:: :: University of Virginia Library

[title page]

Towards a Critical Text of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man by Hans Walter Gabler

Bibliography and Science by G. Thomas Tanselle

Justification and Spelling in Jaggard's Compositor B by S. W. Reid

Beggars Bush: A Reconstructed Prompt-Book and Its Copy by Fredson Bowers

The Printers and the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio of 1647: Section 1 (Thomas Warren's) by Robert K. Turner, Jr.

The American Edition of Mrs. Dalloway by E. F. Shields

Press-Variants and Proofreading in The First Quarto of Othello (1622) by Millard T. Jones

John Norton the Printer: An Attribution (1622) by Wayne Franklin

The Chief Substantive Editions of Oldham's Poems, 1679-1684: Printer, Compositors, and Publication by Harold F. Brooks

English Editions of French Contes De Fees Attributes to Mme d'Aulnoy by Nancy and Melvin Palmer

Museum Attributions in John Cooper's Unpublished Letters by James E. Tierney

Further Additions to Bond's Register of Burlesque Poems by A. B. England

Warburton's List and Edmond Malone: A Non-Existent Relationship by Anne Lancashire

[section 1]

III

Notes

Thomas Carlyle's Libraries at Chelsea and Ecclefechan by Rodger L. Tarr

Ellen Glasgow's Virginia: Preliminary Notes by Oliver Steele

Owen Wister's Roosevelt: A Case Study in Post-Production Censorship by Elizabeth A. Swaim

Stephen Crane and "Corporal O'Connor's Story" by Gillian G. M. Kyles

A SELECTIVE CHECK LIST OF BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SCHOLARSHIP FOR 1972

[section]

Collapse All | Expand All expand section

Warburton's List and Edmond Malone: A Non-Existent Relationship
by
Anne Lancashire

In 1778 Edmond Malone, in his essay entitled "An Attempt to Ascertain the Order in which the Plays attributed to Shakspeare were Written,"[1] set down a list of thirty-four "ancient plays," the names of which, he stated, had been preserved, but which were otherwise in 1778 unknown, having apparently never been printed.[2] The recent discovery in MS of Thomas Middleton's The Witch had led him to hope that some of these other old plays might similarly have survived and yet be discovered. "The resemblance between Macbeth and this newly discovered piece by Middleton, naturally suggests a wish, that if any of the unpublished plays, above enumerated, be yet in being, (besides Timon and Sir Thomas More, which are known to be extant) their possessors would condescend to examine them with attention; as hence, perhaps, new lights might be thrown on others of our author's [i.e., Shakespeare's] plays."[3] An indefatigable scholar, Malone had culled his list of titles from a number of older printed and MS sources; three titles, for example—The Cradle of Securitie, Hit the Naile o' the Head, The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom—he apparently found in the extant MS of Sir Thomas More, for they appear together in his list, just above Sir Thomas More itself. The Cradle of Securitie may have come also from another source, R. W.'s Mount Tabor (1639), which Malone knew by at least 1790;[4] but the only known source for the title of Hit the Naile remains to this day the Sir Thomas More MS, which was in fact cited by

241

Malone as his source for both the Cradle and the Hit the Naile titles, in two of his contributions to Isaac Reed's 1782 revised edition, Biographia Dramatica, of David Erskine Baker's 1764 The Companion to the Playhouse.[5] Other sources used by Malone included the Stationers' Register[6] and Chetwood's British Theatre (1750).[7] Malone's list reappeared in later editions of the "Attempt" (published in editions of Shakespeare's plays issued in 1785, 1790, 1793, and later), the list being greatly enlarged in 1785 by twenty-three additional titles,[8] nineteen of which were first printed in Malone's 1780 Supplement to the 1778 Shakespeare edition.[9] (One other title added in the Supplement was dropped in 1785.) One 1778 title, The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom, was removed in 1785, the play's existence in print having by then been discovered.[10]

