Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy seizes every occasion for inaccuracy, and now and then makes an occasion, in the absence of a decent opportunity, for blundering. What does Mr. MacCarthy mean 'by University College at Cambridge?' Oxford has a college styled University College; there is a college so called in London; but Cambridge has no University College. By the charitable writer of the present page, it is assumed that by 'University College _at_ Cambridge,' Mr. MacCarthy (who is so merciless and malignant to Hogg for his occasional inaccuracies) means The Cambridge University Library. Let it be so assumed by the reader.
It follows, that some years since Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy sought by printed circular for a copy of this Shelleyan poem (which possibly was never published) in the shop of nearly every second-hand bookseller in Great Britain and Ireland; that he caused the Librarians of the Bodleian Library, and the Cambridge University Library, to search for a copy of the poem in their libraries; that he induced Mr. Quaritch of Piccadilly, Mr. Stibbs of Museum Street, and the Messrs. Longmans of Paternoster Row, 'and others,' to make search by advertisements and special inquiries, for a copy of the poem,--without coming upon a copy after all the trouble.
Yet more:--Hogg never heard of this poem; Peacock never heard of it, so far as the evidences go; no one of the poet's friends or relations appears ever to have heard of it; no review of the poem has come to light; and (more remarkable yet!) no one of the many published lists of subscriptions to the Finerty Fund, to be found in the _Morning Chronicle_, and other papers of the period (examined by Mr. MacCarthy), makes mention of any single contribution amounting to 100_l._,--of _any_ contributions whatever as the result of the sale of the poem.
What a labour of searching for a copy of the poem, and for evidence about the poem, that may never have been written! Surely the searching would have resulted in the discovery of a copy, had 2000 copies passed into circulation, or in the discovery of some stronger evidence of the poem's publication, had the sale of the work yielded any considerable sum of money to the Fund, which amounted in the course of twelve months to something more than 1000_l._