# Life of Edmond Malone/Chapter 9

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London: Smith, Elder & Co., pages 184–208
CHAPTER IX.
1792—1793.
“January 6th, 1792.—A call from Dr. Joseph Warton produced a conversation respecting Spence, author of the Anecdotes, who he maintained Dr. Johnson had under-rated.
“He told me that Spence once intended to publish his Anecdotes, and had actually sold them to Robert Dodsley for a hundred pounds. Before the matter was finally settled both Spence and Dodsley died. Spence’s executors, Dr. G. Ridley and Dr. South, late Bishop of London (who mentioned this circumstance to Dr. Warton), on looking over the Anecdotes found there were so many personal strokes affecting persons then living, that suppression at least for a time was deemed the more prudent course.
“James Dodsley, brother to Robert, relinquished his bargain, though he probably would have gained 400l. or 500l. by it, being unwilling that anything should appear prejudicial to the memory of Spence. The executors sealed up the papers and delivered them to Spence’s patron, the present Duke of New​castle, in whose hands they remain. They were lent to the late Duchess Dowager of Portland, and to Dr. Johnson while he was writing the Lives of the Poets; and have also passed through other hands. They are, Dr. Warton says very entertaining, and full of curious information.”
In issuing an edition of Shakspeare, Malone could not expect to escape the usual lot of the author and editorial race—contradiction and censure. Accordingly, there came out a pamphlet of a hundred pages early in 1792—Cursory Criticisms on the Edition of Shakspeare, by Edmond Malone. The writer was judged and proved to be, the unhappy Ritson, whose many eccentricities, literary and otherwise, added to morbid tendencies to find fault with all his brethren, terminated in insanity.
“A Letter to the Rev. Richard Farmer, D.D., &c.” in April 1792 with his name affixed, gives Malone’s reply. He is sufficiently triumphant; sometimes a little prone in return for ridicule and sarcasm, to charge his critic with the usual tricks of such a trade.—“Fraught with the usual materials of hypercriticism, that is, with unblushing cavil, false argument, and false quotation.” . . . .
“When my admiration of his (Shakspeare’s) innumerable beauties led me to undertake an edition of his works, I then thought it my duty to exert every faculty to make it as perfect as I could, and in order to ensure a genuine text, to collate word by word every line of his plays and poems with the original and authentick copies—a task equally new and arduous. By this laborious process I obtained ​one thousand six hundred and fifty-four emendations of the text.”
The number of lines collated in the plays, he tells us, amounted to nearly one hundred thousand. The errors alleged by his critic are thirteen; but as five are his own mistakes, the actual numbers are eight. So enormous a tax on industry has been rarely so successful in its results.
However unanimous our national love of Shakspeare, no love whatever exists among those who make him a theme for the exercise of their ingenuity. All his editors, critics, and commentators agree to differ—nay, not differ only, but wage war upon each other with all the fury of the celebrated genus of Kilkenny cats, who fight till not a fragment is left of either combatant! Utter extinction of an adversary—in pen and ink I mean—is the aim of most Shakspearemen—and why? Each has a new view, a new inference, a new conjecture, a new explanation, which, whether with or without a basis, he expects shall fill the post of honour and be alone accepted as truth.
Apparitions of such volumes haunt the reader’s path in every shop or stall of books. The eye scarcely rests upon one when another aims to thrust it into oblivion. To displace it is scarcely enough. The book and the writer must be gibbeted if it be only for inadvertence, as if he had committed one of the deadly sins. “Another and another still succeeds,” and meets with a similar fate. “Come like shadows, so depart,” is the rule for these pugnacious candidates for distinction. Few happily are destined to survive the contest. Were Shakspeare still more ​delightful than he is, the fact of having, however unintentionally, overshadowed the land with an army of commentators ever at war with each other and often with staid, good sense, is of itself a serious drawback to the gratification derived from perusal of his works.
Previous to this critical attack, he had lost by the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds one of those endeared friends whom the chances of life even in a great metropolis, seldom allow us to meet, or when lost to replace. The pursuits of the editor enjoyed the favour of the President; while the public merits of the latter commanded that distinction which is due to eminent genius when it carries its owner far beyond his fellows.