In a recent article in Studies in Bibliography,[11] John Freehafer has suggested that Malone derived about one quarter of the titles in his 1778 list from the now-notorious MS list (with memorandum) written by John Warburton (1682-1759), Somerset Herald, of MS plays supposedly once in his possession and unhappily nearly all destroyed by his servant, who used them for placing under pie bottoms.[12] This list, still extant and prefixed (as in Warburton's time) to the volume of three plays (and a fragment) once owned by Warburton, British Museum MS. Lansdowne 807, had previously been believed to have been unknown to scholars before its publication in Isaac Reed's 1803 edition of Shakespeare's plays.[13] This 1803 printing had been referred to in the 1807 sale catalogue of the Lansdowne

242

library,[14] in Samuel Egerton Brydges' Censura Literaria, vol. 5 (1807),[15] and by W. W. Greg in 1911.[16] Freehafer correctly points out that Reed in fact first published the list in the 1793 fourth edition of the Plays,[17] that Reed's 1782 Biographia Dramatica, to which Malone contributed,[18] also shows definite knowledge of Warburton's list and memorandum,[19] and that nine of Malone's thirty-four 1778 titles are to be found in Warburton's list,[20] while one more Malone title is that of a play once owned by Warburton though not listed by him.[21] Freehafer argues that Malone knew of Warburton's list (and collection) in 1778, used it for his "Attempt," and was the source of the information from it appearing in the 1782 Biographia Dramatica. In fact, however, Malone in 1778 does not seem to have known of the existence of the list, but apparently drew his "Warburton" titles from other sources; and the provider (direct or indirect) of the Warburton material in Biographia Dramatica appears to have been, not Malone, but George Steevens, who was the first to publish Warburton's list, as early as May 1780, in an unsigned letter to The St. James's Chronicle.[22]

I

Steevens' St. James's Chronicle letter, and Malone's response to it, are the two most important indications that Malone in 1778 did not use Warburton's list in compiling his own. Steevens prefaces his (inaccurate) transcription of Warburton's list as follows:

To the Printer of the St. J. CHRONICLE. SIR, It is with Concern I transmit to you a dead List of Dramatick Pieces. Had I met with it early enough for the Use of the Ingenious Mr. Malone, in his excellent Supplement to the last Edition of Shakspeare, it should certainly have been communicated to him. It may now reach him through the Channel of your Chronicle, the Circulation of which is more general than that of any other Evening Paper, as being particularly distinguished by the Correspondence of judicious and learned Men. The enclosed is a Transcript from the Hand-Writing of John Warburton, Esq. Somerset Herald, whose Books were sold (I forget how many Years ago) by Mr. Paterson, at Essex-House.

243

Clearly, then, Steevens—who had edited the 1778 Plays of William Shakspeare to which Malone contributed his "Attempt," and who had co-operated with Malone on the 1780 Supplement [23]—believed the list to have been previously unknown to Malone. And Malone's response to the letter, insofar as we know of it, is also significant; he clipped it out, noted on it that Steevens was the author, and inserted it into his personal, interleaved, annotated copy of Gerard Langbaine's An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (Oxford: L. L. for G. West and H. Clements, 1691),[24] correcting and annotating the list itself, and using it as a reference for at least one of his own annotations to Langbaine.[25] It thus seems unlikely that Warburton's list was in fact previously known to Malone.

This conclusion is supported by the existence of two other, obvious, major sources for Malone's knowledge in 1778 of his ten "Warburton" titles: the 1759 sale catalogue of Warburton's books and MSS,[26] and Malone's own annotated copy of Langbaine. The sale catalogue, indeed, provides today the first known recording of the title Demetrius and Marsina, which does not appear on Warburton's list; and though Malone could have used a now-lost source, or simply generally have known about Warburton's collection, the title on Malone's list suggestively appears in the identical form of the title in the catalogue. Malone's use of the catalogue thus becomes likely; and likelihood turns to virtual certainty when we note that the four titles immediately following Demetrius and Marsina on Malone's list are those also immediately following it in the sale catalogue.

