CHAPTER X.
1794—1797.
In the office of literary accoucheur to Roman Portraits, a reminder occasionally dropped from the parent to keep him up to his work. Here we are permitted to witness the throes of the poet in the act of delivery; for alas! who fated to cudgel his wits for the entertainment of the public can forget the self-imposed toil of the process! He writes from Castletown (Ireland) early in January 1794:—
You are by this time, I suppose, returned from Cheshire,—I heartily hope with your health improved, your eyes strengthened, and again assailable by letter. In my last, I gave my opinion that it was not necessary to make any alteration in the first couplet of Cicero’s character; but if you don’t think so, the following line (pretty nearly your own words) may do, viz.:—
A woman’s tongue,” &c.
I am glad you are pleased with the note upon the poor Queen of France. Pray alter it as little as possible, for it runs so well in its present form that it drew streams of tears down the cheeks of two or three very sensible ladies who read my copy of it here. It gives me pleasure to think that in a work of mine there will be at least one striking passage which belongs to you properly. I have a long and, I think, very good concluding note for Julius Cæsar ready to send when you give me advice it may be time for it. I have also made great additions to Augustus and the Augustan age, which I believe I have not yet sent you; and a very long note, or rather short essay, upon the Roman Constitution, for the conclusion of all.
I have added an entire new character of Octavia, sister of Augustus and wife of Anthony, to be inserted immediately after Anthony and Cleopatra. She was by all accounts a most amiable creature, and forms a good contrast to her husband’s harlot, Cleopatra. I hope you will like it. I see the speedy publication of Conteau[1] again advertised in the Whitehall Evening Post, but I have not heard from Reeves this long time. . . . . I send you Octavia, and hope you will treat her better than Anthony did.
Several letters follow upon the same theme. Additional notes were necessary; new lines to be introduced; re-arrangement of passages made; words altered for others of superior elegance or force; in short, all the processes common to inventive labourers in the workshop of literature.
In the summer of 1794, though at the end of the book season, the poem, closely revised, came out in an expensive form. The author wanted money much, but buyers were then few, and he must be content to wait for a more propitious moment. To Malone, who had taken a trip to Brighton for recreation, his obligations were freely acknowledged. They were now increased; for this good-natured friend had to send presents of copies to several influential noblemen; to propitiate or answer reviewers; circulate favourable notices; and gain for the work fair play at least, if not favour.[2] Lord Orford in July received his copy through Malone, for which he returns due thanks, and afterwards sends a criticism to the author. At the same time, he writes—“Lord Orford will he much obliged to Mr. Malone for a print of himself, and another of Mr. Jephson.”
Whether our Critic at this moment expected Government patronage, is not clear; but the occasional necessities of an Irish landlord over unpunctual tenants render such boons very agreeable. That a place would have been accepted many years afterwards, his letters disclosed. At either period, his intimate friend Mr. Windham was to have formed the channel to office. Yet it never took effect. Jephson touches upon the subject in one of his letters in October 1794.[3]
But another tender attachment affected him more nearly than any disappointment of place. Toward the end of 1794, a tour in Lancashire and Cheshire, to which Jephson refers in one of his letters, had unexpected results. Again he became a victim to the tender passion. Criticism and time had not steeled the heart to love. And shall we be cold enough to blame him? Although once unsuccessful in a suit that lasted nearly a life, why not be permitted to try again? Are the young and the gay alone privileged to seek again and again the tenderest ties of human life? Is a smile all the sympathies we can bestow upon the suitor of sedate age when disappointed in his endeavours to participate in those affectionate endearments which it is the province of woman to bestow? He tried however and again failed. He had once loved “not wisely but too well,” and did so a second time. Cupid and his stars had no compassion on a kind and affectionate heart eminently fitted for domestic companionship, yet condemned to drift down the stream of life a solitary however unwilling traveller, notwithstanding his own lines evinced the high estimate formed of domestic affection—
If no fond breast the splendid blessings share;
And each day’s bustling pageantry once past,
There—only there our bliss is found at last.
The lady, it appeared—and it is nearly all we can hear of her—was a Miss B, well known to Mr. Windham, possessed of all the necessary qualities of a good wife; but difficulties now unknown stood in the way. A younger Jephson, nephew of the poet, hopes (November 21, 1794) the case is not so desperate as Malone thinks. “I have heard as high an account of her as can be given of woman. The portraiture you sent me was very pleasing and satisfactory. . . . . Nothing but your evil genius, who seems to have discovered with cruel sagacity where you are most vulnerable, could have dashed so fair a prospect.” In the same strain, Lord Charlemont, Chetwood who knew her personally, the two Jephsons, uncle and nephew, allude to the subject in their letters of this date, and regret the result, for the sake of both parties. Fate had decreed him irreversibly a bachelor!