Still more cordial if possible was the painter’s association with Burke. It had commenced thirty-four years before, when neither could anticipate that career of celebrity which both were destined to run. The pursuit of one was already fixed. Not so that of the other. Fate was hovering over him, doubtful as yet whether to make him a literary man, a lawyer, a consul, ​or cast him as she eventually did, into a life-long line of political contention and enlightened statesmanship, embracing not only the interests of our own nation, but of the world. Yet this trying process had no effect in deadening his affections. More than once his tears and his pen, while executing the trust reposed in him as executor by the departed, proved that the same warmth and worth that had stamped the little-known man of letters in 1758, imbued the great statesman at the summit of fame, in 1792. His Hail and Farewell to the artist forms a literary portrait of the highest order.
Goldsmith, nearly twenty years previously, had judged Reynolds not less kindly than justly in the jocular epitaph in Retaliation—
Nor should it be here omitted that a fourth worthy son of Ireland, Lord Charlemont, participated not less warmly in these feelings. In his visits to England, hours were given to conversation with Reynolds upon art and Italy in which he was well informed. He occasionally dined with the President to meet Burke, Malone, and other men of note and literature; had his portrait painted; received for private perusal the MS. of Reynolds’s Flemish Travels, until frequent communication instructed both that nature had tinctured their minds with kindred elements of good ​taste and mutual respect and esteem. In writing to Malone, his lordship had often desired to be remembered to his Club-mates, “more especially and affectionately to Mr. Walpole and Sir Joshua;” and when his death was announced, replied immediately to Malone (March 1st, 1792) in the following strain:—
How erroneously do we judge of our own happiness! Here have I been for many years past regretting and lamenting the situation into which Fate and my duty have plunged me, principally because I have been thereby almost totally deprived of all possible society with the greater part of my early connections. Yet experience has now demonstratively shown me that this very privation, by me so long regretted, has in its effects been fortunate. Since, however, I may be sincerely grieved at the loss of those early friends, my grief would certainly have been much more pungent, if the circumstances of my life had allowed me continually to increase and to fortify those friendships by constant and endearing intercourse.
Poor Sir Joshua! How good—how kind—how truly amiable and respectable! The best of men—whose talents, though an honour to his country, were the least of his qualifications! Indeed, I most sincerely lament him, and ought, perhaps, still more to grieve for you, my dearest Edmond, who have lost the society of a friend so justly dear, of a companion so truly valuable. Yet let us not repine. All is surely for the best; and perhaps our own dissolution would be scarcely tolerable to us, if our life were not from time to time, as it were, habituated to death in the persons of our friends. . . . .
Send me in your next cargo the octavo edition of our friend’s lectures. Compleat also, if you can, my collection of the quartos, which he sometimes forgot to send me.
What were Malone’s immediate thoughts upon this regretted event we find in his memoranda, which are here in part transcribed:—
​“The dear friend so often mentioned in these papers, Sir Joshua Reynolds, died at his house in Leicester Fields, last Thursday evening (Feb. 23, 1792), at half past eight o’clock. So much have I been employed for some days past, he having done me the honour to make me one of his executors, that I have not been able till this moment to set down any of the particulars of that sad event.
“I became first acquainted with him in 1778, and for these twelve years past we have lived in the greatest intimacy. The morning after his death, Mr. Burke drew up a short character of him which was inserted not quite correctly, in The Gazetteer, and in The Herald the following day. It is so perfectly just, appropriate, and discriminative, that it is not easy to add to it. He was blessed with such complacency and equality of temper, was so easy, so uniformly cheerful, so willing to please and be pleased, so fond of the company of literary men, so well read in mankind, so curious an observer of character, and so replete with various knowledge and entertaining anecdotes, that not to have loved as well as admired him would have shown great want of taste and sensibility. He had long enjoyed such constant health, looked so young, and was so active, that I thought, though he was sixty-nine years old, he was as likely to live eight or ten years longer as any of his younger friends.
“On our return from an excursion to Mr. Burke’s at Beaconsfield last September, we alighted from his ​coach, and while the horses baited at the half-way house, we walked five miles very smartly in a warm day without his being fatigued. About three years ago he found some defect in his sight whilst painting the picture of Lady Beauchamp, if I remember right, and then determined to paint no more. Soon afterwards he entirely lost the sight of his left eye. From that period he became very apprehensive of losing the other also, yet his uniform cheerfulness never forsook him till very lately.
