ythe, complaining of his evidence, he went roundly to work; he said
that he should at once publish all the correspondence. P. T. had
prudently asked for the return of his letters; but Curll had kept
copies, and was prepared to swear to their fidelity. Accordingly he soon
advertised what was called the _Initial Correspondence_. Pope was now
caught in his own trap. He had tried to avert suspicion by publicly
offering a reward to Smythe and P. T., if they would "discover the whole
affair." The letters, as he admitted, must have been procured either
from his own library or from Lord Oxford's. The correspondence to be
published by Curll would help to identify the mysterious appropriators,
and whatever excuses could be made ought now to be forthcoming. Pope
adopted a singular plan. It was announced that the clergyman concerned
with P. T. and Curll had "discovered the whole transaction." A narrative
was forthwith published to anticipate Curll and to clear up the mystery.
If good for anything, it should have given, or helped to give, the key
to the great puzzle--the mode of obtaining the letters. There was
nothing else for Smythe or P. T. to "discover." Readers must have been
strangely disappointed on finding not a single word to throw light upon
this subject, and merely a long account of the negotiations between
Curll and P. T. The narrative might serve to distract attention from the
main point, which it clearly did nothing to elucidate. But Curll now
stated his own case. He reprinted the narrative with some pungent notes;
he gave in full some letters omitted by P. T., and he added a story
which was most unpleasantly significant. P. T. had spoken, as I have
said, of his connexion with the Wycherley volume. The object of this
statement was to get rid of an awkward bit of evidence. But Curll now
announced, on the authority of Gilliver, the publisher of the volume,
that Pope had himself bought up the remaining sheets. The inference was
clear. Unless the story could be contradicted, and it never was, Pope
was himself the thief. The sheets common to the two volumes had been
traced to his possession. Nor was there a word in the P. T. narrative to
diminish the force of these presumptions. Indeed it was curiously
inconsistent, for it vaguely accused Curll of stealing the letters
himself, whilst in the same breath it told how he had bought them from
P. T. In fact, P. T. was beginning to resolve himself into thin air,
like the phantom in