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"Mr. Burke having received a copy of this Essay from the Author, again employed his matchless pen in the pleasing task of doing honour to the merits of his friend.

"MY DEAR SIR,

"Your letter is dated the first of the month; but I did not receive it, with the welcome and most acceptable present that came along with it, till late in the evening of yesterday; however, I could not postpone the satisfaction offered to me by your partiality and goodness; I got to the seventy-third page before I went to sleep, to which what I read did not greatly contribute. I do not know that for several years I longed so much for any literary object as for the appearance of this work. Far from having my expectations disappointed, I may say with great sincerity, that they have been infinitely exceeded. The spirit of that sort of criticism by which false pretence and imposture are detected, was grown very rare in this century; you have revived it with great advantage. Besides doing every thing which the vindication of the first genius perhaps in the world required from the hand of him who studied him the most, and illustrated him the best, you have in the most natural, happy, and pleasing manner, and as if you were drawn into it by your subject, given us a very interesting History of our Language, during that important period in which after being refined by Chaucer, it fell into the rudeness of civil confusion, and then continued in a pretty even progress to the state of correctness, strength, and elegance, in which we see it in your writings. Your note in which for the first time you leave the character of antiquary, to be, I am afraid, but too right in that of a prophet, has not escaped. Johnson used to say, he loved a good hater. Your admiration of Shakspeare would be ill sorted indeed, if your taste (to talk of nothing else) did not lead to a perfect abhorrence of the French Revolution, and all its works. Once more I thank you most heartily for the great entertainment you have given me as a Critic, as an Antiquary, as a Philologist, and as a Politician. I shall finish the book, I think, to day. This will be delivered to you by a young kinsman of mine, of Exeter College in Oxford. I think him a promising young man, very well qualified to be an admirer of yours, and, I hope, to merit your notice, of which he is very ambitious. I have the honour to be, my dear Sir, with true respect and affection,

"Your most faithful and very much obliged and obedient servant, EDM. BURKE."

"Mr. Malone, in the year 1792, had the misfortune to lose his admirable friend Sir Joshua

Reynolds, whose death has left a chasm in society which will not easily be supplied; and his executors, of whom Mr. Malone had the honour to be one, having determined in 1797 to give the world a complete collection of his works, he superintended the publication, and prefixed to it a very pleasing biographical sketch of their author.

"Although his attention was still principally directed to Shakspeare, and he was gradually accumulating a most valuable mass of materials for a new edition of that Poet, he found time to do justice to another. He drew together, from various sources, the Prose Works of Dryden, which, as some of them were originally appended to works which were little known, had never impressed the general reader with that opinion of their excellence which they deserved, and published them in 1800. The narrative which he prefixed is a most important accession to Biography. By active enquiry, and industrious and acute research, he ascertained many particulars of that Poet's life and character that had been supposed to be irrecoverably lost, and detected the falsehood of many a traditionary tale that had been carelessly repeated by former writers.

"In 1808 he prepared for the press a few productions of his friend the celebrated William Gerrard Hamilton, with which he had been entrusted by his executors; and prefixed to this also a brief but elegant sketch of his life.

"In 1810 his country was deprived of Mr. Windham. Mr. Malone, who equally admired and loved him, drew up a short memorial* of his amiable and illustrious friend, which originally appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine; and was afterwards, in an enlarged and corrected state, printed in a small pamphlet, and privately distributed. But, alas! the kind Biographer was too soon to want 'the generous tear he paid.' A gradual decay appears to

* See this Memoir hereafter, p. 470.

have undermined his constitution; and when he was just on the point of going to the press with his new edition of Shakspeare, he was interrupted by an illness, which proved fatal; and, to the irreparable loss of all who knew him, he died on the 25th of May, 1812, in the 70th year of his age. In his last illness he was soothed by the tender and unremitting attentions of his brother, Lord Sunderlin, and his youngest sister; the eldest from her own weak state of health, was debarred from this melancholy consolation. He left no directions about his funeral; but his Brother, who was anxious, with affectionate solicitude, to execute every wish he had formed, having inferred from something that dropt from him, that it was his desire to be buried among his ancestors in Ireland, his remains were conveyed to that country, and interred at the family seat of Baronston, in the county of Westmeath.

