The _Labeo_ reference is mysterious. Pope in his note on Welsted to _The Dunciad A_ II.293 had said in a sentence omitted in all editions from 1735a, “The strength of the metaphors in this passage is to express the great scurrility and fury of this writer, which may be seen, One day, in a Piece of his, call’d (as I think) _Labeo_.”[4] Since no _Labeo_ has ever turned up, it seems reasonable to conclude with Fineman that, though Welsted may have toyed with the idea of writing one, “he either never did enough with it to warrant its publication, or discarded it entirely in favor of writing the collaborative _One Epistle to Mr. Pope_ that appeared in 1730. Naturally, he would not broadcast his plans, and as a result the enemy camp continued to believe--or at any rate, to say--that Welsted would retaliate with a _Labeo_.”[5] This was in 1729; by 1735 Pope had realized no _Labeo_ would appear and deciding, apparently on no evidence, that it had been incorporated into Welsted’s _One Epistle_ and _Of Dulness and Scandal_ (1732), made the appropriate changes in _The Dunciad_. Pope did not at first realize that _One Epistle_ was by Welsted. It had been announced as early as 1 Feb. 1729 in _The Universal Spectator_ “as the due Chastisement of Mr. Pope for his _Dunciad_, by James Moore Smythe, Esq; and Mr. Welsted.” The poem must have been circulated privately before publication at least by October, 1729 at which time Pope believed it to be Lady Mary’s, since we find Lady Mary writing to Dr. Arbuthnot twice in October 1729 denying Pope’s accusation that she had written it.[6] There is no evidence that she was not telling the truth, but on 21 May 1730 _The Grub-Street Journal_ reported that Lady Mary had “some hand in the piece.” Like most Pope attacks, the poem was published anonymously. The preface, a defence of the Dunces, is, with probably intentional ambiguity, written in the first person singular but ends by referring to “the Writers of the following Poem” (p. viii). One hand seems responsible for the preface, but we can only conclude that a Dunce collaborating with other Dunces produced the poem. Four days after its publication Pope wrote to Broome that it was “by James Moore and others,” and a few weeks later wrote to Bethel that “James Moore own’d it but was made by three others, and he will disown it whenever any man takes him for it.”[7] It was Moore Smythe who was attacked in _The Grub-Street Journal_ for several months as the poem’s chief author.[8] A letter from Welsted to Dodington, however, shows that though the poem was a collaborative effort and though others may have made suggestions and additions, Welsted felt himself responsible for the poem.[9] In 1735 Pope attributed _One Epistle_ finally to Welsted, with Moore Smythe as publisher, and in 1737 _The Memoirs of Grub-Street_ said of Moore Smythe that he “reported himself author” of _One Epistle_, “but was only a publisher; it being written by Mr. Welsted and others.”[10]