A characteristic homily upon love from the noble peer, a happy papa of sixty-seven, to the despairing bachelor of fifty-four, reached the latter in July 1795.
Tant pis pour elle! My dearest Malone,—She has been able strongly to attach you, and must therefore be a woman of excellent sense; neither do I in the least doubt that she is possessed of every amiable quality, and of every elegant accomplishment. Yet one thing I am sure she wants—namely, prudence. Since of all the men I ever knew, you are the best adapted to make happy the woman of your choice in the state of wedlock. Tant pis done pour elle.
As for you, amusement and consequent forgetfulness are your best remedies. The specifics, however, are, I am well aware, not easy to be procured, but your literary turn, in a town like London, can scarcely, I should hope, fail in providing you with the first; and Shakspeare may, perhaps, now be more profitable to you than ever he has yet been. That I most sincerely feel for you, and with you, is most certain. For never having but once in my life suffered love in your way, I never could have been precisely in your predicament. I have still known enough of the passion to be thoroughly acquainted with all its effects.
Why will she not give you reason to be angry? Dépit is sometimes, though indeed not often, a tolerable resource. But this, I find, is denied you. Still, however, you are not without hopes. Neither am I. For I think it scarcely possible that a woman, such as you describe, should not finally return the passion of a man such as I know you to be. Should this happen, which I by no means think improbable, hang me if I would not, for some short time at least, endeavour to repay her in her own coin. But this, with you, I suppose is heresy.
Bewildered by what would appear the vacillating conduct of the lady, alarmed by the results of the war, doubtful of Irish loyalty, and the consequent stability of his property in that country, he proceeded in a moment of fright, and unknown to his family, to advertise it for sale. From this he was soon dissuaded. Good-nature had caused some temporary difficulty; rents were irregular; small loans had been advanced to friends on pressing emergencies, and not repaid; so that he was less at ease than usual; and this may have given the first idea of accepting, if offered, some suitable place. In the meantime, always careful of his friends, he had secured a small office at Gibraltar, through the interest of Mr. Windham, for one of the younger Jephsons, who in action with an enemy’s ship on the passage thither, had an opportunity, as a volunteer in working a gun, of distinguishing himself, and was complimented on the occasion by Lord St. Vincent.
Early in 1795 death unexpectedly carried off his friend Boswell, whose volumes have ensured fame, while among the waspish professors of criticism they have scarcely given him character. Between the biographer and his labours some have drawn a very wide distinction. One has taken rank among the undying productions of our country. The other is absurdly alleged to have been a simpleton, a toady, a flatterer, almost a fool. Nay, undoubted independence and truthtelling even made him enemies at the moment. “I will not pare my tiger’s claws down to those of a cat for any one,” was the manly declaration regarding Dr. Johnson’s sarcasms. An opportunity was, therefore, taken in one of the newspapers after his death, and recently in works of more pretension, to sketch him unfairly; to take measure of the workman, not of the work; to lower the greater to the standard of the less. But Malone flew to the rescue; and as we might expect from a kindly spirit, rendered due credit to an erring nature of many foibles, but with talents beyond dispute.[4] Nay, the departed seemed almost to have expected something of posthumous aid from his goodhumoured friend; for Bennet Langton thus writes to Malone in August, 1795—
I have not had any information of the Boswell family since an affecting letter from Sir William Forbes of Edinburgh, giving an account of his attendance at the last solemn office of our poor friend’s interment at Auchinleck. I find, sir, the poor man had referred to you, jointly with Sir William and Mr. Temple, the friendly task of judging which and what parts of his writings left behind him may be thought of for publication.
Absence from town was frequent during the year, caused, perhaps, by attachment to the lady in Lancashire, of whom his old friend Chetwood thus writes in January, 1795—
My wishes for your success in your matrimonial pursuit were strong when I saw you, and much stronger afterwards when, in the neighbourhood of Warrington, I heard a character of the lady that attracted me most warmly to her. Among other traits, I was charmed with one—namely, that she is almost adored by the poor of that country.
