The Wycherley correspondence concludes with a letter from Pope dated May 2, 1710. A coldness then ensued of which Dr. Johnson gives this account: "The fondness of Wycherley was too violent to last. His esteem of Pope was such that he submitted some poems to his revision, and when Pope, perhaps proud of such confidence, was sufficiently bold in his criticisms and liberal in his alterations, the old scribbler was angry to see his pages defaced, and felt more pain from the detection than content from the amendment of his faults. They parted, but Pope always considered him with kindness, and visited him a little time before he died."[174] The statement is incomplete. Pope engaged in the revision as early as April, 1706, when he describes to Wycherley the nature of the emendations he has made: "Some parts I have contracted as we do sun-beams to improve their energy and force; some I have taken quite away, as we take branches from a tree to add to the fruit; others I have entirely new expressed, and turned more into poetry." In November, 1707, he informs his friend that he has subjected the poem on "Dullness" to the same process, that he has condensed the piece one half, suppressed deficiencies, heightened the language, and smoothed the versification. Far from being angry at these "bold criticisms and liberal alterations," the old scribbler was profuse in his thanks, and replied to Pope's request, that he would keep the assistance a secret, by declaring that he always does, and always will own to whose genius and judgment he is indebted for the improvement of his unmusical numbers and harsher sense. Between three and four years afterwards he submitted a fresh set of poems to Pope's castigation, and in two successive letters of April 1 and April 11, 1710, entreats him to show no mercy in his corrections; "for I had rather," he says, "be condemned by my friend in private, than exposed to my foes in public." Pope answered that the repetitions were more numerous than he anticipated, and that crossing them out defaced the copy to a degree that he feared would be displeasing. "Let me know," he added, "if I am to go on at this rate, or if you would prescribe any other method." Wycherley rejoined that tautology was the last fault of which he would be guilty, that he thought with care he could remove the blemish, and that he would not occupy Pope in a task which might "prevent his writing on new subjects of his own." "All," he continues, "that I desire of you is to mark in the margin, without defacing the copy at all, any repetition of words, matter, or sense, which if you will be so kind as to do for me, you will supply my want of memory with your good one, and my deficiencies of sense with the infallibilities of yours,--which if you do you will most infinitely oblige me, who almost repent the trouble I have given you, since so much." The comment on Pope's strong criticism is equally cordial: "As to what you call freedom