[from Malone's 1778 list][27]
Demetrius and Marsina, or the imperial Impostor and unhappy Heroine, a tragedy—The Tyrant, a tragedy—The Queen of Corsica—The Bugbears—The Second Maid's Tragedy
[from the 1759 sale catalogue][28]
210 Demetrius and Marsina, or the Imperial Impostor and Unhappy Heroine, a Tragedy, fol.
211 The Tyrant, a Tragedy, 4to
212 The Queene of Corsica, a Tragedy, written by Fran. Jaques 1642 —The second Mayden's Tragedy, Licens'd by the Duke of Buckingham, 31st Oct. 1611—The Buggbears, a Play, very ancient, fol.

244

Malone may have used a transcript of this part of the catalogue, or notes made from it, rather than the catalogue itself; note the different order, in the two lists, of The Second Maiden's Tragedy and The Bugbears, the slightly different Second Maiden's Tragedy titles,[29] and the omission by Malone of some of the information included in the catalogue—though this omission could have been due to Malone's haste or carelessness, especially since the three plays not listed identically in the catalogue and in Malone's list are grouped together in the catalogue as one lot (being bound together in one folio volume). Certainly, however, the catalogue appears to have been Malone's direct or indirect source. Coincidence does not seem a plausible explanation of why Malone's last four play-titles named above, if taken from Warburton's list, where they do not appear together, should have appeared on Malone's list with Demetrius and Marsina in a five-title grouping almost identical to that found in the sale catalogue.[30]

Four of Malone's nine "Warburton-list" titles, plus Demetrius and Marsina, can thus easily be accounted for without reference to Warburton's list (or collection itself); what of the remaining five? One, Massinger's Believe As You List, may be from Chetwood's British Theatre (1750);[31] one, The Nobleman, as Freehafer himself points out (p. 160), comes from accounts of court payments, as Malone groups it together with four other, non-Warburton play-titles, all with an acting date of 1613. No performance dates are included in Warburton's list.[32] And the remaining three titles are to be found together in a source very close indeed to Malone: in his own annotated copy of Langbaine, in annotations preceding, in date, Malone's 1778 essay. In 1777 (the date is provided by Malone himself[33]), Malone copied into his interleaved Langbaine previous annotations to the Account made by three other students of the early English drama: the antiquary William Oldys (1696-1761), the editor Thomas Percy (1729-1811), and Malone's then friend (and later, enemy), the Shakespearean editor George Steevens (1736-1800). To each copied note Malone appended the initial of its original author (O, P, or S), signing his own contributions—then and in subsequent years—with an M. And Oldys' notes, as copied by Malone in 1777, refer to the three Malone "Warburton-list" titles so far unaccounted

245

for (as well as to Tourneur's The Nobleman and to The Second Maiden's Tragedy): the titles of three plays supposedly by William Rowley, which Malone lists together in the 1778 "Attempt" in the very form and order of the titles in Oldys' note. The three plays do not appear together in Warburton's list.

[from Malone's 1778 list][34]
The honoured Loves—The Parliament of Love—and Nonsuch, a comedy; all by William Rowley
[Oldys' note as copied by Malone][35]
Rowley wrote the Honoured Loves— The Parliament of Love—and Nonsuch a comedy; but I know not if they were ever printed, and the MSS. are destroyed.

Malone's spelling of Rowley's Honourable Loves [36] as Honoured Loves, which Freehafer takes (p. 160) to be Malone's misreading of Warburton's "The Honr. Loves," in which "the superior letter resembles a 'd',"[37] and therefore as a proof of Malone's use of Warburton's list, is thus doubtless a direct copying by Malone of the Honoured Loves of Oldys' note.[38] Elsewhere in the "Attempt" Malone makes explicit his use of Oldys' Langbaine annotations: in, for example, a footnote reference to Oldys' comments on The Second Maiden's Tragedy.[39] And Malone's list may be indebted to Oldys in two other ways as well. Malone's title-form of Second Maid's Tragedy, found both in his list and in his later reference to the play (p. 336,

