was as fanciful as his desire for revenge; but assume that Pope was the
real negotiator and his motive is transparent. The advertisement would
have threatened that very surreptitious publication of his letters,
against which he affirmed that he kept his own version in readiness. He
would have repudiated the impending piracy, and hastened in self-defence
to commit the genuine edition to the press. The promise contained in the
advertisement, that "the originals would be shown at Curll's when the
book was published," would have empowered him to give an air of
imposture to the transaction, and to damage his foe, who when challenged
would not have been able to produce the documents. According to the
language which Pope uttered in the name of P. T. he did expect to be
justified in his proceedings by means of the advertisement, but not at
all in the manner which he wished the bookseller to believe.

All the conditions required by Pope seemed met together in Curll. He was
an enemy, and could be denounced when he had been deceived. He had
printed the letters to Cromwell without the consent of the poet, and it
would readily be credited that he had repeated the act. He was not nice
in his notions of honour, and he might be expected to catch at an offer,
however discreditable, which promised both profit and revenge. But
whatever might be his greediness and his malice, they had not swallowed
up his caution, and notwithstanding that P. T. wrote again to express
his dissatisfaction that no advertisement appeared, Curll forbore to
announce letters he did not possess, at the bidding of a conspirator
whose name and person he did not know. The subject in consequence slept
from November 1733 till March 1735, when the poet was meditating some
fresh proceeding respecting his correspondence, for on the third of that
month, he requested Lord Oxford to send him by the hearer "the bound
book of copies of letters," which, he wanted, he said, "to inspect for a
day or two." There are transcripts among the Oxford papers of some of
the letters of Wycherley to Pope, which appeared in 1729. There are
transcripts of Pope's correspondence with Atterbury, which appeared in
1737. There are transcripts of a large part of the Swift correspondence,
which appeared in 1741. But while the earlier and later letters are
preserved on loose sheets the bound book has vanished, and there is not
a single transcript of any letter which was first given to the world in
t