“I cannot help thinking that we should not have lost this most amiable man for some years, had there not been want of exertion, combined with some want of skill in his physicians. In September, he was much distressed by swelling and inflammation over the lost eye, owing as has been since thought, to some extravasated blood. For this Mr. Cruikshank, who was called in as surgeon, bled him with leeches, purged and blistered him repeatedly, all in vain; for the swelling and pain in that part remained till the period of death. This pain led him to fear that the other eye would be soon affected; and from this or other causes, his spirits became depressed and his appetite daily decreased. In this state he continued in the month of November. The physicians who then attended, Sir George Baker and Dr. Warren, assured him that his remaining eye was in no danger, and that with respect to any other complaint, if he would but exert himself, take exercise, and think himself well, he would be well.
“Unfortunately, they paid little attention to his loss of appetite and depression of spirits. Even ​while he was gradually wasting, their constant language was—‘What can we do for a man who will do nothing for himself?’ At the same time they owned they could not discern his disorder, though he was ready and willing to follow such prescriptions as they should direct. All this while, that is during the months of November, December, and January, they made not the least attempt to investigate the seat or origin of his disease; nor did they call for the aid of a surgeon to examine his body minutely, and thus discover the latent mischief.
“Dr. Blagdon (Secretary of the Royal Society, who had studied physic, and practised for some time in America) alone uniformly declared he was confident the complaints of Sir Joshua Reynolds were not imaginary, but well founded, and that some of the principal viscera were affected. His conjecture proved but too correct; for on his body being opened, his liver which ought to have weighed aboul five pounds, had attained the great weight of eleven pounds. It was also somewhat scirrhus. The optic nerve of the left eye was quite shrunk, and more flimsy than it ought to have been. The other, which he was so apprehensive of losing, was not affected. In his brain was found more water than is usual in men of his age.”
One of the legatees of Sir Joshua was the poet Mason—his gift, The Miniature of Milton by Cooper. The announcement made to him produced the following letter to Malone, which from one filling a prominent place in English literature, deserves record here—
Aston, May 26th, 1792.
Sir,—I have for some time expected to receive from my friend Mr. Stonehewer the valuable miniature which Sir Joshua Reynolds bequeathed me, and which he received from Miss Palmer; but as he has lately written to tell me that he waits for a safer conveyance than he has yet met with, I will not defer answering your most obliging letter any longer, and returning my thanks for your having settled matters with Mr. Cadell respecting Du Fresnoy in a manner more than satisfactory to me.
I have to thank you also for the trouble you have taken in sending me so much information relative to the controversy concerning Milton’s portrait, and for giving me your own opinion also concerning the writing affixed to it, which with you, I think to have been written much later than Sir Joshua imagined.
My supposition is, that Deborah Milton might have been, before her father’s death, in possession of the picture in question. Cooper might himself have painted it at her request, after her father was blind, and it might have been her property before she was on bad terms with him. There is great probability also for thinking that either her indigent circumstances or of those she left behind her, might have induced them to sell it to some unknown person at a low price, and that it might have got into a third hand, who wrote on hearsay the memorandum which certainly contains blunders, if not falsehoods. I have, however, no doubt but that Cooper painted it and that Milton sat for it.
Sir Joshua says, in his letter to Urban, that the “drop serene is not visible in the miniature,” but for myself, I have long been of a different opinion, and when I was last in residence in York, I sent a young, blind musician to my friend Dr. Burney, with a recommendatory letter, and requested (at a time when I was ignorant of poor Sir Joshua’s danger) that he would contrive he might be a living argument on my aide of the question. And I am persuaded that were you to see the unfortunate youth, you would perceive a similar cast of eye in his countenance. It is this very cast and indirect glance which gave the portrait that shrewd cunning look ​which you justly remarked in it, and which I fairly believe neither Milton nor the young man had before the gutta serena was confirmed. Perhaps what I have said may induce you to speak to Dr. Burney on the subject, who if you wish it, would easily give you an opportunity of seeing the person I have mentioned.
I have for many years neglected to examine the various editions of Shakspeare which have been published since Warburton's. I must therefore take shame to myself when I own that I have not seen more of your edition than a great turning over some of its volumes has given me, which, however, has convinced me that you have taken such minute, accurate, and laudable pains in restoring the text, that I think you might well have spared the trouble of taking notice of so poor an antagonist as you have in the pamphlet you have done me the honour to send, and to whom I think you have given more than ample confutation.
