MALONIANA.
Part II.
[The following is his introduction to the second part of these Memoranda, for the shortness of which he thus accounts. But, added to its brevity, he never resumed the work with the same spirit as at first.]
The former part concluded with an account of the death of my poor friend Sir Joshua Reynolds, which was for a long time left imperfect. The loss of that most valuable and amiable man I have felt almost every day since; and being unwilling again to recur to the subject, I for three years wholly discontinued my former practice of recording such anecdotes as I could collect from those friends with whom I conversed. Of some few, however, I made short notes on loose scraps of paper, and shall begin this volume with a transcript of whatever I collected during that period, i.e. from February 1792, to August 1795.
Dr. Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, told me that about forty years ago he was acquainted with a gentleman then very old, who in travelling in the Apennines had met with a retired Jesuit, who acknowledged that about the time of Monmouth’s rebellion he had been sent into Scotland, where he assumed the disguise of a Covenanter, and often preached to the people in fields, &c., to excite them to disturb the Government.
This agrees with the account given by Du Moulin of the conduct of the Jesuits previous to the murder of Charles the First.—(See Kennet’s Register.)
Dryden has himself told us that he was of a grave cast and did not much excel in sallies of humour. One of his bon-mots, however, has been preserved. He does not seem to have lived on very amicable terms with his wife, Lady Elizabeth, whom, if we may believe the lampoons of the time, he was compelled by one of her brothers to marry. Thinking herself neglected by the bard, and that he spent too much time in his study, she one day exclaimed, “Lord, Mr. Dryden, how can you be always poring over those musty books? I wish I were a book, and then I should have more of your company.” “Pray, my dear,” replied old John, “if you do become a book let it be an almanack, for then I shall change you every year.”—(Mr. Horace Walpole.)
After Pope had written some bitter verses on Lady M. W. Montague, he told a friend of his that he should soon have ample revenge upon her, for that he had set her down in black and white, and should soon publish what he had written. “Be so good as to tell the little gentleman,” was the reply, “that I am not at all afraid of him; for if he sets me down in black and white, as he calls it, most assuredly I will have him set down in black and blue.”—(The same. )
The line in the Bathos,
was taken by Pope from his own Alexander.—(The same, from Lord Harvey.)
The imagery in the Messiah was derived from an old fabulous story relative to the celebrated cliff at , the seat of Mr. Wortley Montague, in Yorkshire.—(The same.)
Patty Blount was red-faced, fat, and by no means pretty. Mr. Walpole remembered her walking to Mr. Bethell’s, in Arlington Street, after Pope’s death, with her petticoats tucked up like a sempstress. She was the decided mistress of Pope, yet visited by respectable people.—(The same.)
Lord Radnor, who lived at Twickenham, and is one of the subscribing witnesses to Pope’s will, was kept in subjection by the Poet, who he feared would ridicule his false taste. Pope availed himself of this, and used to borrow his chariot for three months at a time.—(The same.)
Conyers Middleton wrote a Treatise against Prayer, which he showed to Lord Bolingbroke, who dissuaded him from publishing it as it would set all the clergy against him. On this ground he counselled him to destroy the manuscript, but secretly kept a copy which is probably still in being.—(The same, from Mrs. Middleton.)
Congreve’s Double Dealer, says Dryden in a manuscript letter to Walsh, is much censured by the greater part of the town, and is defended only by the best judges, who you know are commonly the fewest. Yet it gains ground daily, and has been already acted eight times. The women think he has exposed their bitchery, and the gentlemen are offended with him for the discovery of their follies, and the way of their intrigue under the notion of friendship to their ladies’ husbands.
I am afraid you discover not your own opinion concerning my irregular way of tragi-comedy in my dappia favola. I will never defend that practice, for I know it distracts the hearers; but I know withal that it has hitherto pleased them for the sake of variety, and for the particular taste which they have to low comedy.—(MS. Letters from Dryden to Walsh, in the possession of Mr. Bromley, of Abberley Park, near Worcester.)
