The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-10 00:00:00

THE CATHEDRAL MIND.

Temple of truths most eloquently spoken,
Shrine of sweet thoughts veil'd in with words of power,
The Author's mind replete with hallowed riches
Stands a cathedral : full of precious things,—
Tastefully built in harmonies unbroken,
Cloister, and aisle, dark crypt, and airy tower;
Long-treasured relics in the fretted niches,
And secret stores, and heap'd-up offerings
Art's noblest gems, with every fruit and flower,
Paintings and sculpture, choice imaginings,
Its plenitude of wealth and praise betoken,
An ever-burning lamp, pourtrays the soul ;
Deep music all around enchantment flings,
And God's great presence consecrates the whole

POETRY.
To touch the heart and make its pulses thrill,
To raise and purify the grovelling soul,
To warm with generous heat the selfish will,
To conquer passion with a wild control,
And the Whole man with nobler thoughts to fill ;
These are thine aims, 0 pure, unearthly power ;
These are thine influences : and therefore those
Whose wings are clogged with evil, are thy foes.
And therefore those who have thee for their dower,
The widow'd spirits with no portion here,
Eat angel's food, the manna thou dost shower :
For thine are pleasures, deep, and tried and true,
Whether to read, or write, or think, or hear,
Spurned by the million, fed on by the few.

PAIN.
Delay not, sinner, till the hour of pain,
To seek repentance : pain is absolute,
Exacting all the body, all the brain,
Humanity's stern king from head to foot.
How canst thou pray, while fever'd arrows shoot
Through this torn targo—while every bone doth ache,
And the scared mind raves up and down her cell
Restless, and begging rest for mercy's sake ?
Add not to death the bitter fears of hell ;
Take pity on thy future self, poor man,
While yet in strength, thy timely wisdom can
Wrestle to-day with sin, and spare that strife
Of meeting all its terrors in the van,
Just at the ebbing agony of life.

Life of Edmond ,Malone, _Editor of Shakspeare.
With" Selections from his Manuscript Anecdotes.
By Sir James Prior, F.S.A., Author of " The
Life of Edmund Burke," &c., &c. Smith and
Elder.

