Lady Mary, like the rest of the world, found the Court dull, and she much preferred to spend her time in the more congenial society of men of letters. Addison, she knew, and Steele, and Arbuthnot, and Jervas, and Gay, who presently paid her a pretty compliment in _Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece,_ wherein he inserted tributes to the ladies of the Court: "What lady's that to whom he gently bends? Who knows her not? Ah, those are Wortley's eyes. How art thou honour'd, number'd with her friends; For she distinguishes the good and wise." Pope, too, wrote of her with appreciation: TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU I In beauty or wit, No mortal as yet To question your empire has dared. But men of discerning Have thought that in learning, To yield to a lady was hard. II Impertinent schools, With musty dull rules, Have reading to females denied; So Papists refuse The Bible to use Lest flocks should be wise as their guides. III Twas woman at first (Indeed she was curst) In knowledge that tasted delight, And sages agree The laws should decree To the first possessor the right. IV Then bravely, fair dame, Resume the old claim, Which to your whole sex does belong; And let men receive From a second bright Eve The knowledge of right and of wrong. V But if the first Eve Hard doom did receive, When only one apple had she, What a punishment new Shall be found out for you, Who tasting, have robb'd the whole tree! The acquaintance with Pope began shortly after Lady Mary came to town in the autumn of 1714. It soon developed into friendship. "Lady Mary Wortley," Jervas wrote to the poet, probably in 1715 or early in the following year, "ordered me by express this morning, _cedente Gayo et ridente Fortescuvio_, to send you a letter, or some other proper notice, to come to her on Thursday about five, which I suppose she meant in the evening." There appeared in March, 1716, a volume bearing the title _Court Poems_, the authorship being attributed to "A Lady of Quality," who, it soon became known, was Lady Mary. The book was issued by Roberts, who had received the three sets of verses contained in it from the notorious piratical publisher, Edmund Curll. How the manuscript "fell" into the hands of Curll it is not easy to imagine. Curll's account is that they were found in a pocket-book taken up in Westminster Hall on the last day of the trial of the Jacobite Lord Winton. Anyhow, however it came about, the volume was published in 1716, when it was found to contain "The Basset Table," "The Drawing Room," and "The Toilet." Curll was an excellent publicity agent for his wares. He wrote, or caused to be written, a most intriguing "advertisement" about the authorship of the poems: