(n. 35).

24. The other passages are on pp. 19-22, 23, 25, 49-50, 51-57, and 57-58. The new footnotes are on pp. 10, 24-25, 29, 33, and 50.
Links to “other passages” are conjectural.

25. That he had quoted out of Warton’s History the passages from Hoccleve and Bradshaw, not having other texts readily at hand, indicates Malone’s haste to publish the essay originally. He retained the Hoccleve passage (p. 6); his point about Warton’s basis of selection is effective. But, perhaps feeling that two such citations weakened the point, he took the trouble to bring the quotation from Bradshaw into conformity with the other examples.

26. The reviewer for the Gentleman’s Magazine commented that Malone’s “levity” and his ridicule of “respectable characters” could “only reflect on himself”—LII (1782), 128. According to Joseph Haslewood (see n. 8), the magazine’s reviewer at this time was Richard Gough, who devoted much of his life to antiquarian studies. For the opposite reaction to Malone’s “cure,” see the St. James’s Chronicle, No. 3289 (4-6 April 1782), and the Critical Review, LIII (1782), 418.

27. Strictures Upon a Pamphlet entitled, Cursory Observations on the Poems attributed to Rowley, A Priest of the Fifteenth Century (London, 1782), p. 3.

28. No. 3311 (25-28 May). In a vol. of clippings at the British Museum relating to the controversy (shelf-mark C.39.h.20), Joseph Haslewood wrote “E. Malone” beneath this poem. Haslewood attributed certain other items in the St. James at this time to “G. Steevens” and appears to have been reporting first-hand information.

29. Today scholars attribute the Epistle to William Mason, whose letters to Walpole certainly imply that he wrote it but was zealous to conceal the fact. See Walpole’s Correspondence, ed. W. S. Lewis, XXIX (New Haven, 1955), 168-169, 175, 182, 189-190, 199-200; and Philip Gaskell, The First Editions of William Mason (Cambridge, 1951), p. 26. The man who published the Epistle, however, says confidently, “this admirable Poem, very generally ascribed at the time to Mr. Mason, was written by John Baynes, Esq. and handed to the press by his intimate friend John Watson Reed, Esq.” Mason’s furtiveness may, of course, have fooled even the publisher. The periodicals of the day bear out at least Nichols’ word (contrary to what Gaskell says) that the work was immediately received as Mason’s. Besides this pamphlet and Malone’s, Nichols printed Tyrwhitt’s Vindication (for the publishers T. Payne and Son). In a letter to Nichols on 18 March 1782, George Steevens commented, “Your house seems to be the forge from which Anti-Rowleian thunders of every kind are to be issued.” For all of the above information, see Nichols’ Literary Anecdotes, VIII (London, 1815), 113.

30. No. 3257 (19-22 Jan. 1782).

31. Walpole’s Correspondence, ed. Lewis, XXIX, 195.

32. LII (1782), 379-381.

33. A series of articles on this very topic in Malone’s article illustrates how elusive such proofs were. See the Gentleman’s Magazine, LI (1781), 609; LII (1782), 76, 168, 229, 434, 471; LIII (1783), 38-39, 127.

34. Critical Review, LIII (1782), 418-419.

35. Enquiry, pp. 92-93.

36. Vindication, p. 82. A footnote refers the reader to the Cursory Observations.

37. The Poetical Works of Thomas Chatterton, II (London, 1890), xlv.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Edmond Malone’s Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley is reproduced from a copy at the Beinecke Library of Yale