demand, and it would
seem that Mrs. Blount was little less backward; for, on November 28,
1729, Pope wrote to Swift, "I _lately_ received from the widow of one
dead correspondent, and the father of another,[25] several of my own
letters of about fifteen and twenty years old." When the poet had
gleaned together all the letters he could extort, "he immediately," he
says, "lessened the number by burning three parts in four of them: the
rest he spared, not in any preference of their style or writing, but
merely as they preserved the memory of some friendships which will ever
be dear to him, or set in a true light some matters of fact from which
the scribblers of the time had taken occasion to asperse either his
friends or himself." He was not more anxious to destroy the three parts
than to secure the fourth from destruction. "He laid by the originals
together with those of his correspondents, and caused a copy to be taken
to deposit in the library of a noble friend, that in case either of the
revival of slanders, or the publication of surreptitious letters during
his life or after, a proper use might be made of them."[26] The noble
friend was Lord Oxford, and the request to be allowed to place the
letters in his library was made by Pope in September, 1729, when he
stated that "he had had it at heart for half a year and more." Upon
obtaining Lord Oxford's consent, he had the correspondence transcribed
under his own inspection; and on October 16 he says, "I am causing the
manuscripts to be fairly written, and hope at your lordship's return to
be the presenter of them in person." By his own avowal he had carefully
culled his letters, had prepared the selected portions for some public
purpose, and had taken the unusual precaution of preserving them in
duplicate. The end which he declared they were intended to serve was a
palpable pretence. He never specified any slanders they refuted, and he
could have had little idea of employing them to test the truth of
surreptitious letters when he began by burning three parts of the
collection, and only retained a fourth. The manifest fact was, that,
while he was desirous of consigning to oblivion those portions of his
correspondence which would not add to his reputation, he was eager to
circulate the picked specimens which he imagined would promote his fame.

No advance seems to have been made towards the accomplishment of his
design till 1733, when Curll advertised a life of Pope. An unk