Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/62

44 Lofty Lintot in the circle rose: 'The Prize is mine, who 'tempts it are my foes; With me began this genius, and shall end.' He spoke, and who with Lintot shall contend?

"Fear held them mute. Alone untaught to fear, Stood dauntless Curll: 'Behold that rival here! The race by vigour, not by vaunts, is won: So take the hindmost, hell,' he said, 'and run.' Swift as a bard the bailiff leaves behind He left huge Lintot, and outstript the wind. As when a dab-chick waddles through the copse On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops, So labouring on with shoulders, hands, and head, Wide as a windmill all his figure spread, With arms expanded Bernard views his state, And left-legged Jacob seems to emulate."

And finally Curll stumbles into an unsavoury pool:—

Obscene with filth the miscreant lies bewrayed, Fallen in the plash his wickedness had laid; Then first (if poets aught of truth declare) The caitiff vaticide conceived a prayer. "

In reference to Curll there is a note to this passage, "He carried the trade many lengths beyond what it ever before had arrived at; he was the envy and admiration of all his profession. He possessed himself of a command over all authors whatever; he caused them to write what he pleased; they could not call their very names their own. He was not only famous among them; he was taken notice of by the state, the church, and the law, and received particular marks of distinction from each."

We have no space to discuss the vexed question as to how the letters of Pope published by Curll came into his hands—the discussion would occupy a volume and remain a moot question after all. But we are disposed to believe with Johnson and Disraeli that "being inclined to print his own letters, and not