Steevens's proposal to make over four rare plates by Hogarth in exchange for books. Steevens, in 1789, having procured a block of marble, and having engraved upon it by means of aquafortis some Anglo-Saxon letters, placed it in the window of a shop in Southwark, and caused it to be represented to the Society of Antiquaries that it had been dug up in Kennington Lane, and was the tombstone of Hardecanute. Jacob Schnebbelie [q. v.] produced in good faith a drawing, which was engraved by Basire and published in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1790, i. 217). Samuel Pegge, falling into the trap, read a paper on the inscription before the Society of Antiquaries on 10 Dec. 1789; but the deception was discovered before the disquisition was printed in the ‘Archæologia.’ An acrimonious correspondence between Steevens and those he hoped to dupe followed in the daily and monthly journals (Gent. Mag. 1790, i. 217, 290–92; General Evening Post, 25 Oct. 1790; Nichols, Lit. Illustrations, v. 430–32). Steevens finally committed the stone to the custody of Sir Joseph Banks, and it was regularly exhibited at his assemblies in Soho Square.
The resumption of his Shakespearean work diverted him from such mischievous sport. It was a needless dispute which he forced on a rival editor, Edmund Malone [q. v.], that led him to resume his editorial functions. Malone had contributed to Reed's edition of 1785 a few notes in which he differed from Steevens. Steevens demanded that Malone should transfer these notes without alteration to the edition of Shakespeare on which Malone was engaged between 1783 and 1790. Malone declined, and when his edition appeared in 1790 Steevens concentrated his energies on an effort to displace it. A new edition was set on foot. Reed aided with suggestions, and Steevens walked daily, late at night or in the early morning, from Hampstead to Reed's rooms in Staple Inn to correct the sheets. Reed was usually in bed. The edition was published in 1793 in fifteen volumes, and is the definitive contribution to Shakespearean exegesis that Steevens published in his lifetime. There were some twenty-five large-paper copies. ‘Pericles’ was added, at Farmer's suggestion, to the Shakespearean canon, but the sonnets and poems were excluded, for Steevens asserted that ‘the strongest act of parliament that could be framed would fail to compel readers into their service’ (p. vii). The illustrative notes were throughout replete in recondite learning, but the text was often recklessly altered in order to convict the cautious Malone of ineptitude. Malone was not the only personal foe on whom Steevens avenged himself. With a malignity that was not without humour he supplied many obscene notes to coarse expressions in the text, and he pretended that he owed his indecencies to one or other of two highly respectable clergymen, Richard Amner [q. v.] and John Collins (1741–1797) [q. v.], whose surnames were in each instance appended. He had known and quarrelled with both. Such proofs of his confirmed perversity justified the title which Gifford applied to him of ‘the Puck of Commentators.’
Steevens's fantastic acrimony provoked much retaliation. Tom Davies and Arthur Murphy both published repulsive sketches of him. But the denunciation that he felt most acutely was that in Mathias's ‘Pursuits of Literature,’ which appeared anonymously in 1794. When Steevens met Mathias, who was reported to deny the authorship of the ‘Pursuits,’ he remarked that the work could only be from the pen of ‘a liar and a blackguard’ (Clayden, Samuel Rogers, p. 384). Steevens further retorted in a coarse poem in the ‘St. James's Chronicle’ (1–3 May 1798) (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. i. 212). In the controversy respecting the authenticity of the Shakespearean manuscripts forged by young William Henry Ireland [q. v.] he intervened with characteristic asperity. He had previously distrusted the elder Ireland as a rival collector of Hogarth's prints. From 1795 to 1797 he assailed him and his friends with unrelaxing fury (cf. Gent. Mag. 1797, ii. 931); and when Gillray published a caricature of Ireland, Steevens prepared the inscription, parodying Dryden's verses on Milton, and crediting Ireland with the combined impudence of Lauder, Macpherson, and Chatterton.
In his last years Steevens was a frequent visitor at the house in Soho Square of Sir Joseph Banks, one of the few acquaintances familiarity with whom did not breed contempt. It is said that he used to present Banks daily with a nosegay which he carried with him from Hampstead, attached to his cane. In 1795 he joined with Bishop Percy in editing Surrey's poems, and those of other earlier practisers of blank verse; a first volume was printed, and Percy sent a second volume to press in 1807, but the whole impression excepting four copies, one of which is in the British Museum, was destroyed in the fire at Nichols's printing office in 1808. The work was not reprinted. In 1796 Steevens subscribed 1,000l. to Pitt's loyalty loan, and he held a commission in the Essex militia.
