themselves, he examined “part of the internal evidence,” the language, and specifically “a part only of this part, viz. ... words, considered with respect to their significations and inflexions.”10 Thus, when the apparently exhaustive work of Bryant and Milles was published, the Rowleians could well feel that the burden of proof now rested with the other side. Tyrwhitt and Warton had command of the proof they needed, and eventually they won over all but the fanatics.11 But for the moment any answers they could make to Bryant and Milles would seem to be merely defensive. At this hour, the position which they represented needed new support from someone who could bring a fresh perspective into the debate and, if possible, throw the confident Rowleians into confusion. Edmond Malone’s observations served precisely these ends.

Malone must have set to work as soon as the books of Bryant and Milles appeared.12 At any rate, he rushed his essay into print. His friend John Nichols published it, over the signature “Misopiclerus,” in the December issue and yearly Supplement of the Gentleman’s Magazine, which went into circulation early in January.13 To appear in these numbers, Malone’s essay had to be in Nichols’ hands not long after the middle of December, for copy was already going to press by then.14 Doubtless he now put to use many ideas which had occurred to him as the controversy developed. But the origin of the essay was clearly his response, not simply to the poems and the controversy surrounding them, but specifically to what Milles and Bryant had written. His questioning of their competence to settle literary questions is his most basic justification of his own analysis. His refutations of their arguments give substance to every stage of his reasoning. And even though in the Gentleman’s Magazine the essay is divided into two installments, its continuity and stylistic cohesiveness indicate that Malone wrote it purposefully at a time when his thoughts were unified by a clear provocation.

A letter which Malone wrote to Lord Charlemont in Ireland on 8 January 1782 reveals something of the seriousness with which, beneath their merriment, Malone and others regarded the Rowleian manifesto:

The Rowley controversy, about which you enquire, is going on ding-dong. Dr. Milles’s quarto and Mr. Bryant’s octavos are on my table, ready to be packed in your parcel. They have said everything that could be said on their side of the question, and have staggered some. Warton is preparing an answer, which will be out soon; only a shilling pamphlet. The cautious Tyrwhitt is slower in his operations. He means, I belive, to enter deeply into the business, and it will therefore be some time before we shall see his vindication. I am, you know, a professed anti-Rowleian, and have just sent a little brat into the world to seek his fortune. As I did not choose to sign my name, I preferred, for the sake of a more general perusal, to give my cursory remarks to a magazine, in consequence of which they appear rather awkwardly, one half in that for December and the other in the supplement, which is to be published in a few days. When I can get a perfect copy, I will send it to you, for I flatter myself your partiality to me will incline you to run your eye over it, notwithstanding your leaning to the other side of the question. Tyrwhitt wants me still to make a pamphlet of it, in order to bind up with all the other pieces which that most wonderful youth, Chatterton, has given occasion to.15

While his little brat was diverting the wide audience of the Gentleman’s Magazine, Malone was busy arranging for it to make a more damaging sally. Tyrwhitt may have asked for a more convenient text; what Malone gave him was a better essay. He seems to have spent the entire month revising his work, for the pamphlet was not ready until early in February. As late as 7 February, writers commenting on the essay referred to and even quoted from the Gentleman’s Magazine.16 On 4 February, Horace Walpole, writing to thank Malone for sending him a copy of Cursory Observations, said that he had been “earnestly wishing” for such a present because Malone’s remarks were “far too good to be committed only to the few hours of life of a newspaper.”17

The pamphlet was first advertised in the St. James’s Chronicle, in which developments in the Rowley controversy were usually announced promptly, until No. 3266 (9-12 Feb.). This and all other advertisements of the pamphlet were for the version of Malone’s essay which the author sent to Walpole some days earlier: “the second edition, revised and augmented.”18 This phrase on the title-page has led scholars to miss the significance which Malone himself found in the pamphlet. The phrase does not indicate, as bibliographies have heretofore stated, that the pamphlet achieved a second printing. It emphasizes that in the pamphlet Malone revised and expanded considerably the essay which made its first appearance in the Gentleman’s Magazine.

Every page in the pamphlet bears evidence of Malone’s revision.19 It was necessary, of course, to re-orient the essay, which after the formula of the Gentleman’s Magazine was addressed to Mr. Urban. At least one passage, which carried a slur upon publishers, may have been changed to suit Mr. Nichols.20 But more indicative of his carefulness are his revisions of words and phrases. “The whole fabrick” of Chatterton’s poems became “the beautiful fabrick” (p. 12). The “practice of knitting,” which Malone wished to show had not developed as early as the fifteenth century, he now called “the art of knitting” (p. 24). When he found that he had not questioned emphatically enough “the antiquity of these MSS,” he added the