the Dunciad. As he vanished, it required no great
acuteness to distinguish behind him the features of his ingenious
creator. It was already believed at the time that the whole affair was
an elaborate contrivance of Pope's, and subsequent revelations have
demonstrated the truth of the hypothesis. Even the go-between, Smythe,
was identified as one James Worsdale, a painter, actor, and author, of
the Bohemian variety.

Though Curll had fairly won the game, and Pope's intrigue was even at
the time sufficiently exposed, it seems to have given less scandal than
might have been expected. Probably it was suspected only in literary
circles, and perhaps it might be thought that, silly as was the
elaborate device, the disreputable Curll was fair game for his natural
enemy. Indeed, such is the irony of fate, Pope won credit with simple
people. The effect of the publication, as Johnson tells us, was to fill
the nation with praises of the admirable moral qualities revealed in
Pope's letters. Amongst the admirers was Ralph Allen, who had made a
large fortune by farming the cross-posts. His princely benevolence and
sterling worth were universally admitted, and have been immortalized by
the best contemporary judge of character. He was the original of
Fielding's Allworthy. Like that excellent person, he seems to have had
the common weakness of good men in taking others too easily at their own
valuation. Pope imposed upon him just as Blifil imposed upon his
representative. He was so much pleased with the correspondence, that he
sought Pope's acquaintance, and offered to publish a genuine edition at
his own expense. An authoritative edition appeared accordingly in 1737.
Pope preferred to publish by subscription, which does not seem to have
filled very rapidly, though the work ultimately made a fair profit.
Pope's underhand manoeuvres were abundantly illustrated in the history
of this new edition. It is impossible to give the details; but I may
briefly state that he was responsible for a nominally spurious edition
which appeared directly after, and was simply a reproduction of Curll's
publication. Although he complained of the garbling and interpolations
supposed to have been due to the wicked Curll or the phantom P. T., and
although he omitted in his avowed edition certain letters which had
given offence, he nevertheless substantially reproduced in it Curll's
version of the letters. As this differs from the originals which have
been preser