preceded or followed them; and then this great “discovery” passed silently to deserved oblivion.
An impression prevailed that these forgeries had been long contemplated. In 1785, a rumour circulated among literary men that in an attorney’s office in Warwickshire, wills had been found of the Shakspeare family, throwing new lights upon its history. Such a report drew many inquirers. Malone wrote privately (April 7?) to Mr. Nichols of the Gentleman’s Magazine for information, who however could furnish little more than that some details had transpired through Mr. Samuel Ireland, in Illustrations of the Avon. The story then died silently away.
Now that it suffered violent death, he amused himself as chief executioner, by collecting all pamphlets and papers written on either side into volumes, which passed under the auctioneer’s hammer at his sale in 1818.
On the first appearance of his book, a copy was sent to Burke, who thus replies:—
My dear Sir,—Your letter is dated the first of the month, but I did not receive it with the welcome and most acceptable present that came along with it, till late in the evening of yesterday. However, I could not postpone the satisfaction offered to me by your partiality and goodness. I got to the seventy-third page before I went to sleep, to which what I read did not greatly contribute.
I do not know that for several years I longed so much for any literary object as for the appearance of this work. Far from having my expectations disappointed, I may say with great sincerity that they have been infinitely exceeded. The spirit of that sort of criticism by which false pretence and imposture are detected, was grown very rare in this century.