246

1778 ed.), is that of Oldys' Langbaine note, which therefore may have caused Malone's departure from the title-form, Second Maiden's Tragedy, of the Warburton sale catalogue.[40] And Oldys probably also provided Malone with Tourneur as author of The Nobleman—even though Malone first took the title itself from elsewhere.[41]

All the "Warburton" plays mentioned by Malone in 1778 can thus be found in sources demonstrably known to Malone in 1778, without reference to Warburton's list, and moreover appear in Malone's list in groups and in title-forms strongly indicating their derivation from these other sources.[42]

And, indeed, it is difficult to believe that if Malone in 1778 had had access to Warburton's list he would not have made use of more titles from it. Freehafer suggests (p. 160) that Malone did not because he had reason to suspect that no other of the Warburton plays had survived in MS; but in fact Malone's 1778 list includes plays for the possible existence of which Malone had only the slimmest evidence, and it thus seems most unlikely that Malone would have rejected over forty titles from Warburton's list, if he had known of them. Nor is Freehafer correct in stating (p. 160) that no Warburton-list plays appear in additions to Malone's list after 1778, and in taking this as an indication that in 1778 Malone had considered the other Warburton titles and rejected them as possible survivals; The Woman's Plot, which appears in Warburton's list, was added to Malone's in the 1780 Supplement.[43]

II

Malone thus almost certainly did not know, in 1778-80, of Warburton's list and memorandum.[44] What, then, of Freehafer's suggestion that Malone contributed to Reed's Biographia Dramatica its information on Warburton's

247

list and on the surviving Warburton plays—Freehafer mentions (p. 161) The Second Maiden's Tragedy and The Bugbears—of the volume to which Warburton's list was by 1759 prefixed? The play information could have come only from examination of the MS volume itself. Freehafer is, of course, assuming that Malone had seen the list and plays in 1778; but could Malone, after Warburton's list was brought to his attention in May 1780, have investigated both the list and the three plays of the volume, and have contributed accordingly to Reed's edition? It seems not—for although, as Freehafer points out, Malone was indeed a contributor to Biographia Dramatica, another contributor (whom Freehafer mentions but then ignores) was George Steevens:[45] the first transcriber and presenter of Warburton's list, and the man who had actually examined, by May 1780, not only the list but also the three surviving Warburton plays of the (present) Lansdowne 807 volume. Steevens displayed his knowledge of these three plays in three more letters to The St. James's Chronicle of May 1780, following his original letter with the transcript of Warburton's list, and gave considerable detail on the text of The Second Maiden's Tragedy (including extracts from the dialogue).[46] The Biographia Dramatica information on The Second Maiden's Tragedy mainly comes almost verbatim from The St. James's Chronicle (and has, until very recently, been the basis of all our knowledge of the play's sources); and Biographia Dramatica entries on The Queen of Corsica and The Bugbears do not include—apart from giving the location of the play MSS as the Earl of Shelburne's library—anything beyond what Steevens wrote in The St. James's Chronicle about those two works, except the provision of an author for The Bugbears (inexplicably

248

not in Steevens' letter on the play, but to be found in Steevens' transcription of Warburton's list). The conclusion that Steevens was the provider, directly or indirectly, of at least most of the Biographia Dramatica information on Warburton's plays and list is thus inescapable. Malone does demonstrably provide a few pieces of information from Warburton's list,[47] but nothing more than could have come simply from perusal of Steevens' transcription of that list.