Richardson, the author of Clarissa, had been a common printer, and possessed no literature whatever. He was very silent in company, and so vain that he neyer enjoyed any subject but that of himself or his works. He once asked Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, how he liked Clarissa. The bishop said he could never get beyond the Bailiff scene. The author, thinking this a condemnation of his book, looked grave; but all was right when the bishop added, it affected him so much that he was drowned in tears, and could not trust himself with the book any longer.
Richardson had a kind of club of women about him—Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Talbot, &c.—who looked up to him as to a superior being; to whom he dictated and gave laws; and with whom he lived almost entirely. To acquire a facility of epistolary writing he would on every trivial occasion write notes to his daughters even when they were in the same house with him.—( Bishop Douglas and Dr. Johnson.)
The paper published by Dalrymple in his appendix, p. 11, p. 78, and ascribed to Lord Nottingham, is not of unquestionable authority, being not in his handwriting. Dr. Percy got his copy from [not filled up].
When King William found himself much pressed and harassed by the Whigs who had put him on the throne, he one day exclaimed to Lord Wharton, that after all the Tories were the only true supporters of an English king. “True,” replied Wharton, “but please your Majesty, you should recollect that you are not their king.”—(Lord Ossory.)
January 29, 1793.—Dr. Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, told me at the Club that two days before the death of Queen Anne, the Duke of Marlborough returned to England with a view to take measures for securing the succession to the Pretender-king. But a frigate being sent to communicate the event that was likely to take place every hour, all the Tories were dismayed; he prudently changed his plan, and when he landed, affected to be a firm Whig.
During the trial of Lord Oxford he discovered the letter from the Duke of Marlborough, mentioned in p. 384, and sent word to the duchess by Lord Duplin, afterwards Earl of Kinnoul, that if the trial went on this letter should certainly be produced. A consultation was then held among the Whigs, when it was agreed that by some means a disagreement between the Lords and Commons should be raised so as to give a pretence for putting an end to the trial. This was done accordingly. Lord Bath, who was then Mr. Pulteney, told the Bishop of Salisbury that not above three or four of the Whigs knew the secret; while the others were at a loss to discover the true sources of much that was done at that time.
Swift made several observations on the margin of Burnett’s History of his Own Time. His copy is now in the hands of the Marquis of Lansdown. Lord Onslow has another copy filled with the remarks of his father the Speaker. Lord Lansdown has had these transcribed into his own copy, he lending in return his MS. to Lord Onslow for the same purpose. The Bishop of Salisbury has a transcript of the observations of Swift. They are short, he says, but very pointed and characteristick.
Hawkesworth, the writer, was introduced by Garrick to Lord Sandwich, who thinking to put a few hundred pounds into his pocket, appointed him to revise and publish Cook’s Voyages. He scarcely did anything to the MSS., yet sold it to Cadell and Strahan, the printer and bookseller, for 6,000l. Soon after this he purchased some portion of India stock; and having made a speech or two at the India House, was much feasted by the directors, &c.
About this time he was severely attacked in the newspapers, particularly in letters signed “A Christian,” for certain passages in the Voyages, from which it was inferred he did not believe in a Providence. These attacks affected him so much that, from low spirits he was seized with a nervous fever, which on account of the high living he had indulged in had the more power on him; and he is supposed to have put an end to his life by intentionally taking an immoderate dose of opium.—(From the Bishop of Salisbury. The opinion from Dr. Fordyce.)
He was originally a watchmaker, or some other mechanick trade. By reading Dr. Johnson’s writings he acquired his style, and a certain moral and sentimental air, though nothing mortified him so much as to suppose that he was an imitator of Johnson. He lived much with him, and Johnson was fond of him, but latterly owned that Hawkesworth—who had set out a modest, humble man—was one of the many whom success in the world had spoiled. He was latterly, as Sir Joshua Reynolds told me, an affected insincere man, and a great coxcomb in his dress. He had no literature whatever; and was so ignorant even of English history that, when he was employed in publishing three volumes of Swift’s letters, the Bishop of Salisbury (as he told me) could not make him comprehend the difference between Lord Oxford and Lord Orford.
