you thought fit, fuitable to your former Behaviour, to return me a very impertinent and falfe Anfwer, (in the Grubfireet Journal, Daily Journal, and Daily Poft Boy) that you believed the whole to be a Forgery, and fhould not trouble yourself at all about it. In the last of which Papers, on the 5th of April, I gave you a full Reply, to which it was not in your Power to rejoin. What Steps were afterwards taken in this Affair, I fhall impartially relate.

P. T. (from whom I had not heard in two Years before) wrote me a Letter, that you fhould foon be convinced of your Miftake, and being indifpofed himself, appointed R. S. to be his Agent. An Account of which whole Tranfaction I have laid before the Public in the Initial Correfpondence. *

On the 12th of May laft I published the faid Collection of your Letters, and on the fame Day, upon your being told by a Gentleman, who faw you in the Court of Requefts at Westminster, that it was pretty plain the Letters published were no Forgeries; you very pertly reply'd, fo much the worse.

See the 2d. Volume of Mr. Pope's Letters, &c. Printed by Mr. Curll.

But

But this, by the bye, Sir, was owning them to be Genuine.

Upon your Complaint to fome Lords * (whom you make Patrons to the Abuse of others) it was owing that the Books were feized, and not to the Advertisement, which was but the Shoeing-Horn to your groundless Refentment against me. But you have met a Second Defeat before that moft August Affembly, as you did in your first Attack, relating to the Duke of Buckingham's Works.

Therefore, confefs you have a Tartar caught, Be, once, fincere; and frankly own your Fault.

You fay, Sir, It will be but Juftice to you, to believe, that nothing more is yours than what you have owned, notwithstanding all that hath been publish'd in your Name, or added to your Mifcellanies fince 1717, by any Bookfeller what foever. †

* Bolingbroke (Attainted) Oxford (Impeached) &c. vid. your Epiftles.

+ Your Bookfellers ab origine are indeed pretty numerous, viz. J. Tonfon, W. Lewis (who fold your Effay on Criticism to B. Lintot,) L. Gilliver, B. Motte (a Printer) J. Brindley, O. Payne, T. Boreman, and C. Corbet (all Hereditary Bookbinders) to whom you fold, by Agency, your Sober Advice from Horace, as will be prov'd, notwithstanding you are refolved ftill to deny it.

Awake!

Awake! Dear Poet! leave all meaner things
To low Ambition, and the Pride of Kings.
Let us fince Life can little more fupply
Than just to look about us, and to die)
Expatiate free

O! while along the Stream of Time, thy Name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its Fame,
Say, fhall my little Bark attendant fail,
Purfue the Triumph, and partake the Gale?
And fhall thy Verfe to future Age pretend,
Thou wert Curll's Enemy, but Now his
Friend?

That urg'd by thee, He turn'd the tuneful Art
From Sounds to Things, from Envy to the Heart;
For Wit's falfe Mirror held up Nature's Light;
And prov'd the Air of Lying* was not Right;
That Virtue only makes our Blifs below;

And all our Knowledge is Ourselves to know. †

But to return, Sir, you fay I was firft threaten'd and afterwards punish'd for printing

* It would have a better Air in him (Curll) to own the Printing as well as Publifhing, of Mr. Pope's Letters, &c. But he the faid Curll was of a different Opinion.

See the Beginning and End of the Effay on Man.

the

the Court Poems. * Pray who gave you the Authority of Punishing? remember only, that now is my turn to Punish, and if I have not the Spleen of a warpt Poet, or a Scots Medicafter, I will find fome other Prescription that fhall, once more, as ShakeSpeare fays, barrow up your Soul.

To believe nothing is yours, but what you own, would be merely ridiculous. Did you not deny the Dunciad for seven Years? Did you not offer a Reward of three Guineas, by an Advertisement in the PoftMan, to know the Publisher of your Verfion of the First-Pfalm? And when you were inform'd, did you ever pay the Premium? Did you not publish the Worms yourself, and leave out the Fœcundifying Stanza? And do you own any of these in the Preface to the fecond Volume of your Works. In fhort, Sir, your Conduct as to your Poetical Productions, is exactly of a Piece with what I once met with at the Old Bailey. A moft flagrant Offender was put upon his Tryal for a notorious Theft, and by his egregious Shuffling, he put Mr. Recorder Lovel into a violent Paffion: Sirrah, says he, you have got a Trick of Denying what you ought to own; and of owning what you might as well deny.

* See the Notes Variorum on the Dunciad. Page, 12 1.

An'

An' please your Honour, quoth Culprit, that's the Way not to be hang'd. However impudent Jack was tuck'd up, by a fresh Fact proved upon him that very Seffions.

Thus if with fmall, great Things may be compar❜d,

Kind Fate, at length, may wait on Thief and Bard.

As to the Publication of your Letters, a State Decypherer has affured me, that by a Tranfpofition of Initials the Plot is unravelled, ex. gr. P. T. is Trickster Pope, R. S. is Silly Rafcal, to fell imperfect Books, and then cry out Whore first. Pray, moft fincere Sir, how could either P. T. or R. S. come by the Letter I wrote to You, if A. P. R. S. and P. T. were not all of a Clan. Rifum teneatis amici?

Who was it play'd the Gardener, (fure it could not be honest Searle*) in Lopping fome Branches, Inoculating others, and Transplanting a large Shoot from one of your Letters to Mr. Cromwell, and Graffing it upon Mr. Walsh's Stock?

Refrain the Path that leads to Evil;
Tell the plain Truth, and fhame the Devil.

Mr. Pope's Gardener at Twickenham.

Ananias