In March of the same year, the monument to Dr. Johnson being nearly ready for erection, Malone, as an active member of the managing committee, wrote for the epitaph which had been promised by Dr. Parr. An assenting answer was given, to which early in April Malone replies—
“I am sure it is unnecessary to tell you that it was not from any want of attention I did not immediately answer your letter. The truth is, I wished to consult some of the gentlemen to whom the management of Dr. Johnson’s monument had been assigned, and had not opportunity of doing so till yesterday. The epitaph which you have written will, I have no doubt, be everything that they could wish; but as they and the surviving executor (Sir Wm. Scott) cannot properly adopt any inscription without seeing and approving it, and as you might possibly not choose to submit it at all to their inspection unless upon a certain assurance of its being adopted, I thought it right to state the circumstance to you before you transmitted the epitaph. The persons I allude to are, Mr. Burke, Mr. Windham, Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Metcalf and Mr. Boswell, who together with myself are nominated as curators of the monument, and who are all extremely indebted to you for your exertions on the present occasion.”
Dr. Parr writes, at the same moment, that he will soon be in town. Malone replies by inclosing a proposal from Sir William Scott, implying some difference of opinion as to the language employed, which produced cessation of correspondence for more than a month. Malone then resumes his pen at greater length, fortified by the opinion of the club, that certain alterations should be made in order to suit the general views:—
“Dear Sir,—Some very pressing business of my own has prevented me a long time from obeying Sir William Scott’s desire, who being entirely occupied by the business of the term, requested me to convey to you our joint sentiments on the subject of the two letters with which you favoured us. I may add, that I felt myself very unequal to the task, as indeed I have nothing more to say respecting the epitaph than what I have said already.
“However, as in a question of this sort authority may be of some weight in a matter where the appeal must finally be to the public, I may mention to you that, as Dr. Johnson had founded what is called the Literary Club, I thought they had a kind of peculiar interest in any inscription to his memory; and therefore took an opportunity, when there happened to be some of our most eminent members present, to repeat your epitaph; and Mr. Fox, Mr. Windham, Mr. Steevens, Sir Win. Scott, as well as all the other members present, were decidedly of opinion that probabilis was an utterly inadequate epithet as descriptive of Dr. Johnson’s character as a poet; and they were equally clear that some eulogium on him as a poet was absolutely necessary to the integrity of his character. I do, therefore, most earnestly request that you will give us some other epitaph; for the total omission is what none of his friends are willing to agree to. Permit me to add one other consideration, which perhaps when you turn it in your mind, as I am sure your candour will lead you to do, may have some little weight.
“The world in general consider Johnson as a great writer in prose and verse. Now, under the words ‘preceptori recte vivendi gravissimo,’ his admirable powers as a writer of prose are not necessarily included, though I know they are large enough to comprehend them; but that his great excellence in this respect is not necessarily included in these words appears from hence—that Bishop Butler and Bishop Coneybeare may be both described very truly as ‘preceptores recte vivendi gravissimi,’ and yet neither of them were eminent for purity, elegance, or strength of language. If therefore no character at all is given of Johnson as a poet (which I think seems rather to be your wish), and the other words do not necessarily imply an eulogium on him as a prose writer, will not his admirers, which are all the judicious part of mankind, have some reason to consider the inscription, however masterly in many other respects, as an imperfect delineation of him?
“I may add also, that the universality of his knowledge, the promptness of his mind in producing it on all occasions in conversation, and the vivid eloquence with which he clothed his thoughts however suddenly called upon, formed in my apprehension, as I formerly took the liberty of mentioning to you, a very distinguished part of the character of his genius, and placed him on higher ground than, perhaps, any other quality that can be named. This has been wholly omitted, on grounds which I by no means wish to controvert; but at the same time, it surely may be properly urged as a circumstance that entitles us, his ardent admirers, to hope that his character as a poet may not also be omitted; and I therefore only mention it as an auxiliary argument to induce you to be a little more liberal to us in that part of the inscription concerning which we differ.
“Thus, dear Sir, I have, as shortly as I could, though I fear very imperfectly, stated our sentiments on this subject. An amicable discussion of this kind does not stand in need of any apology, and therefore I shall not take up your time in making any.
“Poor Mr. Boswell died on Tuesday morning, after an illness of five weeks. Just before he fell ill he had prepared a very civil answer to your letter in the last Gentleman’s Magazine.”
This clever and indeed unanswerable appeal, unlike the round-robin to Johnson himself on a similar occasion, overcame the self-will of the author. He gave way with a tolerably good grace; and Malone in July following thus expresses the satisfaction arising from the alteration:—
“I did not trouble you with a letter merely to say that Sir William Scott and I am much pleased with your alteration of the epitaph, and neither of us thought the new words at all too honied. The Greek line is most happily changed, and may set all cavil at defiance.”
