e yourself, though a sincere
friend, a man of too much fiction; for I have not seen so much poetry in
prose a great while, since your letter is filled with so many fine words
and acknowledgments of your obligations to me, the only asseverations of
yours I dare contradict; for I must tell you your letter is like an
author's epistle before his book,--written more to show his wit to the
world than his sincerity or gratitude to his friend, whom he libels with
praise, so that you have provoked my modesty even whilst you have
soothed my vanity; for I know not whether I am more complimented than
abused, since too much praise turns irony, as too great thanks for small
favours turns ingratitude, or too much ceremony in religion
hypocrisy."[169] Pope thought fit in the published letters to reverse
the parts. He ascribed the adulation to Wycherley, and the rebuke of it
to himself. He gives a false air of manly independence to his youthful
character, and does it at the expense of his friend.

The extract from the letter to Caryll of January 25, 1711, which forms
the second portion of the made-up letter to Wycherley of June 23, 1705,
is a comment on the eulogy lavished by Caryll on some verses of the
poet. The change of name and date flattered in a double manner the
vanity of Pope,--the applause appeared to proceed from a celebrated wit
instead of from a country squire, and to be bestowed upon a lad of
seventeen instead of upon a man who was nearly twenty-three. He always
aspired to the credit of precocity, and some of his falsifications seem
to have had no other purpose than to exaggerate his juvenile fame.
Wycherley wrote to him on February 19, 1708-9, and spoke of the genius
which promised him immortality, of his great, vigorous and active mind.
In a postscript it is mentioned that the "Miscellany," which contained
Pope's Pastorals, would not be out for three weeks.[170] Pope
suppressed, amongst other passages, the allusion which fixed the period
at which the panegyric was penned, and altered the year to 1706-7, for
no perceptible reason except that he wished to antedate the praise.
There can be little doubt that his opening letter to Wycherley was
manufactured or misplaced with a similar object. It is printed in the
edition of 1735 on an interpolated half sheet, marked *B, the pages of
which are correctly numbered from 1 to 4. As the first page of sheet B
which follows is numbered 3, it is evident that it was originally
preceded