ers to Swift, of which important fact
all traces had disappeared. One characteristic device will be a
sufficient specimen. Swift wrote that a great collection of "_my_
letters to _you_" is somewhere "in a safe hand." He meant, of course, "a
collection of _your_ letters to _me_"--the only letters of which he
could know anything. Observing the slip of the pen, he altered the
phrase by writing the correct words above the line. It now stood--

"your me
my letters to you."

Pope laid great stress upon this, interpreting it to mean that the
"great collection" included letters from each correspondent to the
other--the fact being that Swift had only the letters from Pope to
himself. The omission of an erasure (whether by Swift or Pope) caused
the whole meaning to be altered. As the great difficulty was to explain
the publication of Swift's letters to Pope, this change supplied a very
important link in the evidence. It implied that Swift had been at some
time in possession of the letters in question, and had trusted them to
some one supposed to be safe. The whole paragraph, meanwhile, appears,
from the unimpeachable evidence of Mrs. Whiteway, to have involved one
of the illusions of memory, for which he (Swift) apologizes in the
letter from which this is extracted. By insisting upon this passage, and
upon certain other letters dexterously confounded with those published,
Pope succeeded in raising dust enough to blind Lord Orrery's not very
piercing intelligence. The inference which he desired to suggest was
that some persons in Swift's family had obtained possession of the
letters. Mrs. Whiteway, indeed, met the suggestion so clearly, and gave
such good reasons for assigning Twickenham as the probable centre of the
plot, that she must have suspected the truth. Pope did not venture to
assail her publicly, though he continued to talk of treachery or evil
influence.

To accuse innocent people of a crime which you know yourself to have
committed is bad enough. It is, perhaps, even baser to lay a trap for a
friend, and reproach him for falling into it. Swift had denied the
publication of the letters, and Pope would have had some grounds of
complaint had he not been aware of the failure of Swift's mind, and had
he not been himself the tempter. His position, however, forced him to
blame his friend. It was a necessary part of his case to impute at least
a breach of confidence to his victim. He therefore took th