nsidered him to be extremely
hypocritical, and some person concerned in the publication of 1726 must
have formed the same opinion of his character, if the ludicrous
tail-piece is intended to be typical of the letters. A little man whose
diminutive stature did not permit him to clasp the taller figure in his
arms while they stood upon a level, is represented as having jumped off
the ground and seized his companion round the waist, who, with his hands
thrown into the air at the painful vehemence of the embrace, is
struggling to get loose. Undiscerning persons, who judged the poet by
his words, would form a different estimate, and would perceive only
proofs of his excellence where Fenton saw examples of his habitual
insincerity. "His correspondence," says Johnson, of the later collection
of 1735, "filled the nation with praises of his candour, tenderness, and
benevolence, the purity of his purposes, and the fidelity of his
friendship."[16]

The letters to Cromwell had more than an ephemeral success. Curll, in
his reply in 1729 to the attack on him in the Dunciad, after noticing
Pope's affected depreciation of them, says, "However, they sell very
well; price 5_s._"[17] The poet had already devised an excuse for
following them up by a second set. Theobald, who had earned his lasting
enmity by pointing out the errors in his edition of Shakespeare, was
employed by some booksellers to edit the posthumous papers of Wycherley,
which had been purchased from his heir. The work appeared in 1728. Pope
saw in this circumstance a pretence for dragging his own letters before
the world, and an opportunity of gratifying his spleen against Theobald.
He said that the poems were disreputable to the memory of his early
friend, and that the correspondence was published because it showed that
it was his last resolution to have suppressed them.[18] It showed the
reverse. The last printed letter of Wycherley exhibits him as intent as
ever upon preparing his poems for the press, and if we are to believe
that he subsequently abandoned the design, we must accept the fact upon
the bare assertion of Pope, which derives no support from any part of
the correspondence. But though it failed to answer the purpose avowed by
its editor, it answered purposes not avowed which were much nearer to
his heart. It shows that the verses of Wycherley were rugged, feeble,
and full of repetitions, and that whatever they possessed of strength
and harmony was due to the