His
famous library was one of his special hobbies. Pope now applied to him
to allow the Wycherley letters to be deposited in the library, and
further requested that the fact of their being in this quasi-public
place might be mentioned in the preface as a guarantee of their
authenticity. Oxford consented, and Pope quietly took a further step
without authority. He told Oxford that he had decided to make his
publishers say that copies of the letters had been obtained from Lord
Oxford. He told the same story to Swift, speaking of the "connivance" of
his noble friend, and adding that, though he did not himself "much
approve" of the publication, he was not ashamed of it. He thus
ingeniously intimated that the correspondence, which he had himself
carefully prepared and sent to press, had been printed without his
consent by the officious zeal of Oxford and the booksellers.
The book (which was called the second volume of Wycherley's works) has
entirely disappeared. It was advertised at the time, but not a single
copy is known to exist. One cause of this disappearance now appears to
be that it had no sale at first, and that Pope preserved the sheets for
use in a more elaborate device which followed. Oxford probably objected
to the misuse of his name, as the fiction which made him responsible was
afterwards dropped. Pope found, or thought that he had found, on the
next occasion, a more convenient cat's-paw. Curll, it could not be
doubted, would snatch at any chance of publishing more correspondence;
and, as Pope was anxious to have his letters stolen and Curll was ready
to steal, the one thing necessary was a convenient go-between, who could
be disowned or altogether concealed.
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