book called La Religieuse en Chemise." In the indictment Curll is thus accurately summed up: homo iniquus et sceleratus ac nequiter machinans et intendens bonos mores subditorum hujus regni corrumpere et cos ad nequitiam inducere; and in the State Trials we read the following report of the sentence:—
"This Edmund Curll stood in the pillory at Charing Cross, but was not pelted or used ill; for being an artful, cunning (though wicked) fellow, he had contrived to have printed papers dispersed all about Charing Cross, telling the people how he stood there for vindicating the memory of Queen Anne."
It does, in fact, appear that he received three sentences at once, and that not until Feb. 12, 1728. For publishing the Nun in her Smock, and the treatise De Usu Flagrorum, he was sentenced to pay a fine of twenty-five marks each, and to enter into recognizances of £100 for his good behaviour for one year; but for publishing the Memoirs of John Ker of Kersland, Esq. (a political offence), he was fined twenty marks, and ordered to stand in the pillory for the space of one hour.[1]
In 1729 Curll was again pilloried—this time by Pope in the Dunciad, in connection with Tonson and Lintot:
"With authors, stationers obey'd the call
(The field of glory is a field for all);
Glory and gain th' industrious tribe provoke,
And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke;
A poet's form she placed before their eyes,
And bade the nimblest racer seize the prize.
*******
- ↑ The Daily Post, Feb. 13, 1728.
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