ober, 1729, and withdrawn in
June, 1735; but there still exist among the Oxford papers copies of six
out of the eighteen published letters, besides six which are
unpublished.[167] Imperfect as is the series, it is sufficient to show
the infidelity of the work Pope put forth to the world. The letter
borrowed from the Caryll group may conveniently be considered in
connection with the rest. It was probably not included in the original
volume of the Wycherley correspondence, which Pope published in 1729,
for it is printed in the edition of 1735 on an interpolated half sheet
signed * C. This is placed between sheet B and sheet C, and the numbers
of its four pages--11 to 14--are repeated on sheet C. The space being
greater than was required the letter has been divided into an unusual
number of paragraphs, which are double the ordinary distance from each
other, and as this device for spreading out the matter only brought it
three or four lines over the top of the fourth page the remainder is
left blank, contrary to the plan adopted in the rest of the book.[168]
Pope we may presume had not completed in 1729 his task of reconstructing
his letters to Caryll, and first introduced the manufactured letter into
the old sheets of the Wycherley when he incorporated them into the
volume of 1735. A single circumstance is enough to prove that the letter
is fictitious. It is made up of extracts from two letters to Caryll of
July 31, 1710, and January 25, 1711, and in the former of the two the
poet quotes a remark from the "Tatler" on the reason why women are
vainer than men. The passage is repeated in the letter to Wycherley
which is dated June 23, 1705, nearly four years before the "Tatler"
commenced, and Pope imagined he had obliterated the anachronism by
changing the phrase "the 'Tatler' observes of women" into the general
formula "it is observed of women."

The concoction of the letter to Wycherley out of the letters to Caryll
is attended by the usual distortion of facts. The extract from the
letter of July 31 is an expostulation against Caryll's extravagant
compliments. A few months after the date which Pope assigned to the
passage when he applied it to Wycherley, the old dramatist had addressed
a kindred remonstrance to Pope. "I must confess," he wrote March 22,
1705-6, "you try my patience, as you say in the beginning of your
letter, not by the many lines in it, but the too many compliments you
make me for nothing, in which you prov