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bear witness to the truth of his assertions, remarking that "the evidence of the most illustrious peer will not go farther in any court of judicature whatever than that of a peasant." Worse still, the writer of a letter to the The Flying Post crushingly remarked that Swift, who had done his best "to render religion, reason, and common sense ridiculous, and to set up in their stead buffoonery, grimace, and impertinence," has "picked up in his Travels a decrepid diminutive Lilliputian poet, whom he has placed by his side on the throne of wit-an empire to which they have just as much right as their dear king at Bologna to His Majesty's."

CHAPTER XXXVII

1729

Charges against Teresa Blount-Manoeuvres preparatory to the Publication of the Wycherley "Correspondence"

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N the summer of this year Pope made a determined attempt to break up the Blount household. Caryll honest, unsuspicious Caryllwas involved in the plot, which, happily for Martha's reputation, proved unsuccessful. The campaign opened with accusations brought against the character of the once-admired Teresa. There were many vague rumours, but only two definite charges, founded on scandals spread by dismissed servants. Writing to Caryll on July 20, Pope says that Teresa has an intrigue of half a year's standing with a married man. "The circumstances of this I am not to tell, but if those nearest to her say true, are very flagrant. The other fault is outrage to the mother past all imagination, striking, pinching, pulling about the house, and abusing to the utmost shamefulness." Patty, he explains, had done her best to conceal these doings, but was in a fair way to be implicated in her sister's disgrace. He

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1 Teresa is frequently referred to as "the Lady Sola."

suggests that Mrs. Blount would be much better off in a "religious house," while Patty should be assisted to set up for herself.

Caryll was at first much alarmed, and anxious to do anything in his power to put an end to such a terrible state of things. He promised that Mrs. Caryll should write to Mrs. Blount about the reports, and invite her and Patty to stay, without Teresa, so that the matter might be discussed. Nothing came of this project, for the mother showed the letter to Teresa, and when an invitation came for the younger sister alone Patty was ill in bed, and unable to accept. Mrs. Blount, it would appear, took the part of her elder daughter, to whom she was deeply attached. She saw, moreover, that there would be a difficulty in making two ends meet if the household were broken up, and each member had to depend on her own little income. No corroboration of Pope's charges came from Martha herself, and in time Caryll seems to have suspected that the evil report had been exaggerated, to say the least of it. Pope was indignant at the refusal of both mother and younger daughter to accuse the elder of illconduct towards them. "It is a strange fate," he exclaims, "for one very ill creature to be concealed, and indeed, by the concealment, encouraged by the very two people that suffer from her."

It may be gathered that Caryll had offered to help his goddaughter to leave home if things were as bad as had been represented, for on November 20 Pope says that Martha has shown him a letter which gave him a full view of his friend's worth. But her knowledge that the junction of her income with

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that of her family helped to secure them from ruin prevented her from taking steps to leave them. 'I have often represented to her of late, since the conduct of her sister," he adds, "that even in that view she had better lend them the equivalent, and live out of the danger and discredit."

Pope disclaims all suggestion that he had a tendresse for Patty. He says that he knows himself too well to indulge in any, and her too well to expect as much folly in his favour as she showed to her relations. "I receive a secret contentment in knowing I have no tie to your goddaughter but a good opinion, which has grown into a friendship with experience that she deserves it."

In the autumn of this year Pope began the curious series of manœuvres which led up to the publication of his correspondence. He had been inclined, from early youth, to set a high value on his letters; indeed, it would almost seem as if he thought them superior to his poetry. The interest aroused by the publication of his correspondence with Cromwell proved that the public was inclined to rate him at his own value as a writer of letters. The appearance, in the previous year, of Wycherley's "Remains," edited by Theobald, at the request of Captain Shrimpton, who had married Wycherley's widow, enraged Pope, who chose to think that no one but himself had any right to meddle with the old dramatist's papers. On September 15 he wrote to ask Lord Oxford if he would allow "some original papers and letters, both of my own and some of my friends, to be in your library in London. There seems already to be

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From an engraving by G. Vertue after the painting by M. Dahl EDWARD, FARL OF OXFORD.

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