III

Finally, Steevens' St. James's Chronicle letter on The Second Maiden's Tragedy raises the interesting possibility of the direct passage of the (present) Lansdowne 807 volume from Warburton's possession to that of William Petty, Earl of Shelburne, first Marquis of Lansdowne.[48] Freehafer states (p. 161) that "Shelburne did not purchase this volume at the Warburton sale"; he logically points out that in 1759 Shelburne was doing military service abroad, and that Shelburne was not known as a serious collector of MSS until the mid 1760's. He suggests that the MS volume of list and plays passed from Warburton to Shelburne via the collector James West (d. 1772). Steevens' 1780 letter refers, however, to Warburton as The Second Maiden's Tragedy's "last Purchaser but one." If Shelburne, who owned the MS by 1782 (as Biographia Dramatica tells us), acquired it from Warburton's successor (as its owner) only between May 1780 and 1782, he cannot have done so from West, who had died some ten years earlier; and if, as is likely, he already owned it in May 1780, he is the purchaser referred to by Steevens as the one following Warburton. Steevens may have been wrong; but his statement obliges us to consider at least the possibility that Shelburne began collecting MSS, perhaps through an agent, as early as 1759, or that the Warburton volume passed almost directly from Warburton to Shelburne, with merely a short, intermediate sojourn in the hands of some professional bookseller. Certainly Freehafer's suggestion that the MS volume passed from Warburton to West to Shelburne is unfounded speculation only.[49]

Notes

[1]

Printed in vol. 1 of The Plays of William Shakspeare, ed. S. Johnson and G. Steevens, 2nd. ed., 10 vols. (1778).

[2]

Plays 1778, pp. 330-31. The titles include, for example, Valentine and Orson, Ninus and Semiramis, and Cardenio.

[3]

Plays 1778, p. 331.

[4]

See his edition of The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare (1790), I, pt. 2, 21.

[5]

David Erskine Baker, Biographia Dramatica, rev. [Isaac Reed], 2 vols. (London: Rivingtons et al., 1782): see Malone's own interleaved, annotated, four-vol. copy (now in the Bodleian Library), vol. 2 (Reed's vol. no., here and in subsequent references to Malone's Biog. Dram. copy), pp. 429 and 431 in the light of Malone's n. opposite p. 428. For Malone as a general contributor to Biog. Dram., see vol. 2, Malone's notes opposite pp. 1 and 428, and p. 439.

[6]

See Plays 1778, p. 289, n. e, and p. 306, n. i. Malone might have used George Steevens' extracts from the Register rather than the Register itself.

[7]

[William Rufus Chetwood,] The British Theatre (Dublin 1750); see Plays 1778, p. 275, n. f. For examples of other sources used by Malone, see Plays 1778, p. 278, n. l., and p. 285, n. y.

[8]

The Plays of William Shakspeare, [ed. Isaac Reed,] 3rd. ed. (1785), I, 341-42.

[9]

Supplement to the Edition of Shakspeare's Plays Published in 1778, 2 vols. (1780), I, 78.

[10]

See Malone's Biog. Dram. copy, vol. 2, notes opposite pp. 221 and 428, and p. 438.

[11]

"John Warburton's Lost Plays," SB, 23 (1970), 154-64. The article is chiefly concerned with the credibility of Warburton's list and memorandum.

[12]

For the traditional account of Warburton's list and collection, see W. W. Greg, "The Bakings of Betsy," Library, Ser. 3, 2 (1911), 225-59, rpt. with corrections and additional notes in W. W. Greg, Collected Papers, ed. J. C. Maxwell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. 48-74.

[13]

The Plays of William Shakspeare, ed. Isaac Reed, 5th. ed. [1st. Variorum ed.] (1803), II, 371.

[14]

Bibliotheca Manuscripta Lansdowniana, 2 vols. ([London:] Leigh and S. Sotheby sale catalogue, 1807), under Lot 849.

[15]

Censura Literaria, vol. 5 (1807), p. 275.

[16]

"Bakings of Betsy," p. 227.

[17]

The Plays of William Shakspeare, [ed. George Steevens (assisted by Reed),] 4th. ed. (1793), I, 615-17.

[18]

See above, n. 5.

[19]

Freehafer, pp. 160-61. See, for example, Biog. Dram., II, 18 (#179), 30 (#33), 31 (#41).

[20]

The Nobleman, The honoured Loves, The Parliament of Love, Nonsuch, Believe as you List, The Tyrant, The Queen of Corsica, The Bugbears, The Second Maid's Tragedy: titles spelled here as in Malone's list.

