ABSTRACT
In the preparation of his Specimen, Walter Whiter seems to have made use chiefly of Mr. Malone’s edition of Shakespeare, 1790, and the 1780 edition of Dodsley’s Old Plays. The exact date when Whiter began work on his revision of the Specimen remains a matter of conjecture. Whiter’s published works are all that remain to give testimony to his achievements: the Specimen, the Etymologicon Magnum, the expanded Etymologicon Universale, the Dissertation on Death already discussed and the lesser known collection of poems, published privately in 1819 as Verses in Commemoration of Shakespeare’s Birthday: Celebrations at Hariingham. All the extant manuscript notes of Whiter which contributed to his work on Shakespeare are preserved in the Cambridge University Library: and apart from any possible material in the now lost Commonplace Book, Journal, and ‘my folio book’, Whiter himself makes no reference to any other of his own writings specifically on Shakespeare.
