subjected the poem on "Dullness" to
the same process, that he has condensed the piece one half, suppressed
deficiencies, heightened the language, and smoothed the versification.
Far from being angry at these "bold criticisms and liberal alterations,"
the old scribbler was profuse in his thanks, and replied to Pope's
request, that he would keep the assistance a secret, by declaring that
he always does, and always will own to whose genius and judgment he is
indebted for the improvement of his unmusical numbers and harsher sense.
Between three and four years afterwards he submitted a fresh set of
poems to Pope's castigation, and in two successive letters of April 1
and April 11, 1710, entreats him to show no mercy in his corrections;
"for I had rather," he says, "be condemned by my friend in private, than
exposed to my foes in public." Pope answered that the repetitions were
more numerous than he anticipated, and that crossing them out defaced
the copy to a degree that he feared would be displeasing. "Let me know,"
he added, "if I am to go on at this rate, or if you would prescribe any
other method." Wycherley rejoined that tautology was the last fault of
which he would be guilty, that he thought with care he could remove the
blemish, and that he would not occupy Pope in a task which might
"prevent his writing on new subjects of his own." "All," he continues,
"that I desire of you is to mark in the margin, without defacing the
copy at all, any repetition of words, matter, or sense, which if you
will be so kind as to do for me, you will supply my want of memory with
your good one, and my deficiencies of sense with the infallibilities of
yours,--which if you do you will most infinitely oblige me, who almost
repent the trouble I have given you, since so much." The comment on
Pope's strong criticism is equally cordial: "As to what you call freedom
with me, which you desire me to forgive, you may be assured I would not
forgive you unless you did use it; for I am so far from thinking your
plainness a fault or an offence to me that I think it a charity and an
obligation, which I shall always acknowledge with all sort of gratitude
to you for it, who am therefore, dear Mr. Pope, your most obliged humble
servant." Dr. Johnson overlooked the rude ordeal to which Wycherley's
vanity had been exposed in April, 1706, and the proof he then gave that
he had not in his character the slightest tincture of irritable
impatience at the wholesale