The Marquis of Halifax left behind him very curlous memoirs of his own time. He kept a register every day of all the conversations he had with Charles II. and other persons. The loss, therefore, of this work by one who appears to have been an accurate observer of character is to be much lamented. He left two copies of it; one of them remained in the hands of [blank], by whom it was destroyed; the other came into the hands of Lady Burlington, who was persuaded by Pope to destroy it.—(From Lord Orford, March 26th, 1793.)
Sir John Germain was a mere soldier of fortune, who came to England from the Low Countries, and made his fortune by wives. He first married the Duchess of Norfolk, and after her death (1705) he married the celebrated Lady Betty Berkeley, sister of Earl Berkeley. He was so extremely ignorant that he thought St. Matthew’s Gospel was written by Sir Matthew Decker. Lord Orford once asked Lady Viscountess Fitzwilliam, who was Sir Matthew’s daughter, whether this strange story was true. She was a very cautious, prudent woman, spoke very slow, and not without a good deal of deliberation. She assured him it was, and mentioned as a confirmation of it, that Sir John at his death left Sir Matthew 200l. to be disposed of among his poor countrymen in London, having the greatest confidence in his honest execution of the trust, as he had already given the world such a proof of his piety in having written St. Matthew’s Gospel. Sir John’s gross ignorance in this respect, though almost incredible, is confirmed by what happened at his death. Lady Betty, being a very pious woman, proposed to him to receive the Sacrament. He asked would it do him any good? She said she had no doubt it would. Accordingly it was administered to him. Shortly afterwards he called his wife to his bedside, and said, with a sigh, “That thing you gave me has done me no good.” He, poor man, took it for a medicine.—(From Lord Orford; who had the last particular from General Fitzwilliam. )
When Mr. Dowdeswell was made Chancellor of the Exchequer about 1765, in the room of Lord Lyttleton, who had possessed the office for a short time, Bishop Warburton observed to Mr. Hawkins Browne, that there was a curious contrast between these Ministers. “The one just turned out, Lord Lyttleton, never in his life could learn that two and two made four; while the other knew nothing else.” This bon-mot has been given to others; but Bishop Douglas assured us he knew it was said by Warburton. Lord Lyttleton, though the accounts were all written down in words instead of figures, made such a miserable figure when he attempted, on the usual day, to represent the state of the nation and to demand a supply, that all his friends were greatly distressed for him.
It was said of the late Lord Anson that he never had any levees because he knew not how to talk, nor ever answered a letter because he scarcely knew how to write. This gives us a good idea of this famous navigator.
When the late Mr. Pitt, or Alderman Beckford, made a strong attack on the late Sir William Baker, Alderman of London, charging him with having made an immense sum by a fraudulent contract, he got up very quietly and gained the House to his side by this short reply: “The honourable gentleman is a great orator, and has made a long and serious charge against me. I am no orator, and therefore shall only answer him in two words—Prove it.” Having thus spoken he sat down; but there was something in the manner and tone that satisfied the House the charge was a calumny.
One of the Townshend family, brother I believe to the present marquis, wrote home so absurd and inconsistent an account of an action in which he had been engaged, that on his own letter he was ordered to be brought to a court-martial for ill conduct. He was however most honourably acquitted, his officers bearing ample testimony to his cool and good conduct, and proving that his pen alone, not his sword, was in fault!
Bishop Warburton being asked by a friend to what profession he meant to breed his son, who died young—and many supposed him to be Mr. Potter’s son—said it should be as he turned out. If he found him a lad of very good parts, he should make him a lawyer; if but mediocre, he should bring him up a physician; but if he proved a very dull fellow he should put him into the church.—(From old Lord Hilsborough, who knew Warburton, and once was intimate with Bishop Hurd.)
When Bishop Hurd once paid a visit to Bishop Warburton, Mrs. W., before the bishop came down, said to Hurd, “I am glad you are come, my lord, to pour a little of your oil into the bishop’s vinegar.”—(From the same, October, 1808.)
