The Wycherley correspondence furnishes fresh illustrations of the malpractices of the poet. For Pope's own share in it the published version is our only authority. The originals of Wycherley's part in it were placed in Lord Oxford's library in October, 1729, and withdrawn in June, 1735; but there still exist among the Oxford papers copies of six out of the eighteen published letters, besides six which are unpublished.[167] Imperfect as is the series, it is sufficient to show the infidelity of the work Pope put forth to the world. The letter borrowed from the Caryll group may conveniently be considered in connection with the rest. It was probably not included in the original volume of the Wycherley correspondence, which Pope published in 1729, for it is printed in the edition of 1735 on an interpolated half sheet signed * C. This is placed between sheet B and sheet C, and the numbers of its four pages--11 to 14--are repeated on sheet C. The space being greater than was required the letter has been divided into an unusual number of paragraphs, which are double the ordinary distance from each other, and as this device for spreading out the matter only brought it three or four lines over the top of the fourth page the remainder is left blank, contrary to the plan adopted in the rest of the book.[168] Pope we may presume had not completed in 1729 his task of reconstructing his letters to Caryll, and first introduced the manufactured letter into the old sheets of the Wycherley when he incorporated them into the volume of 1735. A single circumstance is enough to prove that the letter is fictitious. It is made up of extracts from two letters to Caryll of July 31, 1710, and January 25, 1711, and in the former of the two the poet quotes a remark from the "Tatler" on the reason why women are vainer than men. The passage is repeated in the letter to Wycherley which is dated June 23, 1705, nearly four years before the "Tatler" commenced, and Pope imagined he had obliterated the anachronism by changing the phrase "the 'Tatler' observes of women" into the general formula "it is observed of women."
The concoction of the letter to Wycherley out of the letters to Caryll is attended by the usual distortion of facts. The extract from the letter of July 31 is an expostulation against Caryll's extravagant compliments. A few months after the date which Pope assigned to the passage when he applied it to Wycherley, the old dramatist had addressed a kindred remonstrance to Pope. "I must confess," he wrote March 22, 1705-6, "you try my patience, as you say in the beginning of your letter, not by the many lines in it, but the too many compliments you make me for nothing, in which you prove yourself, though a sincere friend, a man of too much fiction; for I have not seen so much poetry in prose a great while, since your letter is filled with so many fine words and acknowledgments of your obligations to me, the only asseverations of yours I dare contradict; for I must tell you your letter is like an author's epistle before his book,--written more to show his wit to the world than his sincerity or gratitude to his friend, whom he libels with praise, so that you have provoked my modesty even whilst you have soothed my vanity; for I know not whether I am more complimented than abused, since too much praise turns irony, as too great thanks for small favours turns ingratitude, or too much ceremony in religion hypocrisy."[169] Pope thought fit in the published letters to reverse the parts. He ascribed the adulation to Wycherley, and the rebuke of it to himself. He gives a false air of manly independence to his youthful character, and does it at the expense of his friend.