I guess him to be the same person who a few years ago treated the late Mr. T. Warton with the same sort of scurrility, but I neither knew nor wish to know his name. I should (were I you) have contented myself with calling him in Shakspearian phrase—
But here, you see, I adopt a reading which you have discarded for this reason. To teem or team (I know not which is the right spelling) is a northern verb used for pouring one thing through another, or into another. That species of sieve or (illegible) which separates flour from bran is with us called a temze. Hence, therefore, the word might be altered to untemzible, a sieve which will let nothing pass through it; and though I cannot, in All's Well that Ends Well, find the passage, and therefore am ignorant of the context; yet the epithet captious leads me to think that Shakspeare meant to say that the person spoken to was so captious that he would let nothing pass, like a sieve of too close a fabric or texture. I by no means, however, wish you to adopt either of these readings in your next editions, lest they should be laid to the charge of that Mr. Mason, some of whose notes you have ​already admitted, and which I have heard were supposed to be mine, and whom I take to be the gentleman who published an edition of Massinger.
The engraving which you favoured me with is extremely elegant, and I have only to wish that I had better right to it by having attended the funeral of our excellent friend. The great distance I am from town, and some other reasons which disincline me from going there, were I assure you, the only reasons which prevented me. I beg you to present my best respects to Miss Palmer; and that you would believe me to be, with all sincerity, your highly obliged and very faithful servant,
W. Mason.
If I can persuade myself to revise my translation again, I shall send you that revision in due time.
In the summer he made a journey to Oxford, in order as he would term pretty diligent work, to be idle. Business and pleasure were however conjoined; for while the mornings were passed in examining old books and manuscripts, the evenings called forth those hospitalities which several acquaintance familiar with his table in London were desirous to repay.
Several letters from Lord Charlemont during this year, indicate a pretty active correspondence His lordship smiles at Malone's idea of idleness—turns to Burke from whose politics he differs widely, being a strong Whig, yet a still stronger admirer of the great powers of his old friend—and concludes an interesting letter (August 20th, 1792) upon the stock subject of literature and prints.
If I could grudge you any pleasure, I should think with some degree of envy on your fortnight spent at Oxford, as exclusive of your particular business there, I know of no place where much time can be spent with more satisfaction. Ten times at least have I visited that venerable seat of the Muses, and could with delight revisit it ten times more; perfectly agreeing with a travelled friend of mine whom I have heard declare that, after having seen the whole world, Oxford was most worthy of a traveller’s attention.
You have, it must be confessed, much work upon your hands, and are undoubtedly right in allowing yourself to be idle for a few weeks; but surely your idleness is of a whimsical kind; and if poring over old manuscripts with eyes already well nigh worn out in the service be a relaxation, I can scarcely guess what you would call labour.
Burke is, indeed, a young man of his years. But the reason I take to be, that if age should deprive him of one half of his ideas he would still have more left him than any man of five-and-twenty. If he has really given up politics—a cession which I wish heartily he had made twelve months ago—literature will be his only resource, and he will yet be able to delight and to inform mankind. I cannot, with you, however, recommend a revisal of the Sublime and Beautiful, since, notwithstanding the miraculous texture of his brain, thirty years I fear may have taken from him more in fire and fancy than they have given in experience.
When I mentioned Fabricius to you, I was, as you may recollect, desirous of possessing a copy of all his works. They are all of them curious, and in my present course of study necessary for consultation. A Dublin bookseller, now on the Continent has promised if possible to procure them for me.
Boydell’s second number I have, thanks to your brother, safely received. I do not see why people should be disappointed, as the large prints appear to me excellent, and the small ones ​are, I am told, to be engraved anew. The difference, indeed, between the proofs and the ordinary prints is inconceivable—a not unusual trick with London engravers; and this may, I doubt not, have depreciated the work.
Respecting the Milton to be chosen, you leave me undecided, and your brother is not in town. Milton does not seem to me a bad subject for prints, though, indeed, a very difficult one. The Paradisaic scenes most certainly give the fullest scope to the genius of the landscape painter, and the figures, though but two, might be beautifully varied. Heaven and hell might also produce incomparable pictures, but the genius of the artist must be in some degree analogous to that of the poet, a coincidence, I confess, not easily to be found. Dramatick poetry is, however, far better fitted for picturesque representation than the epodée, since the peculiar business of the former is to speak to the eye as well as to the ear, and every scene ought in effect to be a picture. . . . . I have procured here the Loves of the Plants; but your having procured it for me in London will be of no consequence, as I can easily get rid of that I had. The East India books will be highly acceptable, and I wish to have them as soon as may be.
