Pope, at any rate, took
advantage of the accident to write a couple of squibs upon Curll,
recording the bookseller's ravings under the action of the drug, as he
had described the ravings of Dennis provoked by Cato. Curll had his
revenge afterwards; but meanwhile he wanted no extraneous motive to
induce him to publish the Cromwell letters. Cromwell had given the
letters to a mistress, who fell into distress and sold them to Curll for
ten guineas.
The correspondence was received with some favour, and suggested to Pope
a new mode of gratifying his vanity. An occasion soon offered itself.
Theobald, the hero of the Dunciad, edited in 1728 the posthumous works
of Wycherley. Pope extracted from this circumstance a far-fetched excuse
for publishing the Wycherley correspondence. He said that it was due to
Wycherley's memory to prove, by the publication of their correspondence,
that the posthumous publication of the works was opposed to their
author's wishes. As a matter of fact the letters have no tendency to
prove anything of the kind, or rather, they support the opposite theory;
but poor Pope was always a hand-to-mouth liar, and took the first
pretext that offered, without caring for consistency or confirmation.
His next step was to write to his friend, Lord Oxford, son of Queen
Anne's minister. Oxford was a weak, good-natured man. By cultivating a
variety of expensive tastes, without the knowledge to guide them, he
managed to run through a splendid fortune and die in embarrassment.
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