Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/334

 Curll as publisher and Bridge as printer of a pirated edition of the trial of the Earl of Wintoun were reprimanded on their knees at the bar of the House of Lords in 1716 (Journals, May 1716). He was released on 11 May, and soon after was in correspondence with Thoresby, with reference to Erdeswicke's ‘Survey of Staffordshire,’ published by him in 1717 (Letters addressed to Ralph Thoresby, ii. 360, 362–3). Many of Curll's publications were scandalously immoral. The writer in the ‘Weekly Journal, or Saturday Post,’ of 5 April 1718, afterwards known as ‘Mist's Journal,’ identified by Lee with Defoe (, Defoe, ii. 32), says: ‘There is indeed but one bookseller eminent among us for this abomination [indecent books], and from him the crime takes the just denomination of Curlicism. The fellow is a contemptible wretch a thousand ways: he is odious in his person, scandalous in his fame; he is marked by nature.’ Curll defended himself in ‘Curlicism Display'd.’ A Mr. William Clarke prosecuted Curll for a libel, and in a pamphlet, ‘Party Revenge’ (1720), states (p. 40) that it had been his practice ‘for many years to print defaming, scandalous, and filthy libels, particularly of late against the Honourable Commissioners of H.M.'s Customs, to be seen by his recantation in the “Daily Courant,” Feb. 17, 1720.’ He now removed to Paternoster Row, where he brought out ‘The Poetical Register,’ by Giles Jacobs. Another address in this year was ‘next the Temple Coffee House in Fleet St.’ In 1721 Curll was again at the bar of the House of Lords for publishing the ‘Works of the Duke of Buckingham,’ which was the occasion of the well-known resolution, making it a breach of privilege to print, without permission, ‘the works, life, or last will of any lord of this house’ (Standing Orders, 31 Jan. 1721). This order was not annulled until 28 July 1845. In the same year he was in correspondence with White Kennett, and vainly endeavoured to get permission from the bishop to reprint his translations of Erasmus's ‘Praise of Folly’ and Pliny's ‘Panegyric’ (Lansdowne MS. 1038, f. 96, in British Museum). Between 1723 and 1726 he was living ‘over against Catherine Street in the Strand.’

Some letters reprinted in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1798, vol. lxviii. pt. i. pp. 190–1) reveal that he was protesting, 2 March 1723–4, to Walpole his ‘unwearied diligence to serve the government,’ and that ‘Lord Townshend assured me that he would recommend me to your honour for some provision in the civil list. In the Stamp Office I can be serviceable.’ On 30 Nov. 1725 he ‘was tried at the king's bench bar, Westminster, and convicted of printing and publishing several obscene and immoral books’ (, Political State, November 1725, p. 514). Curll's own case has been preserved (Rawlinson MSS., c. 195, in Bodleian Library). He was found guilty, but an arrest of judgment was permitted, on the ground that the offence was only punishable in the spiritual courts. The judges finally gave against him (, Reports, ii. 788). On 12 Feb. 1728 he was sentenced to be fined for publishing ‘The Nun in her Smock’ and ‘De usu Flagrorum,’ and to an hour in the pillory for publishing the ‘Memoirs of John Ker of Kersland’ (Daily Post, 13 Feb. 1728). He ‘stood in the pillory [23 Feb. 1728] at Charing Cross, but was not pelted or used ill. … He had contrived to have printed papers dispersed all about Charing Cross, telling the people he stood there for vindicating the memory of Queen Anne’ (State Trials, xvii. 160). We learn from the ‘Curliad’ (p. 17, &c.) that he was imprisoned five months in the king's bench for the two books, and that it was from Ker, a fellow-prisoner, that he had the papers on which the ‘Memoirs’ were based. The latter book was the subject of a separate indictment. A letter signed ‘A. P.’ in the ‘London Journal,’ 12 Nov. 1726, on ‘Deceptive Title Pages’ refers to a recently published edition, in six volumes, of ‘Cases of Impotence and Divorce,’ by Sir Clement Wearg, with which it is affirmed that the late solicitor-general had nothing to do. To this accusation Curll replied with an evasively worded affidavit. In 1726 were written Swift's famous verses of ‘Advice to Grub Street Verse Writers,’ who are recommended to have their poems well printed on large paper, and then ‘send these to paper-sparing Pope,’ who will cover them with his manuscript, and, when they are returned, Sell them to Curll for fifty pound, And swear they are your own. One of Pope's untrue charges was that Curll starved one of his hacks, William Pattison, who actually died in his house of small-pox, and received every attention (, Hist. of England, iii. 304). Curll again tried to show his patriotic zeal by discovering what seems to have been a mare's nest of his own contriving, and wrote to Lord Townshend, 29 Sept. 1728: ‘There is a conspiracy now forming which may be nipt in the bud, by a letter which I have intercepted, I may say, as miraculously as that was which related to the Gunpowder Plot’ (Gent. Mag. 1798, vol. lxviii. pt. i. p. 191). In 1729 he lived ‘next to Will's Coffee-house in Bow Street, Covent Garden,’ and in 1733 was at Burleigh