"Mr. Malone, in his person, was rather under the middle size. The urbanity of his temper, and the kindness of his disposition, were depictured in his mild and placid countenance. His manners were peculiarly engaging. Accustomed from his earliest years to the society of those who were distinguished for their rank or talent, he was at all times and in all companies easy, unembarrassed, and unassuming. It was impossible to meet him, even in the most casual intercourse, without recognizing the genuine and unaffected politeness of the gentleman born and bred. His conversation was in a high degree entertaining and instructive; his knowledge was various and accurate, and his mode of displaying it void of all vanity or pretension. Though he had little relish for noisy convivial merriment, his habits were social, and his cheerfulness uniform and unclouded. As a Scholar, he was libe rally communicative; and, as a proof that his youthful studies had by no means been forgotten, those who were intimate with him can well recollect the

delight he at all times expressed at receiving the letters of Dr. Michael Kearney. The communications of that elegant scholar would have gratified him had the writer been a stranger; but it is unnecessary to point out how much his pleasure was enhanced when he found them in the correspondence of one of his earliest and most highly valued friends.

"Attached, from principle and conviction, to the Constitution of his Country in Church and State, which his intimate acquaintance with its history taught him how to value, he was a loyal subject, a sincere Christian, and a true son of the Church of England. His heart was warm, and his benevolence active. His charity was prompt, but judicious and discriminating; not of that indolent kind that is carried away by every idle or fictitious tale of distress, but anxious to ascertain the nature and source of real calamity, and indefatigable in his efforts to relieve it. His purse and his time were at all times ready to remove the sufferings, and promote the welfare of others. As a friend, he was warm and steady in his attachments; respect for the feelings of those whose hearts are still bleeding for his loss, prevents me from speaking of him as a brother. This short and imperfect tribute to his memory is paid by one who for years has enjoyed his society, and been honoured with his confidence; and whose affection and respect were hourly increased by a nearer contemplation of his virtues. JAMES BOSWELL.”

Letters of Mr. MALONE to Mr. NICHOLS. "DEAR SIR, Sunday Morning, Aug. 17, 1783. "I find I have fallen into an error in one of my last observations on Shakspeare (printed in the Gentleman's Magazine), relative to the death of Cardinal Wolsey, by trusting to the printed memoirs of his life by Cavendish, in which it seems the words at which time it was apparent that he had poisoned himself,' are an interpolation, not being found in the original MS. now in the Museum. I wish you would write a line this month to Mr. Urban, under any signature you choose, to rectify this error, if it may be called one; and perhaps it may not be amiss, at the same time you correct Mr. Malone, to add that you are happy to hear that this ingenious gentleman, or whatever else you please to call him, has undertaken, and is now preparing a new Edition of Shakspeare, with select notes from all the Commentators. This would answer, I think, better than a direct advertisement.

"The Bishop of Dromore †, from whom I had a letter yesterday, mentions that the MS. of Cavendish's Life of Wolsey differs from the printed copy in many particulars, and thinks it would be worth re-printing. Might it not very well make one of the numbers of your Antiquities? I suppose it would not make above an hundred pages. I beg you will be so good as to deliver the parcel that was left tied up at your house yesterday to Mr. Reed. It was directed, but the direction may have escaped your notice. 66 If you have a copy of Sir Simonds D'Ewes ready, I shall be obliged to you for it, or rather for two; one for myself, another for the Bishop of Dromore. If you have any thing else to send to him, I will convey it with pleasure-I am just preparing to set out for Ireland, for a few months. My address there is, E. Malone, Esq. Baronston, Mullingar, Ireland.' I am, dear Sir,

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Your faithful and very humble servant, EDMOND MALONE."

2. "DEAR SIR,

April 7, 1785.

"Have you been able to gain any intelligence for me about the Warwickshire Wills §? If I recollect right, I think you said *This request was complied with. See Gent. Mag. vol. LIII. p. 639. + My excellent Friend and Relation, Dr. Thomas Percy. N.

The XVth Number of the "Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica," containing "Extracts from the Journal of Simonds D'Ewes," was printed from a transcript sent by Mr. Malone.

§ There was a report at this time in private circulation (I heard it from Mr. Samuel Ireland) that in an Attorney's office at or near Measham, on the border of the four counties of Leicester, Derby, Warwick, and Stafford, a discovery had been made of the copies of some old Wills and other curious documents connected with the Family of the far-famed Warwickshire Bard. This naturally interested Mr. Malone; at whose request I made some enquiries on the subject, which, it is needless to add, proved fruitless; though I have no doubt but that the origin of the fictitious Shaksperian MSS. may be dated from this early period.

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