This accomplished for the dead, another difficulty remained as to the living, of which Malone writing to Dr. Parr, may still be the historian.
“The inscription has been in Mr. Bacon’s hands for some weeks past, and I did not think you would have had any more trouble with it; but in that part which relates particularly to himself, he wishes not to be shorn of his Academical honours, and that posterity should know he was entitled to annex R.A. to his name. You will be so good therefore, as to Latinize this for him, and to say how it shall stand. The words are at present, Faciebat Johannes Bacon Sculptor Ann. Christ. M.DCC.LXXXXV.”
The poor sculptor pleaded for retention of the Academic honours of art in vain. The magnate of Greek and Latin declined compliance; and Malone curtly communicates the reception of the denial. “I have called on Mr. Bacon, and he very reluctantly has agreed to omit any notice of his being a Royal Academician.”
In the summer (1795), desirous of subduing unpleasant recollections, he visited Oxford. The aim was to do for John Aubrey, the antiquary, what he also intended for Dryden and Pope—that is to tell all that could be gleaned new of their lives and works.
To the superstitions of that laborious writer—the apparitions, voices, omens, dreams, and other supernatural fancies, he paid no more attention than sensible men of the present day do to table-turning and spirit-rapping. But he had great respect, as other eminent men had, for his facts—for those obvious and unmistakeable things which impress the eyes and ears and memory—not such as spring from heated imaginations.
In the History of the Stage (p. 166, Ed. 1790) he speaks of his works, printed and manuscript, with great respect. Many of the latter being biographical, told of men who, when he wrote, had then but just quitted the world, and of whom the information being recent, was probably authentic. These he considered might be edited with advantage, illustrated by his own researches. To Lord Charlemont he writes:—
“Of the whole of Aubrey’s biographical collections deposited in the Ashmolean Museum, I made a transcript last summer, which will be hereafter laid before the public.” To this project allusion is again made in the Life of Dryden[5] By letters which I have seen, some jealousy arose among certain literati, as if other transcribers of the same papers were to be excluded; but this idea had no sufficient foundation. The design as we know never took effect. In one of Thorpe’s catalogues a MS. volume on this subject, said to be his, was priced at twelve guineas. In the catalogue of the younger Boswell’s books, two lots are transcripts from Aubrey, which doubtless came from the same pen.
At this moment a subject fitted beyond all others to exercise the discriminative powers in which he excelled, came before the public in the alleged discovery of Shakspeare Papers by the Irelands, father and son. The fraud was sufficiently daring; the skill employed quite enough to impose upon ordinary persons; and it was carried on with unusual effrontery. But with a judge in the way so scrutinizing as Malone, the moment could scarcely be considered favourable for success in such a deception. No colourable guarantee could or would be given of authenticity. Of the internal evidence he was perhaps the most complete master then living, having spent much of a life in the study of all the essential points bearing upon the question of ancient English composition. Examined by these lights, added to the suspicious and strict secrecy preserved as to the supposed original possession, he soon pronounced the papers to be forgeries.
To Lord Charlemont, his usual depositary of literary intelligence, the fact was early communicated. His lordship thus adverts to it, July 1795:—
I have seen in the papers, which, by the way, my eyes will scarcely permit me to read, some account of the wonderful Shakspearian discoveries. And even before your argument convinced me of the forgery, I gave very little credit to it. It promised too much to keep its word; and I am only sorry that Mr. Steevens is not proprietor of the manuscripts. The lines you transcribe as part of one of the sonnets would alone be sufficient to prove the absurdity of the forger.
Literary imposture occasionally finds a ready ear in our country. Whenever a good excuse offers, we are willing to add to the fame of a popular idol, and in the first moments of enthusiasm at a new discovery are prone to indulge rather our partiality than judgment. So it proved with many in respect to these documents. Every one was interested in them because Shakspeare was every one’s author. But the gradual increase of successive “discoveries” led from surprise to suspicion; and although antiquaries of name avowed their belief, while others continued in doubt, the great body of professed commentators,—Malone, Reed, Farmer, Ritson, Lord Orford, Bishop of Dromore, Bishop of Salisbury (detector of Lander’s forgery),—and many more of the most distinguished men of the day, deemed them spurious.
Malone, as best fitted for the work, was persuaded to take the lead in disabusing the credulous. A few inquiries moderate in tone in the magazines, brought forth angry replies, sneers, and abuse. At length, early in 1796, the publication of a two-guinea folio of the Papers, the advanced guard of two more at the same price, threatened such an attack on the good sense and purses of the people, that he deemed it due to them and himself to take the field in form, and destroy the fabrication for ever.