[21]

Demetrius and Marsina.

[22]

The St. James's Chronicle, 16-18 May, 1780, p. 2. Steevens was identified as the author by Malone; see below.

[23]

See, for e.g., Supplement, I, 19-23.

[24]

Malone's Langbaine—in 4 vols.—is now in the Bodleian Library (call no.: Malone 129 to 132); for the letter, see vol. 4 (Malone's vol. no., here and in subsequent references to Malone's Langbaine), opposite p. 525. (Malone incorrectly dates the letter June 1780: but perhaps this is the date when he clipped out the letter.)

[25]

See Malone's Langbaine, vol. 4, opposite p. 532.

[26]

The catalogue was apparently available in Malone's day; it is cited, for e.g., in Censura Literaria, V, 276-77.

[27]

Plays 1778, p. 331.

[28]

Bibliotheca Warburtoniana ([London:] catalogue of books and MSS to be sold by Samuel Paterson, at Essex House, 1759), lots 210-12, under "Miscellaneous Manuscripts," Tuesday 20 November.

[29]

But see below.

[30]

It might also be noted that in Biog. Dram. Malone cites Demetrius and Marsina as sold with Warburton's books and MSS about 1759; see Malone's copy, II, 430.

[31]

Chetwood, p. 42; Malone cites Chetwood on Believe As You List in a note to his Langbaine, vol. 3, opposite p. 359.

[32]

For Malone's apparent Nobleman source, see Freehafer, p. 160, and the Chamber accounts in MS. Rawlinson A 239, printed in Malone Society Collections VI, ed. David Cook assisted by F. P. Wilson (1962), p. 56. The MS accounts do not, however, give an author for the play; and Malone may have found Tourneur's name where he found 3 other of his "Warburton" titles—in notes by the antiquary William Oldys (see below).

[33]

Malone's Langbaine, I, 30 (pencil numbering).

[34]

Plays 1778, p. 331.

[35]

Malone's Langbaine, vol. 3, opposite p. 428. Oldys' original note is to be found in his own copy of Langbaine (now in the British Museum, C. 28. g. 1), p. 428: "He [William Rowley] writ The Hond. Loves— The Parliament of Love and Nonsuch, a comedy, but I know not if they were ever printed and the MSS are destroyd." (Oldys knew of Warburton's collection and its destruction—see his Langbaine, pp. 212, 428, 505—but mentions no Warburton plays other than these 3, The Second Maiden's Tragedy, and The Nobleman, and so may not have seen Warburton's list; and he apparently knew about the collection only after its real or supposed loss [see his Langbaine, pp. 428, 505].) Malone added two notes of his own to his Langbaine, following the copied Oldys note: one giving the 1660 Stationers' Register listing of the 3 "Rowley" plays, the second stating that the 3 belonged formerly to Warburton and were destroyed by his servant. Presumably, given the evidence for Malone's ignorance in 1778 of Warburton's list, the second note must be dated 1780 or later.

[36]

Honourable is the word found in the title's Stationers' Register entry of 29 June 1660, and in Warburton's list; see A Transcript of the Registers of the Worshipful Company of Stationers; from 1640-1708 A.D., [ed. G. E. B. Eyre,] 3 vols. (1913-14), II, 271 [honob e], and "Bakings of Betsy," p. 230 [Honr.].

[37]

"Bakings of Betsy," p. 230, n., quoted by Freehafer, p. 160.

[38]

It is true, however, that Warburton's superior letter is misleading; Steevens, for e.g., in his St. James's Chronicle transcription of Warburton's list, reads it as a 'd'.

[39]

Plays 1778, p. 336 and n. p. Oldys' original note is to be found in his Langbaine, p. 212, and is copied into Malone's Langbaine, vol. 2, between pp. 212 and 213. For other explicit 1778 uses by Malone of Oldys' notes to Langbaine, see Plays 1778, p. 294, n. p, and p. 321, n. z.

