Mr.
Moy Thomas doubts also whether Lady Mary's answer was really sent at the assigned date.

The contrast of sentiment is equally characteristic in any case.
[10] Mr.Moy Thomas, in his edition of Lady Mary's letters, considers this story to be merely an echo of old scandal, and makes a different conjecture as to the immediate cause of quarrel.

His conjecture seems very improbable to me; but the declaration story is clearly of very doubtful authenticity.
[11] Another couplet in the second book of the Dunciad about "hapless Monsieur" and "Lady Maries," was also applied at the time to Lady M.W.
Montagu: and Pope in a later note affects to deny, thus really pointing the allusion.

But the obvious meaning of the whole passage is that "duchesses and Lady Maries" might be personated by abandoned women, which would certainly be unpleasant for them, but does not imply any imputation upon their character.

If Lady Mary was really the author of a "Pop upon Pope"-- a story of Pope's supposed whipping in the vein of his own attack upon Dennis, she already considered him as the author of some scandal.