The mode chosen was that of a letter to Lord Charlemont—An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Certain Papers attributed to Shakspeare. But the letter grew to a book of more than four hundred pages. From the almost inexhaustible stores of the writer he proves from “orthography, phraseology, dates given, or deducible by inference, and dissimilitude of handwriting, that not a single paper or deed in this extraordinary volume was written or executed by the person to whom it was ascribed.”
Nothing can be more complete than the exposure. Not a point is neglected, not one remains doubtful; while many are suggested and solved which were new to those unaccustomed to such studies, and which may be brought into play should a similar cheat be ever attempted again. Not the least conclusive testimony was that of Steevens, whose candour overpowered former feelings of alienation or rivalry: “Mr. Steevens presents his best compliments to Mr. Malone, and most sincerely thanks him for his very elegant present, which exhibits one of the most decisive pieces of criticism that was ever produced.”
In the meantime Vortigern, one of the spurious family, was accepted at Drury Lane, with a prologue from Sir James B. Burgess. Pye, the Poet Laureate, also a believer for a time, had written one, but was just in time to withdraw it. Merry wrote the epilogue, and Mrs. Jordan spoke it. Three hundred pounds were given by the managers for the right of representation. But Malone’s book came out at the moment, and being likely to mar its success, Ireland issued a hand-bill attacking his opponent, and bespeaking the candour of a British audience.[6] Assailed at length by general discredit from the researches of the Critic as well as public taste, persistence in the fraud ceased. Its perpetrator, young Ireland, gave the story of forgery in detail, confessing all the fabrications to be his own, and begun at the age of nineteen.
It is often amusing to see how little grateful are dupes to those who undeceive them. So it was with these papers. When critical proof and open confession of the forger no longer left a peg to hang a doubt upon, pamphlets came forth little complimentary to the detector of the fraud. Chalmers favoured the public with an Apology for the Believers in the Shakspeare Papers. And Caldecott, under the name of Samuel Ireland, father of the perpetrator of the offence, with An Investigation of Mr. Malone’s claims to the character of a Scholar or Critic; being an Examination of his Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Shakspeare MSS. Two or three others had preceded or followed them; and then this great “discovery” passed silently to deserved oblivion.
An impression prevailed that these forgeries had been long contemplated. In 1785, a rumour circulated among literary men that in an attorney’s office in Warwickshire, wills had been found of the Shakspeare family, throwing new lights upon its history. Such a report drew many inquirers. Malone wrote privately (April 7?) to Mr. Nichols of the Gentleman’s Magazine for information, who however could furnish little more than that some details had transpired through Mr. Samuel Ireland, in Illustrations of the Avon. The story then died silently away.
Now that it suffered violent death, he amused himself as chief executioner, by collecting all pamphlets and papers written on either side into volumes, which passed under the auctioneer’s hammer at his sale in 1818.
On the first appearance of his book, a copy was sent to Burke, who thus replies:—
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 everything 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 the antiquary, to be, I am afraid, but too right in that of a prophet, has not escaped me. 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 you to a perfect abhorrence of the French revolution and all its works. Once more thank you most heartily for the great entertainment you have given me as a critick, as an antiquary, 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 humble servant,
Beaconsfield, April 8, 1796.
Lord Charlemont writes a long letter in August; regrets having ordered “Ireland’s magnificent and ostentatious deceit;” thanks him for literary purchases; asks whether a Liverpool trader be a sufficiently safe conveyance for his treasures to Dublin; and refers to his correspondent’s literary employments and those of some of their mutual friends.
I rejoice to hear you have so many things on the anvil; every one of them is a resource against ennui—of all human maladies the worst, since all other diseases affect the mind through the body, while this pest of our nature seems to originate in the soul. Your Life of Shakspeare will, I am confident, be curious, and, as that more immediately belongs to you, I think you are in the right to give it the preference of (to) Aubrey, I know nothing of particulars, but am really impatient for Dryden’s Prose, as I regard his style as one of the first in our language, and wish that it were more read and imitated than it has been.
As to my dear Sir Joshua’s works, I more than long for them, not only on account of their intrinsic merit, but because I was and am, in spite of fate, his friend.