[40]

The Stationers' Register entry of what is probably The Second Maiden's Tragedy, on 9 Sept. 1653, reads "The Maids Tragedie, 2d part." (Eyre, I, 429), and Warburton's list, "2d. pt. Maidens Trag̃." ("Bakings of Betsy," p. 232).

[41]

See above.

[42]

By 1803 Malone had bought the surviving MS of The Parliament of Love (see Kathleen Marguerite Lea, ed., The Parliament of Love (1929), pp. v-viii); by at least 1790 he apparently knew of its existence (see his 1790 Shakespeare ed., I, pt. 2, 227; but see also below, n. 44, on Malone's 1778 reference to The Second Maiden's Tragedy as extant). Freehafer assumes (p. 160) that Malone owned the MS by 1778; but this cannot be assumed. Certainly Malone did not list it, in 1778, as definitely extant—though consistency is not one of the chief virtues of the "Attempt" in any of its editions. (Cf. Malone's reference in 1780 to his ownership of The Telltale: Supplement, I, 78, n.)

[43]

Supplement, I, 78.

[44]

The matter of Malone's ignorance in 1778 of Warburton's list may seem to be complicated by his inconsistency in references to The Second Maiden's Tragedy (one of the plays in the vol. to which Warburton's list was prefixed). Though in his 1778 listing of unpublished plays, pp. 330-31, he implies that SMT is not known to be extant, on p. 336 he refers to SMT as extant. Had he therefore heard after all, by 1778, about the survival of the SMT MS, or seen the play (and thus also Warburton's list)? Probably not; more likely he is on p. 336 simply working from the existence of the SMT MS in Oldys' time, since here he is explicitly using Oldys' lengthy SMT note. Certainly he does not seem to have seen the MS (and its vol.) himself, for he says nothing about the play which cannot be found in Oldys. It might also be mentioned that in the 1785 Plays (see n. 8, above) Malone's "Attempt" was tidied up by the placement of SMT with Timon and Sir Thomas More, in Malone's list of unpublished plays (I, 341-42), as a MS still extant—but the other two Warburton plays of Lansdowne 807 (though written about by Steevens in 1780) were still not included there, nor were they included as extant in the "Attempt" of Malone's 1790 ed. of Shakespeare's works (I, pt. 2, 366). Reed explicitly corrects this omission in his 1793 ed. of the Plays (I, 615-16).

[45]

For Steevens' contributions, see, for e.g., Malone's notes to his Biog. Dram. copy, vol. 1, opposite p. 404, and vol. 2, opposite p. 118.

[46]

St. James's Chronicle, 1780: 18-20 May, p. 2 (Second Maiden's Tragedy); 20-23 May, p. 4 (Queen of Corsica); 23-25 May, p. 2 (Bugbears). These letters, like the one of 16-18 May, are unsigned; but the author is that of the 16-18 May letter, and Malone in fact identifies Steevens as author of the 18-20 May letter on the copy of this letter which he inserts into his Langbaine, vol. 2, between pp. 212 and 213. (Malone quotes from this letter in his later "An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the English Stage," included in his 1790 ed. of Shakespeare's works [I, pt. 2 (letter quoted pp. 71-72)] and in later eds. of the Plays.)

[47]

See Malone's Biog. Dram. copy, II, 431, 433, 442, with reference to Malone's note opposite p. 428.

[48]

Petty became Earl of Shelburne in 1761, and acquired the Lansdowne title in 1784.

[49]

During this article's printing, I learned from Mr. Robert Nikirk of The Grolier Club Library that that Library's copy of the Warburton sale catalogue contains the auctioneer's invoice to Philip Carteret Webb for items purchased by Webb from the Warburton collection, and that the list of items includes the catalogue's lot 212—the present B. M. MS. Lansdowne 807. The manuscript volume thus passed from Warburton to Webb, and presumably was one of the manuscripts on paper sold by Webb's widow to Shelburne after Webb's death in 1771 (see the Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee (1921-22), XX, 1019), as it does not appear in the 1771 Webb sale catalogue.