Three other letters from him to the same friend touch upon Royal Irish Academy matters, book auctions, prices, Bibliotheca of Fabricius, Asiatic Researches, Institutions of Timour, Boydell's Shakspeare, and the question “What are these Miltons? Which is the best?” The amiable writer, as usual, makes numberless apologies for occupying his correspondent's time; but invariably concludes by adding to the tax. It was the happy spirit of two good-natured men anxious to please and be pleased with each other.
Occasional correspondents also from Dublin amused him with lighter topics of the day. Among these was Mr. K. M. Jephson, nephew of the drama​tist, who thus sketches (February, 1793) two persons of no ordinary note in that country, one of whom figures unhappily in the page of history. This was Lord Edward Fitzgerald. He had it appears previous to this time, termed the Lord Lieutenant (Westmoreland), and the majority of the House of Commons, “the worst subjects the king had;” and would make no other apology than that he was sorry he had used words contrary to parliamentary usage. “He is turned,” says Jephson, “a complete Frenchman—crops his hair, despises his title, walks the streets instead of riding, and thence says he feels more pride in being on a level with his fellow citizens.”
I was fortunate enough to get a sight of the celebrated Pamela, as I happened to be sitting with Lord Charlemont when they both came to see his library. She is elegant and engaging I think in the highest degree, and showed the most judicious taste in her remarks upon the library and curiosities. The Dublin ladies, I understand, wish to put her down. . . . She promised Lord Charlemont with great good humour, to assist him in keeping her husband in order. She seems something about the size and figure of Mrs. (Scot?) but rather plumper. She was dressed in a plain riding-habit, and came to the door in a curricle.
Robert Jephson, to whose tragedies he had stood in the position of second parent, now aimed to put his skill and patience to a new test. He was about to launch a poem. To revise the plan, scan the characters, revolve the sentiments, correct the language—in fact, to put that mental machinery into ​motion which can alone produce a finished piece, and then to carry the whole through the press, were the duties expected from the critic. Alas! how rarely is this done faithfully. The delicacy of the operation precludes even a friend from doing what even the poet himself in all sincerity may wish, in order to secure his path to immortality. But he has not the heart to pull his offspring to pieces. A man may write nonsense in prose, yet in time become aware of the fact and amend it. Not so at all times with verse; it is a more cherished kind of offspring. The one is the son, the other the daughter of his fancy; and with all natural partiality for the more delicate and beautiful party, sees not her faults or tries to excuse them. He views her with admiration and tenderness, soothes her with a father’s care; and if direct praise from him be not admissible, takes care to show devoted though silent attachment to the child of his imagination. Who may venture to disturb this complacency by hinting to the parent unpalatable truths?
The poem was Roman Portraits. Malone, although busily occupied in researches connected with stage history, and in meeting the cavils or indirect censures of Steevens, gave his time freely to the task. Frequent correspondence as to the necessary alterations ensued. Many of these letters lie before me, of which the following is the first. But the piece did not issue into life until the following year, and has not retained hold of public opinion.
Dublin Castle, May l6th, 1793.
My dear Edmund,—I was very glad yesterday to receive your letter of the 11th, accompanied by a proof sheet. I ​think nor in the eleventh line of Lucius Brutus should be not, and in the short quotation from Valerius Maximus the last word valuit should be maluit. I see no other mistakes you have not corrected. If those two I have mentioned are too late for the copy, they may be put in errata.
I have no doubt of the malignity of Steevens. I have always heard him described as the most malevolent of human beings. I hope you will not spare him, and I think your forte in writing is personality. You could not possibly have a more worthy subject for its exercise.
It gives me great concern to hear such a bad account of your sight: there is one certain way of preserving it, by abstaining from what has injured it; don’t go on poking into small crabbed manuscripts, or you will be as blind as Tiresias. Can’t you get some young lusty Epidaurian-eyed drudge to make out the text for you, and so save your own peepers? I agree with you entirely, that a man who has a relish for literature need never look to old age with despondency. It is that prospect which comforts me; and so long as there are books, and I keep my relish for them, time may be too short for me, but I shall never last too long for time. I know some worthy friends who depended upon field-sports for their amusement, and being now grown infirm, their existence is a load, because they have no substitute to fill up the space which was once devoted to bodily exercise.
It gives me the greatest satisfaction to hear that you have resolved upon getting engravings. Twenty, as you mention, will be sufficient. I shall be very impatient to see some specimens, and flatter myself you will not fail to send them to me with the earliest opportunity. They will make it look handsome, and with such paper, type, and engravings, the book will have at least the outside of a gentleman. I forgot in my distribution of copies in presents, two persons very material; one the Marquis of Townshend, the other the Prince of Wales. To the latter I wish you could contrive in my name to present it yourself, or consult Mr. Hamilton what will be the most respectful and proper manner of doing ​it. His Royal Highness was very gracious about me when I was in England last.