Poor Burke! I never, indeed, expected that he would get the better of his loss,[7] and am happy to find that, at times, he can forget it. There was a man whose spirit seemed to be almost independent of body, though even he is weighed down by bodily infirmities. Yet his mind, too, must suffer greatly from the present torrent of French success; and I hear that his Regicide Peace is suppressed, since no publication could assuredly be worse timed.[8]
The death of Lord Orford, which, from your account, I cannot but fear, will greatly grieve me. As an old and kind friend, I shall most sincerely lament him. As a literary character, I must deplore a loss to the world which will be scarcely retrievable, since such a union of the scholar and the gentleman will with difficulty be found.
Why must Lord Macartney, spite of ill health and increasing years, be for ever, like Cain, sentenced to be a wanderer, after all his peregrinations of Europe, Asia, and America? Why must he be condemned to leave his bones perhaps in Africa, among Hottentots?[9] Indeed, his English peerage is, in my opinion, purchased dearly. I was in hopes that his Chinese work would have been published long since.
Towards the close of the year, his good offices in the introduction of a new tragedy, The Conspiracy, to Drury Lane, were again sought by his friend Jephson. It was taken from Metastasio, and ran only three nights. Of other details Malone must be the historian.
“On this story, from Clemenza di Tito, Mr. Jephson produced a tragedy. It was performed twice (an error, thrice) at the theatre in Drury Lane, in 1796, and then laid aside. The proprietors of the theatre having determined that authors should no longer have their third nights, but the ninth part of 300l. for each night of performance, Mr. Jephson was entitled to 66l. 13s., for which Mr. Sheridan, after repeated delays, gave his draft on his banker, which was never paid; being the ‘New way of paying old debts’ adopted in that theatre since he became possessed of it.”
Occasionally, Lord Orford and Malone continued their former meetings; for who could resist so attractive a story-teller, or doubt so retentive a memory? At seventy-nine, with much bodily infirmity, two months before death, we find it as vivid as ever.
“January 3rd, 1797.—Lord Orford told me that he had seen the letter of Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, &c, which he had inserted in the World, without mentioning his authority. It was shown to him by Mr. West, who got it (not very honestly) from the second Lord Orford’s papers.
“The old Lady Dacres whom he has mentioned as having conversed with, one who had seen the old Countess of Desmond, was the wife of Richard, Lord Dacres, who died in . She was his second wife, and married in 1624; therefore, probably born about 1600. Her daughter was married to a Mr. Chaloner, by whom she had a son, who became Speaker in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament. From a descendant of this Mr. Chute (sic) Lord Orford derived his information.
“It was at his instance that Lord Corke published the Memoirs of Cary, Earl of Monmouth. Lord Orford read them once in MS., and remembers a passage which Lord Corke suppressed. Cary told that, being of the bed-chamber to King Charles, it was his duty to light him upstairs; and that the king having returned unexpectedly one night, when either Henry Jermyn or Henry Percy was with the queen (for both were her favourites), Cary, to save her majesty from being caught, dropped the candle out of his hand when ascending the stairs, so as to give the gallant an opportunity of getting off.
“Lord Hervey wrote very curious memoirs of his own time, which are yet extant in the hands of General Hervey, he believes. Lord Lansdown possessed them for two years; and, therefore, probably had the MS. transcribed.[10]
“Of the Marquis of Halifax’s curious memoirs there were two copies. One was destroyed by Lord Nottingham, the other remained long in the hands of Lady Burlington; but Pope, finding that in several places the Papists of the time of Charles II. and James, were represented in an unfavourable light, prevailed upon her to burn them.”
The conclusion of the Ireland forgery left him free to pursue the more grateful employment of collecting and editing the works of his dear friend Reynolds. This had been early designed, sanctioned by the approval of Burke, as the most appropriate tribute to the memory of the departed. He had been two years employed also upon an enlarged and revised history of the stage—but this was put aside for a time. Reynolds commanded more immediate attention; and his eyes found relief in ceasing to decipher old papers. To Lord Charlemont the intention as usual had been communicated, who thus replies, November 1794:—“I am glad to find that our ever-to-be-lamented Sir Joshua’s works are in such forwardness. I have read his Journey to Flanders which he lent me in MS., and like it extremely. It is the best voyage pittoresque now extant.”
The work appeared in the spring of 1797. No methodical or extended biography was attempted. A plain, unpretending outline gives us the main facts of his career, followed by the Discourses, Idlers, a Journey to Flanders and Holland, Notes upon Du Fresnoy’s Art of Painting. These were his own. But with them are printed, as Mason did in 1783 at York in order to complete the basis for Reynolds’s notes—Masons translation of Du Fresnoy, Dryden’s preface to it, Pope’s Epistle to Jervas on the same, Du Fresnoy’s Account of Certain Painters; Chronological and Alphabetical List of Painters.