" He who.has expended learning and industry
in making known the lives and labours of others
deserves the record he bestows," says Sir James
Prior, in commencing this volume, and in accord-
ance with this theory the literary world of some
future day will owe him no inconsiderable memo-
rial, for this is not the first occasion on which he
has paid tribute to the achievements and accom-
plishments of departed celebrities, and has spent
time and labour in collecting full and authentic re-
cords of their personal and literary history. Ed-
mund Burke and Oliver Goldsmith, who have
already been the subjects of his pen, are succeeded
by the biography of one whose name, though of less
world-wide celebrity, is familiar in literary circles.
Edmund
.Malone is one of those who, like Miss
Bvriney, link the present with the past, who
have not ;quite faded from the recollection of some
now living,and yet werecontemporaries with Johnson
and Walpole. Though not possessing creative
talent, his critical abilities were of a high order,
and his keen perception and indefatigable industry
in research and investigation, rendered him admir-
ably qualified for the office of commentator on the
great dramatist. Notwithstanding the numerous
editors and critics of Shakspeare who had ap•
peared, Malone from the first, says his biographer,
seems to have felt there were several topics un-
touched which remained open to a devoted inquirer.
The chronology of his plays, the stories on which
they were founded, the contemporary history of
the stage during his era, the lives, successes, and
failures of the writers of his time, might all be exa-
mined to throw additional light on the subject.
" Upon this extended canvas he set to work with
characteristic zeal. No publication of the age of
Elizabeth, her predecessors or successors, in the
fora of poem, drama, pamphlet, or miscellaneous
tract, was neglected. Manuscripts, wherever found,
were carefully consulted; no expense or application
was spared to exhume something like truth and sub-
stance out of the graveyard of time. Collectors,
antiquaries, and college men, whose lives had been
spent in storing their shelves or their memories
with knowledge of the past, were solicited to dis-
burse such acquisitions as could be turned to ac-
count." The same unwearied spirit of research
and laborious industry animated him in all his
literary undertakings. In the spring of 1800 he
published, in four volumes, "The Critical and Mis-
cellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden, with an
Account of the Life and Writings of the Author ;"
his aim being, as he said, to delineate the man not
the poet, the latter undertaking being superfluous,
as well as presumptuous, after Dr. Johnson. In
this work, as in all others, he left no source of infor-
mation untried, and "to his pages," observes his
biographer, "all must turn who want accurate infor-
mation upon the life and works of Dryden." He
was censured by many for being too particular
and minute, but the merits of a full and
authentic biography outlive the attacks and
satires of envious contemporaries. An edition
of Goldsmith was his earliest work in editor-
ship, and displayed his characteristic love of
accuracy. In the controversy respecting the Row-
ley poems, too, his keen sense detected the truth,
and stoutly maintained the modern composition of
the poems against such authorities as Dean Willes
and Jacob Bryant. The great work of Malone's
life was, however, his edition of Shakspeare. A
long course of preliminary study, and unwearied
and sagacious inquiry, qualified him for the task.
" His heart yearned to his theme. Unlike the task
set before the necessitous or unwilling workmen,
whose position incites a hasty glance and a running
pen, he sat down deliberately to the enjoyment of
his tastes amid the pleasures of social life, good
company, and pecuniary ease. He was cut out for
the work, and the work for him. To such men
seems of right to belong the business of research in
matters critical, antiquarian, or of doubtful autho-
rity. They best can afford the leisure, where leisure
is essential to the elucidation of truth; and
where, as in the instance before us, labour is
seconded by judgment and discretion. If not
always the highest effort of mind, inquiry is
indispensable to the acquisition of accurate
as of useful knowledge." The labour at-
tending such a task, undertaken in such a spirit,
was however very great. He travelled, we are told,
from library to repository ; from private papers to
public records ; from universities to the British
Museum and Stationers' Hall, in order to he exact.
To discuss the various branches of the subject fully
and fairly, the chronology, the stage history, the
contemporary characters, the family and personal
narrative, as well as the literary.analysis ; to keep
each division within its due limits, and yet to give
all possible information on each topic, was no easy
task. His great fear was that of being misled by
careless or inaccurate predecessors, and therefore he
accepted no second-hand statements where the
original authorities were still extant. After his
death a paper in the Gentleman's Magazine, to which
he had been a contributor, paid him a valuable
tribute. "As an editor," said the article in ques-
tion, " this is the peculiar fame of Edmund Malone,
that he could subdue the temptations to display his
own wisdom or wit, and consider only the integrity
of his author's text." His acquaintances among
the celebrities of his day were numerous. Burke,
Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Windham,
Lord Charlemont, and many others were numbered
among his intimate associates. At the conclusion
of the memoir there is a large collection of Malone's
manuscript anecdotes which he had collected by
" taking notes of such incidents not generally
known in life, literature, manners, and character,
as conversation or inquiry should offer." As might
be supposed, being collected by one who mixed with
such society, many of them are full of humour, and
refer generally to the celebrities of the day. We
subjoin a few extracts
" The late Lord Chatham (when Mr. Pitt) on some ocea-
st m made a very long and able speech in the Privy
Council, relative to some naval matters. Every Gne present
was struck by the force of his eloquence. Lord Anscn who
was no orator, being thin at the he d of the Admiralty,
.differing entirely in opinion from Mr. Pitt, got up, and only
said these words :---` My lords, Mr. Secretary is very elo
quent, and has stated his own opinion very plausibly. I
ant no orator, and all I shall say is, that he knows nothing
at all of what he has been talking about.' This short t -
ply, together with the confidence the Council had in Lord
Anson's professional skill, had such an effect on every one