his
word with him better than he kept his with his friend."[178] The poet
not only committed a breach of trust in preparing a work for sale which
he received upon the condition that it should remain strictly private,
but he had the boldness to tamper with the substance of the work, and in
the impression, which was ultimately designed for the public, "he took
upon him to divide the subject, and to alter and omit passages according
to the suggestions of his own fancy."[179] From Warburton we learn that
Pope "frequently told his acquaintance that Lord Bolingbroke would at
his death leave his writings to his disposal,"[180] and the changes he
introduced by anticipation into the single instalment within his power
show the manner in which he designed to discharge his functions, and
strengthen the suspicion that he may have falsified the letters of his
correspondents as well as his own. Johnson, in censuring Lyttelton for
publishing the posthumous edition of Thomson's poem on "Liberty," in an
abridged form, condemns a practice "which, as it has a manifest tendency
to lessen the confidence of society, and to confound the characters of
authors, by making one man write by the judgment of another, cannot be
justified by any supposed propriety of the alteration or kindness of the
friend."[181] The freedom used by Pope was especially reprehensible from
the concealment he practised. The copy of the pamphlet which he sent to
Bolingbroke, and the other privileged persons, did not exhibit the
modified text, and though the occurrence took place several years before
the death of the poet he never, in all that time, whispered one word
upon the subject to the author of the tracts, from which it is clear
that he neither intended him to learn what he had done, nor expected him
to approve the changes he had made. It was not till he was in his grave
that his deception was divulged by the application of the printer to
Bolingbroke for instructions how to dispose of the impression. Warburton
argued that Pope must have wished his friend to have a knowledge of the
clandestine edition and clandestine alterations, or he would have
ordered the work to be destroyed during his final illness,[182] as if,
in the lingering hope that life would be protracted a little longer, it
had not happened times out of number that men had deferred burning
tale-telling papers till their minds were diverted from the duty by the
lassitude of sickness, and as if such procrast