Pope would be sheltered behind these responsible persons, and an aggrieved person might be slower to attack persons of high position and property.

By yet another device Pope applied for an injunction in Chancery to suppress a piratical London edition; but ensured the failure of his application by not supplying the necessary proofs of property.

This trick, repeated, as we shall see, on another occasion, was intended either to shirk responsibility or to increase the notoriety of the book.

A further mystification was equally characteristic.

To the Dunciad in its enlarged form is prefixed a letter, really written by Pope himself, but praising his morality and genius, and justifying his satire in terms which would have been absurd in Pope's own mouth.