My Scipio whom you ask about is the conqueror of Hannibal, at the battle of Zama, and I believe the same as in Melmoth’s translation of the Dialogue, but it is not in the least material, and I am glad you have got a good head to copy from. You know that there were many Scipios—the two most illustrious are those Virgil refers to:—
I think 750 a very small number of copies, but I must submit. I flatter myself it will bear more than one edition. The price of the book, with such paper and engravings, should be at least one guinea; what is it to be fixed at? I don’t see the number of lines marked on the margin, as you said you would order.
I send with this some new lines for Augustus, and for the Augustan age; also an extract from the Confessions de Jaques Batiste Couteau, Citoyen Français, from which you may form some notion of the performance. I have, as you recommended, translated into English as much as I had originally written in French, and the mere manual operation of writing in a print hand has been very tedious. About ten chapters in both languages are finished—about a hundred pages of paper, something less than this (foolscap). Two persons who paid me my income as agents are broke, and the profits of a book at present are very material to me. I shall be for a long time in a deplorable way about money. I hope you have not suffered by the times.
I am glad to hear that Courtenay is become less outrageous. He had a great deal of republican frenzy to spare, and yet enough left to qualify very well for an apartment among Moorfields collegians. Adieu! my dear Malone. I am ever most sincerely yours,
Robert Jephson.
I can’t be aware even what small matter I have left for your objection in the preface.}}
​Among the anecdotes with which I have diversified the conclusion of the present work, are several gleaned by Malone at the Club. Few there but had mingled largely in society, knew the most noted public characters, or were intimate with those who did. One of these was Bishop Douglas, detector of Lauder’s forgery concerning Milton, and a successor in the see of Salisbury to a more celebrated name, of whom he found a few remaining anecdotes. His memory in historical, biographical, and literary incidents of the previous half century, appeared unusually well-stored, and were freely drawn forth by a little judicious prompting.
“Tuesday, February 12th, 1793.—We had a very good club, only eight—Bishop Douglas, Nuncliff? Percy, Marlay, Mr. Langton, Mr. Boswell, Mr. Steevens, and myself. On the preceding meeting we had fifteen members—much too numerous to be pleasant.
“Dr. Douglas, talking of Burnet, mentioned that several of his characters were softened down by his son the judge, chiefly by omissions. The person who had been employed as amanuensis, a clergyman I believe of Salisbury, was not faithful to his trust, and some of these omissions appeared afterwards in a pamphlet which the Bishop possesses. He has some more in manuscript which are not in that pamphlet.
“Burnet, he said, was extremely passionate and violent in his resentments. He piqued himself on preaching without book. Some of his sermons, however, are in print. At one of his visitations, when ​the name of a very old clergyman was called over (of whom a private complaint had been made that the parish could not endure him, he gave such bad sermons), he gravely chided the poor parson—‘I am told, Mr. ———, that your parish is very well satisfied with you in many respects, but they are much discontented with your sermons. Now there is no excuse for this; for instead of preaching extempore, as I am told you sometimes do, or giving them your own compositions, you have only to preach good printed sermons, and they will have no cause for complaint.’—‘May it please your lordship,’ replied the clergyman, ‘you have been wholly misinformed. I have been long in the habit of preaching printed sermons, and those I have preferred are your lordship’s!’
“When Burnet once rated his son, afterwards the judge, for something indecorous that he had done, ‘Lord, sir, I can’t help it; I was forced to do it for bread.’—‘Get you gone,’ replied the Bishop, ‘it was for drink.’
“Bishop Douglas, it appears, was principally concerned in issuing out the Life and Continuation of Lord Clarendon, at Oxford in 1759. He says that Lord Clarendon’s character of Monk was much stronger coloured (i.e., he was more censured by his Lordship) than appears at present. But such alterations as were made in the manuscript—which were chiefly to soften the characters—were made by Lord Clarendon’s heirs before it came to Oxford.
“Lord Onslow has from his father, all the castrated sheets of Burnet’s History. The judge pro​mised to put his father’s MS. into a public library, but never did. Bishop Douglas said he was assured, from good authority, that he had been accustomed to read parts of his work to some old people of a former age, and to make alterations which they suggested, when in fact they were wrong and he right. He yielded in this way often to Lord Portmore.
