[Sidenote: _EDMUND CURLL._] While the deputies of the Gentlemen Ushers of the Black Rod were in search of Curll and Pemberton, Sarah Popping petitioned the Lords for a full pardon, on the ground that she, being ill, knew nothing of the printing of the trial, which had been unwittingly undertaken by her sister, and ‘it being usual in such cases to discharge the publisher upon the discovery of the bookseller’――that is of the retailer, such as Curll was, in this case. The Lords, having all the incriminated persons before them, on Thursday, the 26th of April, discharged Popping and Pemberton, ordered that Curll be detained in custody, and issued a warrant for the arrest of Daniel Bridge, charged with being joined in the printing of the earl’s trial. Bridge, on the 2nd of May, confessed to the House that he was the printer of the twopenny edition; and he accused Curll of having furnished him with the ‘copy’ to print from. Curll and Bridge were ‘laid by the heels,’ but in a couple of days they sent up a petition, in which they pleaded utter ignorance of their Lordships’ prohibition to print any other account of the trial than that which Tonson alone was authorised to put forth. They acknowledged that their Lordships were justly offended; and they asked to be set free, as they had families ‘which must be entirely ruined unless your Lordships have compassion on them.’ Their Lordships were not hard upon the offenders; both of whom were to be seen, one afternoon before the week was out, humbly kneeling as they listened to a sharp reprimand from the Lord Chancellor. After which process, the offenders paid their fees, and then walked from Westminster to Fleet Street together. To Curll, this 1716 was an eventful year. In it were included his first appearance in the House of Lords, his quarrel with Pope, and the humiliating indignities which he underwent at the hands and ‘tyrannick rod’ of the boys in Westminster School. [Sidenote: _THE NEW POEMS._] Another publisher took advantage of the State trials to stimulate the public to purchase three little poems, on the ground that they were ‘Published faithfully, as they were found in a Pocket-Book taken up in the Westminster Hall the last day of the Lord Wintoun’s Tryal.’ Roberts, the publisher in Warwick Lane, stated in his advertisement that, upon reading them at the St. James’s coffee-house, they were with one voice pronounced to be by a _Lady of Quality_. The foreman of the poetical jury at Button’s, considering the style and thought, declared that ‘Mr. Gay must be the Man.’ On the other hand, a gentleman of distinguished merit, who lived not far from Chelsea, protested that the poems could come from no other hand than the judicious translator of Homer. The wits at St. James’s were of course nearest the mark, and it is now known, as Mr. Roberts knew then, that these ‘Court Poems,’ ‘The Basset Table,’ ‘The Drawing-Room,’ and ‘The Toilet’ were from the pen of that lively lady, Mary Wortley Montague.