time to a literary friend whom he does not name, who fully participated in the opinion.
This discovery he deemed to be exclusively his own. It was therefore hoarded for the long-promised second edition of the Poet; but just at this moment the publication of Mr. Douce’s Illustrations disclosed that he also had arrived at a similar conclusion. No time was to be lost in announcing through the press his claim to originality.[1] The tract was therefore printed early in January, 1808, and all honour paid in it to “the learned and ingenious critic” who had thus accidentally preceded him. Copies, however, were still withheld from the public. That to Lord Sunderlin, now before me, and others also have this intimation on the fly-leaf: “It is requested that this pamphlet may not be inadvertently put into the hands of persons who may be likely to publish any part of it.” It did, however, eventually transpire. From some misapprehension of Archdeacon Nares, a review of it appeared in the British Critic in the following year in conformity, as erroneously supposed, with the wishes of the author, which produced two or three letters of amicable explanation between the parties, though Nares was declared to be wrong in giving part of the merit of the discovery to Capell.
This essay proved a momentary diversion from another subject. In 1796 he had lost his friend Mr. William Gerard Hamilton, who had acquired during life high private repute with apparently little labour.
- ↑ Malone assigned the date of the Tempest to 1611; recently Mr. Joseph Hunter believes that an earlier date may be assigned to the Tempest, perhaps 1596 or 1597; but other authorities say certainly not till after 1603, and more probably not till 1611, the time stated by Malone.