“Bishop Douglas told us, the same day, that old Dr. King, of St. Mary Hall, prophesied, before he died, that when the Hanover family were securely established on the throne, and the pretensions of the Stuarts comparatively at an end, the Whigs of England would become Republicans. This prophecy is in some measure verifying in our own days; particularly since the new and accursed doctrines of equality, &c., have been broached by Paine in England and the French savages on the Continent.”
At one of these club meetings, though probably of more recent date than this year, an instance of illnature was alleged against Malone by Rogers the poet, as I am informed by a distinguished literary friend. In the height of revolutionary proceedings in France, Rogers, not at all reserved in giving full swing to Whig opinions of the day, came forward as candidate for the Club, and was blackballed. This he attributed to Malone—whether truly or not is doubtful, as the ballot leaves no clue to trace the party. But strong opinions from any one were likely to give offence to many members; and there was something perhaps of reprisal in the result; for Dr. French Laurence, the intimate friend of Burke, had ​been previously rejected by other dissentients. Boswell however on one or two occasions privately to our Critic, pointed at Steevens and Sir Joseph Bankes as sometimes showing their distaste in this manner.
The diligence of Malone had not ceased with the publication of Shakspeare. Time added daily to his stores relative to the Poet, the stage, the language, and allusions of former days, as illustrative of the text. He had become also fully alive to the mechanical defects of the previous work—small print and a close page. All these imperfections he sought to correct; and ambition even aimed at “royal quartos with engravings,” to which Jephson alludes in the previous letter.
In pursuit of all possible knowledge for this project, his friends at Stratford were not forgotten. To Dr. Davenport he writes in April 1793:—
“For my own part, after having for two years reposed from Shakspearian labours, I am now once more going to resume them, and to put a splendid quarto edition to the press, of which I enclose you the prospectus. This is the occasion of my giving you the present trouble, as the first work I mean to set about is the Life of Shakspeare. For this I have a good many materials already in print, to be woven together into a connected narrative with the addition of some information obtained too late for my octavo edition. Will you allow me once again to resume our Shakspearian disquisition,—‘Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety.’”
To his humble friend Jordan he is equally commu​nicative later in the same year,—says it is long since they have had any Shakspearian talk, “for that can never tire;” sends him also a prospectus of the proposed “new edition of the Poet, in fifteen volumes, royal quarto, embellished by Heath from paintings by Stothard;” afterwards announces that “he will be at Stratford to-morrow (Nov. 19), on his way to Ireland, and means to call upon him,” and finishes, as usual, with a good supply of queries.
The reference to Steevens in the following letter from Lord Charlemont, as in that from Jephson, arose from the unhappy disposition of that gentleman to pursue in bitterness of spirit any supposed adversary or rival. Although he had at one time, as we have seen, recommended his then friend to edit Shakspeare, compliance with this wish extinguished his favour, if not friendship. The younger Critic became in his eyes offensive, because he could not acquiesce in all opinions of the elder. The results were actual hostility to Malone, whom in order to annoy, he re-published his own edition in 1793, to prevent any re-issue by one now considered by him an intruder.
I have lately seen (October, 1793),—for Heaven forbid that I should have bought!— Steevens’s last edition of Shakspeare. You know I always disliked the man, and certainly the manner in which he mentions you has by no means diminished my dislike. In all he says there is but too visibly a feeble, though, thanks to his slender abilities, a fruitless attempt to damn with faint praise, which is certainly the species of satire least creditable to its author. Besides, that a publication at this period has at least the appearance of being meant to check the progress of your intended quarto, ​and indeed he has taken care to preserve for himself the only advantage he can ever have over you, by making his edition far more legible than that which you last published. The quarto however will not I trust, be affected by it: indeed, I now wish for its success more ardently than ever. Yet it is whispered here among the booksellers that the present state of the times may possibly retard its coming forth. I hope otherwise.
A month later his lordship writes again:
Improbus—with your ardour, talents, and indefatigable diligence, my dearest Malone, it is utterly impossible you should fail of success. We may now flatter ourselves that we shall shortly know all that ever can be known of that first of bards, whose writings alone would have rendered the poetick fame of his country immortal.
All I dread is that your sight—with which mine has a sad fellow-feeling—will never hold out to the end of your pursuit; and the bare idea of your having examined three thousand antique papers, the greater part of which were legible with difficulty, makes, I confess, my poor eyes ache. . . . .
