tes the method by which the Cromwell letters were
obtained as affording a vindication of his own collection.[50] P. T. was
beforehand with him in citing the precedent to explain the means by
which his piratical volume was formed, and to justify its
publication.[51] The similarity of language and ideas in the mention of
the Wycherley letters was much more peculiar. Lord Oxford appears to
have refused to father the volume of 1729, for Pope never again alleged
that he sent it to the press. But neither did the poet avow that he
himself was responsible for its appearance. On the contrary, he renewed
the false statement that the letters were not printed till after they
were deposited in Lord Oxford's library, and spoke indefinitely of the
agency through which they were given to the world. "It happened soon
after," he says in his Narrative, "that the posthumous works of Mr.
Wycherley were published in such a manner as could no way increase the
reputation of that gentleman, who had been Mr. Pope's first
correspondent and friend; and several of these letters so fully showed
the state of that case that it was thought but justice to Mr.
Wycherley's memory to print a few to discredit that imposition."[52]
"The next year," he says, in the preface to the quarto of 1737, "the
posthumous works of Mr. Wycherley were printed in a way disreputable
enough to his memory. It was thought a justice due to him, to show the
world his better judgment, and that it was his last resolution to have
suppressed those poems. As some of the letters which had passed between
him and our author cleared that point, they were published in 1729, with
a few marginal notes added by a friend."[53] "The letters to Mr.
Wycherley," says P. T.'s address to the reader, "were procured some
years since on account of a surreptitious edition of his posthumous
works. As those letters showed the true state of that case, the
publication of them was doing the best justice to the memory of Mr.
Wycherley."[54] Pope misrepresented the tenor of the letters as an
excuse for divulging them; but how came the vindictive P. T. to be the
first to hit upon an untruth in which he had no sort of interest, and to
serve the cause of his antagonist by promulgating the fanciful
description? Pope ascribed the publication to an indefinite agency, to
avoid acknowledging that he was the sole originator of the work; but how
came his enemy P. T. to anticipate his wishes, and the ambiguous
phraseolog