In a pretty long letter from Bath written in May under severe illness, Burke gives Malone all credit for his labours and discriminative remarks. But, alas! the writer himself, while exciting the sympathy of his fellow-mourner for one whom they so much loved, was soon called by death to mingle with those for whom that fellow-mourner was left also to lament. An affecting incident, characteristic of the warm affections of this great man, is mentioned on this occasion by Malone. In writing to the latter about Reynolds, although so many years had elapsed since his death, Burke had blotted the paper with his tears. He had just returned from Bath to Beaconsfield to die.
Lady Inchiquin wrote to Malone soon afterwards of their mutual friend: “Alas! my dear sir, I can give you but a heart-breaking account of our poor friend Mr. Burke. We are anxiously awaiting the return of a messenger, who we have every reason to fear will bring tidings of his death.”
Two days afterwards he received the following:—
Sir,—It is with the deepest affliction I am to communicate to you the death of Mr. Burke, who expired last night at half-past twelve o’clock.
The long and unshaken friendship which had subsisted between you and him renders this a painful communication; but it is a duty I owe to such friendship.
He died as he lived, great and good. His mind remained collected and calm to the last. Mrs. Burke exceeds even her wonted fortitude; and in this trying moment displays all the pious resignation of the Christian.
I am, Sir, your very faithful servant,
Beaconsfield, Sunday, 9th July, 1797.
Lord Charlemont, in a long letter, in August, thus notices him among other friends in a mortuary list sent by Malone. The allusion to his early circumstances must of course be taken, as no doubt is meant, with many grains of allowance; and his lordship’s politics speak for themselves. He occasionally flings a jocular sarcasm at the Tory propensities of his correspondent; and at the conclusion of this letter good-humouredly takes him to task on the subject at length. He complains also of the state of Ireland, of his poverty, of the poverty of those around him who have not the means to keep up their usual mode of living. Hence he begs that Malone will suspend his literary purchases for him for the present—“To which abstinence from the favourite food of my mind, you may be assured my poverty and not my will consents.”
Your list of deaths is indeed a sad one—Poor Burke! one of my oldest and best acquaintances and friends! I knew him intimately long before he was a politician, and when without a crown in his pocket he was a happy man. I knew him intimately at his first introduction to the political world, when also he was as happy as the adoration of his friends and a perfect rectitude of conduct could make him. I have also known him intimately when he was not quite so happy. His heart was excellent. His abilities were supernatural; and a deficiency in prudence and political wisdom (!) could alone have kept him within the rank of mortals.
Lord Orford, to whose kindness and friendship I have been early and long obliged, was undoubtedly the most pleasing companion I ever knew. He has also, I fear, made a chasm in society which it will be difficult to fill.
Mason, I thank fate, I only knew by his writings, which are alone sufficient to ensure the regret of any man who pretends to the smallest degree of note. As for Dr. Warren, death owed him a grudge for the numerous victims rescued from his dart; and at last revenged himself by that fatal blow on the stomach.
Toward the end of the year Malone, as already hinted, found an assailant in a pamphlet concerning the papers of Aubrey in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. It was said he had acquired permission from the authorities to copy them to the exclusion of a Mr. Caulfield, although their transcription had been accomplished by him before, and their exterior expressly marked—“These fragments collected and arranged by E. M. 1792.” But the charge came from a portion of the Ireland party.
Letters from various correspondents at this time indicate something of his various pursuits. Jeremy Bentham writes to know whether the charter of Queen Elizabeth for the foundation of Westminster School can be seen anywhere, in print or manuscript, without formal application to the Dean and Chapter. The no less celebrated John Wilkes assures him that every assistance shall be rendered to his “curious researches” that can be given by the city authorities, superiors, and subordinates. Lord Charlemont says he has picked up an old play in Dublin, which, not being in any of the collections sent him from London, he presumes to be scarce:—A Chaste Mayd in Cheapside, by Thomas Midelton, Gent., 1630. A criticism follows upon Love in Ruins, which is founded upon the same story as Lord Orford’s excellent tragedy, who however declares that it was taken from the confession of one of Tillotson’s penitents; but to go farther back, the same tale appears in one of the Queen of Navarre’s novels. He will not, however, receive anything against Lord Orford’s originality. To that nobleman the Irish peer, as we have seen, was strongly attached; again notices his death as a loss to writers of literary memorials of his time; desires his special and affectionate remembrance to him in many letters to Malone; and amid others equally strong, thus says in November 1787:—“You do me perfect justice in supposing that I should be sorry indeed to receive Mr. Walpole’s book at the price you mention. My most truly affectionate compliments and sincere respects to that most amiable of men.”
