in 1793, introduced many offensive references to Malone. But in fifteen months the edition was nearly sold out, and Malone almost at once issued a prospectus for a new edition in fifteen volumes, on superior paper, and with illustrations; but this scheme was definitely abandoned in 1796 for a new octavo edition in twenty volumes: the first volume to be devoted to the life, the second and third to a fuller history of the stage. In the preparation of this work Malone was mainly occupied for the rest of his life.
With a view to exhausting all possible sources of information Malone worked at Aubrey's manuscripts at Oxford for a fortnight in the summer of 1793, and arranged them with a view to publication. On 5 July 1793 the university of Oxford granted Malone the degree of D.C.L. (Foster, Alumni Oxon.) James Caulfield [q. v.] some years later complained that on this visit to the Bodleian, Malone used his influence with the authorities to prevent him from pursuing an examination of Aubrey's manuscripts, which he had begun in the previous year. Malone seems to have discovered that Caulfield had employed as copyist one Curtis, an assistant in the Bodleian, who was guilty of serious depredations in the library. When Caulfield published some portion of his transcripts from Aubrey's manuscripts under the title of ‘The Oxford Cabinet’ (1797), Malone is reported to have bought up the whole edition (of 250 copies), and Caulfield thereupon issued ‘An Enquiry into the Conduct of Edmund Malone, Esq., concerning the Manuscript Papers of John Aubrey, F.R.S.,’ London, 1797.
In January 1808 Malone issued privately a tract on the origin of the plot of the ‘Tempest,’ associating it with the account of the discovery of the Bermudas issued in 1610 [see Jourdain, Sylvester]. Douce had published like conclusions in his ‘Illustrations’ in the previous year, but Malone's results were reached independently.
Twice Malone turned from purely Shakespearean researches to prick literary bubbles of the day. Jacob Bryant's endeavour to prove the genuineness of Chatterton's ‘Rowley Poems’ drew from him, at Lord Charlemont's suggestion, a sarcastic rejoinder in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1782, and this he afterwards reissued as ‘Cursory Observations on the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley, a priest of the fifteenth century,’ 1782. Thomas Warton and Tyrwhitt commended his efforts. Walpole wrote that Malone ‘unluckily has attempted humour, which is not an antiquary's weapon’ (Letters, viii. 149, cf. 161), but in a letter to Malone he agreed that he had ‘pointed their own artillery against them victoriously’ (ib. ix. 492).
In 1796 Malone published his better-known ‘Exposure of the Ireland Forgeries: an Inquiry into the authenticity of certain Papers attributed to Shakespeare’ [see Ireland, Samuel]. Steevens, despite his quarrel, acknowledged this to be ‘one of the most decisive pieces of criticism that was ever produced.’ Burke declared that he had revived ‘the spirit of that sort of criticism by which false pretence and imposture are detected.’ Ireland retorted in ‘An Investigation of Mr. Malone's Claim to the character of Scholar and Critic,’ 1796, and George Chalmers took up a similar attitude to Malone in his ‘Apology’ and ‘Supplemental Apology,’ 1797. For many years Malone amused himself by collecting everything published on the Chatterton or Ireland controversy.
As early as 1791 Malone projected an elaborate edition of Dryden's works and opened a correspondence with Sir David Dalrymple, lord Hailes [q. v.], who was reported to be engaged in a similar scheme. In 1800 there appeared in four volumes ‘The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden, with an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author.’ While engaged on the edition, Malone made a transcript of the well-known ‘Anecdotes’ of Joseph Spence [q. v.], which were then unprinted. The transcript proved of service to S. W. Singer, who first printed the ‘Anecdotes’ in 1820. The detailed care which Malone bestowed on Dryden's works excited the ridicule of George Hardinge [q. v.], who published two long-winded pamphlets: one entitled ‘The Essence of Malone,’ 1800, and the second, ‘Another Essence of Malone, or the Beauties of Shakespeare's Editor,’ in two parts, London, 1801, 8vo. Hardinge charges Malone with magnifying trifles; but though the attack is clever, it bears signs of malice, which destroys most of its value (cf. Nichols, Lit. Illustr. viii. 39). Sir Walter Scott, in his edition of Dryden, admitted that it would be hard to ‘produce facts which had escaped the accuracy of Malone, whose industry has removed the clouds which so long hung over the events of Dryden's life.’ A similar treatment of Pope seems to have been abandoned on the appearance of Joseph Warton's edition, in 1797.
In 1801 the university of Dublin conferred on Malone the degree of LL.D. He edited in 1808 (although his name did not appear) some manuscripts left by William Gerard Hamilton; and on the death of Windham, which greatly grieved him, he corrected
