The Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 1: Poetry - Volume 1Pope, Alexander
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The Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 1: Poetry - Volume 1
Pope, Alexander
English poetry -- 18th century
There still remains the small episode of the six letters unconnected
with the P. T. volume, which were declared by Pope to be spurious in his
preface to the quarto. Four of them purported to be from Pope to Miss
Blount, and two to be letters of Atterbury to Pope. Those to Miss Blount
were forwarded to Curll by a correspondent who signed himself S. E. The
bookseller published them in the third volume of "Mr. Pope's Literary
Correspondence," and announced that he had discovered them to be
translations from Voiture. S. E. only professed to send copies, which
are now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Mr. Carruthers states
correctly that the size and quality of the paper is precisely the same
as in the genuine letters of the poet, and that the handwriting appears
to be his "a little disguised." The letters bear on their face the marks
of their origin, and Pope acted according to usage in endeavouring to
delude Curll that he might afterwards build a charge upon his own
deceptions. There is, however, a second claimant for the honour of
having devised the cheat. In an edition of Pope's works, which belonged
to Douce the antiquary, some one has copied an extract from a letter of
Mr. J. Plumptre, dated May 1, 1744, in which he informs his wife that
their son Charles, who was afterwards Rector of St. Mary Woolnoth,
London, and Archdeacon of Ely, was the author of the trick.[126] The
incident was nine years old when Mr. Plumptre proudly acquainted Mrs.
Plumptre with the secret. He mentioned that the letters were sent to
Curll by the penny post, and the original cover in the Bodleian Library
shows that they were not sent by post at all. He said that his son
translated them, and Pope had proclaimed that they were borrowed from a
published translation. The account is false, and the pretended extract
from the letter may be itself apocryphal, for its authenticity is
guaranteed by no external testimony. The similarity of paper and
handwriting, coupled with the pressing necessity Pope was under to
supply himself with examples of fabrication, strongly indicate that the
person who profited by the imposition contrived it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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