His lordship also shortly before Burke’s death had written to Malone in alarm at the chance of being embroiled in politics with his old friend, though by no fault of his own. An injudicious Irish politician had addressed him a pamphlet, in reply to one of the letters on a Regicide Peace, intermingled with abuse of their celebrated writer. But though the peer found fault with the politics of the commoner, no attack upon him could receive the slightest countenance. Should the piece become known, Malone was to deny, in his lordship’s name, the slightest knowledge of its production. If it escaped notice, let it remain so; and accordingly it passed at once unobserved to that populous yet noiseless region into which Fame declines to enter.
- ↑ Confessions of James Baptiste Conteau, also by Jephson, written in exposure of enormities of the French revolutionary leaders.
- ↑ Two of the noblemen whose good opinions were sought were Lords Orford (lately come to the title) and Mornington. The account of the latter may not be uninteresting, as he was known for keen literary tastes, though not, like Walpole, a professed writer.
“I expected rather more praise from Lord Orford, and much less from Lord Mornington (Marquis Wellesley). The latter is the most fastidious of human critics, and though he has great literature, keen sagacity, and a well-formed taste, praise comes from him like drops out of a still, besides, we have never (though once I think he loved me like a brother) been cordially reconciled, I mean on his part, since he has known my aversion to that most proper object of it, the M. of B. (Marquis of Buckingham). He and his family were the first patrons and friends of the young Mornington. However, he has said a great deal and well. With Lord Orford’s letter you ought to be particularly pleased, as you see how much he is struck with the note on the Queen of France, all the materials for which, and not a little in the wording, I had in letters from you. The merit of the note is its strength and conciseness. Strong facts in strong words.”
- ↑ “With most fervent earnestness I pray that some considerable improvement in your situation may result from the new Government coalition. The Secretary of State has a multitude of lucrative sinecures at his disposal; and if Windham with such advantages as he at present possesses does not contrive speedily to put you quite at your ease, you must allow me to say he is the most frigid, nominal friend that ever
- ↑ Gentleman’s Magazine, June, 1795.
- ↑ “Mr. Aubrey, who was acquainted with Dryden, informs us in his Life of Milton (which, together with his other curious accounts of English writers, I hope speedily to give the public), that our author (Dryden), before he wrote this drama State of Innocence, waited on the blind bard, and asked his permission to put his great poem into rhyme. ‘Ay,’ said Milton, ‘you may tag my verses if you will.’”
- ↑ “Vortigern. A malevolent and impotent attack on the Shakspeare MSS. having appeared on the eve of the representation of the play of Vortigern, evidently intended to injure the interest of the proprietor of the MSS., Mr. Ireland feels it impossible within the short space of time that intervenes between the publishing and the representation to produce an answer to the most unfounded and illiberal assertions in Mr. Malone’s Inquiry. He is therefore induced to request that the play of Vortigern may be heard with that candour that has ever distinguished a British audience.”
- ↑ That of his son, and only remaining child.
- ↑ This proved to be unfounded. Few who knew Burke would believe its suppression; but his lordship’s politics were strong the other way.
- ↑ His lordship, who mingled much in literary and fashionable coteries, and to whom I find several references by Malone, had been recently appointed Governor of the Cape of Good Hope.
- ↑ Published in 1848; and afford curious revelations of the intrigues and manners of the time.
pretended to the virtue of friendship. How could the D. of Portland refuse him a request, urged as it should be in favour of the most learned man in England (as I really think you are), and universally beloved and respected? I am very happy to find you have engaged Mr. Gerard Hamilton in the same office; for he has great zeal for a friend, and delights in negotiating.”
Again, in the following month—
“Have we any more intelligence to expect about Lord Fitzwilliam? If he does not come, perhaps Lord Spencer may; and with either I think you might be Usher of the Black Rod, a very gentleman-like place, which is attended with no trouble, leaves you at liberty to return to England the moment the session of Parliament ceases, is worth at least 600l. per annum, and gives an excellent claim to a sinecure of at least half the value when the administration of a friendly Lord Lieutenant is over.” . . . . The following passage is not very complimentary to two well known men in Irish politics:—“Disturbing such a character as Lord Fitzgibbon might gratify such men as Mr. Philpot Curran or greasy Jack Egan, but it would be felt by every honest suitor and liberal gentleman at the bar as a national insult and national injury.” Curran is mentioned very contemptuously by two or three other Dublin correspondents of Malone—party politics often became there personal antipathies.