There is a sort of mystery attached to this legend or story, as to the
authorship of it, that requires some clearing up.
The first time I read it was in T. C. Croker's "Fairy Legends,"
which appeared in 1825, 3 vols. small 8vo.; but what the editor or
writer calls a compressed edition, forms a volume of "Murray's Family
Library," and was published in 1834. At page 134 of this latter edition
the story commences, as if narrated by Daniel himself, and the writer
says, "I knew the man well,--an old man was he at the time _he told me
the story_, and it was on the 25th of June, 1813, that _I heard it from
his own lips_."
All this seems very circumstantial, but it is somewhat singular that
this same story, with very slight variation, is to be found in the 18th
volume of Dr. Anderson's "Bee," for January, 1794, p. 338, the party
communicating it, saying, "The inclosed is genuine, and I honour the
_lady_ who had the merit of putting it in writing."
There is also some account of its previous publication, communicated
in the 34th volume of the "Dublin University Magazine," p. 202, but
not having the volume at hand, I do not recollect the particulars, my
chief object being to refer to Prior's "Memoir of the Life of Burke,"
third edition, 1839, at p. 100 of which we are distinctly told that
Mr. Doyle, a surgeon, of Dublin, was the _author_ of Daniel O'Rourke's
Dream.
Now it is right that the real author should not be deprived of the
merit of a story, which has even been translated into French, and
published in the "Magasin Pittoresque" for 1843, with two humorous wood
cuts.