And so long as
the letters were regarded merely as literary compositions, the practice
was at least pardonable. But Pope went further; and the full extent of
his audacious changes was not seen until Mr. Dilke became possessed of
the Caryll correspondence. On comparing the copies preserved by Caryll
with the letters published by Pope, it became evident that Pope had
regarded these letters as so much raw material, which he might carve
into shape at pleasure, and with such alterations of date and address as
might be convenient, to the confusion of all biographers and editors
ignorant of his peculiar method of editing. The details of these very
disgraceful falsifications have been fully described by Mr. Elwin,[19]
but I turn gladly from this lamentable narrative to say something of the
literary value of the correspondence. Every critic has made the obvious
remark that Pope's letters are artificial and self-conscious. Pope
claimed the opposite merit. "It is many years," he says to Swift in
---4, "since I wrote as a wit." He smiles to think "how Curll would be
bit were our epistles to fall into his hands, and how gloriously they
would fall short of every ingenious reader's anticipations." Warburton
adds in a note that Pope used to "value himself upon this particular."
It is indeed true that Pope had dropped the boyish affectation of his
letters to Wycherley and Cromwell. But such a statement in the mouth of
a man who plotted to secure Curll's publication of his letters, with
devices elaborate enough to make the reputation of an unscrupulous
diplomatist, is of course only one more example of the superlative
degree of affectation, the affectation of being unaffected.
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