ll
(he said in this manifesto) had pretended to have had the offer from P.
T. of a large collection of Pope's letters; Pope knew nothing of P. T.,
believed the letters to be forgeries, and would take no more trouble in
the matter. Whilst Curll was presumably smarting under this summary slap
on the face, the insidious P. T. stepped in once more. P. T. now said
that he was in possession of the printed sheets of the correspondence,
and the negotiation went on swimmingly. Curll put out the required
advertisement; a "short, squat" man, in a clergyman's gown and with
barrister's bands, calling himself Smythe, came to his house at night as
P. T.'s agent, and showed him some printed sheets and original letters;
the bargain was struck; 240 copies of the book were delivered, and it
was published on May 12th.

So far the plot had succeeded. Pope had printed his own correspondence,
and had tricked Curll into publishing the book piratically, whilst the
public was quite prepared to believe that Curll had performed a new
piratical feat. Pope, however, was now bound to shriek as loudly as he
could at the outrage under which he was suffering. He should have been
prepared also to answer an obvious question. Every one would naturally
inquire how Curll had procured the letters, which by Pope's own account
were safely deposited in Lord Oxford's library. Without, as it would
seem, properly weighing the difficulty of meeting this demand, Pope
called out loudly for vengeance. When the Dunciad appeared, he had
applied (as I have said) for an injunction in Chancery, and had at the
same time secured the failure of his application. The same device was
tried in a still more imposing fashion. The House of Lords had recently
decided that it was a breach of privilege to publish a peer's letters
without his consent. Pope availed himself of this rule to fire the most
sounding of blank shots across the path of the piratical Curll. He was
as anxious to allow the publication, as to demand its suppression in the
most emphatic manner. Accordingly he got his friend, Lord Ilay, to call
the attention of the peers to Curll's advertisement, which was so worded
as to imply that there were in the book letters from, as well as to,
peers. Pope himself attended the house "to stimulate the resentment of
his friends." The book was at once seized by a messenger, and Curll
ordered to attend the next day. But on examination it immediately turned
out that it contained no le