He adverts again to the quarto edition, and learns from Mercier, “an intelligent bookseller in Dublin, that some of the plates are already finished and well executed.” But this information proved erroneous. The times also would not admit of expensive editions such as the quarto with plates; nor even the quarto form without plates, as he next proposed. Two years, 1794–95, were spent in various projects between him and the booksellers, without satisfactory results. His first edition had been some time exhausted. All that was done to replace it was a cheap reprint, in seven small volumes, without the dissertations or poems;—so insignificant in his view, ​as to take the trouble to disclaim connection with it in the journals.
At length in 1795, another plan of publication found favour, which may be considered in effect after long delay, great labour, and some changes of design, the one ultimately adopted, though he did not live to bring forth what was nevertheless all his own. His views, such as they then were, will be found in the prospectus.
* ↑ Among the more recent editions of Shakspeare of the highest character, many esteem, as preferable, that of the Rev. Alexander Dyce. The notes are not oppressively numerous; they are placed at the end of each play; and tact and experience have enabled him to profit by the mistakes of others so as to acquire credit for the best text of the poet. Not less industrious in research is Mr. Halliwall, in his truly splendid volumes. The fac-similes of Shaksperian documents, and the uncommon elegance of typography, must give his edition—if copies are to be had—a place in every select library in the kingdom. Mr. J. P. Collier would appear, by some letters from the British Museum, to have been subjected to imposition in his celebrated volume of emendations. The fact is sufficiently mortifying to an industrious labourer in the cause, without admitting the charge of inattention or any participation in the deceit.
* ↑ It is not unlikely that this unfinished line may have been the last from his pen. It had been carelessly omitted in his printed works, although noting another fine quality in the deceased, till I recovered and introduced it in the edition in four 8vo. volumes (including above a volume of new matter) in 1837.
* ↑ It was afterwards interwoven with other matter by John Nichols, and published in the Gentleman’s Magazine, March, 1792.—Malone.
* ↑ To each of the gentlemen attending the funeral of Sir Joshua a print was presented, engraved by Bartolozzi. It was a female figure clasping an urn, accompanied by the genius of painting, holding in one hand an extinguished torch, the other pointing to a sarcophagus, on the tablet of which is written— “Succedet fama, vivusque per ora feretur.”
* ↑ Here we see the party politician at war in opinion with the great majority of persons at home and abroad. The power of his friend over the politics of Europe became nearly universal; while “fire and fancy” threw all other writers into the shade.
* ↑ This fashion became ultimately, in Ireland, the distinction of a rebel, or at least a person of such opinions. Hence a celebrated air, in 1798, among Loyalists there—“Croppies lye Down!”
* ↑ Right Honourable William Gerard Hamilton.
* ↑ Also written by Jephson against the French Revolutionists.
* ↑ Sic in MS., but who meant is unknown.
* ↑ Rev. Alexander Dyce, editor of The Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers.
* ↑ “Reverting, however, to his original idea (from which he was very reluctantly induced to depart), that of giving a new and splendid edition of the plays and poems of the author without engravings, he intended to present the public with a second edition of his former work, in twenty volumes, royal octavo, on a larger paper and type, both for the text and commentaries, than have ever been employed in any edition of Shakspeare with notes. The first six volumes will be ready for publication in 1796; and the remainder of the work, in two deliveries of seven volumes each, will be published with all convenient speed. “The first volume will be appropriated to an entirely new Life of Shakspeare (compiled from original and authentic documents), which is now nearly ready for the press; the second and third to Mr. Malone’s History of the Stage, considerably enlarged, and his other dissertations illustrative of the poet’s works; together with the prefaces of former editors, to which some new elucidations will be added. The twentieth volume will comprise Shakspeare’s poems, and the remaining sixteen his plays which will be arranged in the order in which they are supposed by Mr. Malone to have been written; with the editor’s commentaries as well as those of his predecessors, and several new annotations. “To the plays it is not proposed to annex any engravings; but the Life of Shakspeare will be ornamented with a delineation of his bust at Stratford, of the head of which Mr. Malone is possessed of a fac-simile, the engraved portraits of Sir Thomas Lucy and Mr. John Coombe, from drawings made on purpose for his work, in 1793, by Mr. Sylvester Harding; also, with an engraving of Shakspeare, not from factitious or fictitious representation of that poet, but from a drawing of the same size as the original, made in 1786 by Mr. Humphry, from the only authentic portrait now known, that which was formerly in the possession of Sir William D'Avenant, and now belonging to the heir of the late Duke of Chandos.”
Footnotes