many alterations and corrections,
which he supposed had been made with the intention of printing them some
time or other.[163] From this it would be inferred that those which had
been printed were not part of the collection, and that the poet had
found it inexpedient to retain vouchers, which would condemn if they did
not acquit him. Unfortunately the whole of the manuscripts were
destroyed by Lord Bolingbroke, and beyond the unsatisfactory information
conveyed in his remark, nothing can now be known of them. The literal
interpretation of