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[ Here the collection expressly termed “Maloniana” ends. But several memoranda chiefly on similar subjects, and written upon loose sheets or half-sheets of paper, were found among his remains. Others are scattered in various volumes among collectors, or found in the Bodleian. None of these were paged, or regularly strung together. Many more no doubt have been lost from being in a disconnected state; or destroyed as useless from not having passed under regular literary examination when first dislodged from his repositories.
From this cause a few of the remarks, or anecdotes, may have escaped into print; but the knowledge now of the source whence they spring will add to their value.]
Swift, like some other poets—Congreve, Thomson, Goldsmith, and many more, read his own pieces badly. His deficiency in this respect is ascertained from the testimony of George Faulkner, his Dublin publisher, who in a note to the Irish edition of his works, speaks of it as an acknowledged fact.
Edmund Spenser appears to have been born in 1557, for he was matriculated at Cambridge, where be became a member of Pembroke Hall in May 1569. At that time they usually went to the University at twelve years old. William Webbe, in his Discourse of English Poetrie, 4to., 1586, mentions the following pieces of Spenser as being then in MS.—“His Dreams, his Legends, his Court of Cupid, and his English Poet.”
Mr. Narcissus Luttrell had formed a very curious collection of ancient English poetry in twenty-four quarto volumes, distinguished by the letters of the alphabet. These were purchased some years ago by the late Dr. Farmer, for twenty-four guineas. Being cut up and sold piecemeal, they produced at the sale of his books nearly, I believe, 200l. They contained about three hundred articles. Five folio volumes of lampoons, ballads, and occasional pieces, chiefly expressive of the opinions of the day, and published between the Restoration and the end of the century, were secured by Mr. Bindley.
It is remarkable that some of the worst plays in the English language have been ornamented with engravings. A few years after the appearance of Settle’s tragedy (Empress of Morocco, the first play that was ever sold for two shillings, or printed with cuts), Noah’s Ark, an opera, was embellished with similar decorations; and in the following century, Scanderbeg, a tragedy, was recommended to the public by the same ornamental appendages.
It is a singular circumstance that in writing the elegy on the Countess of Abingdon, called Eleonora, Dryden did not know that she died very suddenly at a ball in her own house in the midst of a gay assemblage of both sexes; a fact of which, had he been apprised, he would not have neglected to avail himself. He had never seen the lady; and wrote the poem at the solicitation of a nobleman with whom he was not personally acquainted.
A long note is given to Spenser in Winstanley’s notice of him (1687) relative to his death, interment, and tomb, or rather supposed tombs. Camden, Fenton, Charles Fitz Geoffry, Sir Aston Cockaine, Sheppard (in his Epigrams, 1651), Warner, and Sir James Ware, are quoted, all varying in their testimonies as to facts. It seems there was no tomb erected for above twenty years after his death, and then by the Countess of Dorset. Discrepancies also existed as to his death, some making it 1598, some 1599. In 1802 Malone discovered the truth in the title-page of a copy of the second part of the Faery Queen, 1596, which the ancient owner appeared to have purchased in 1598, and in a Latin passage marks his death Jan. 16th, 1598.
The unmanly revenge of Lord Rochester in hiring three ruffians to beat Dryden is well known. “In a newspaper of the day,” says Malone, is the following account of the transaction with which I have been furnished by {{wdl|Q5075910|Dr. Charles Burney]], junior:—
“Dec. 19th, 1679.—Last night, Mr. Dryden, the famous poet, coming from a coffee-house in Covent Garden, was set upon by three persons unknown to him; and so rudely by them handled, that it is said his life is in no small danger. It is thought to have been the effect of private grudge rather than upon the too common design of unlawful gain; an unkind trespass by which not only he himself, but the commonwealth of learning may receive injury. His own advertisement, with the reward of 50l. for the apprehension of the parties, did not appear till ten days afterward. . . . .
Pope, who in his earlier years made imitations of Chaucer, Spenser, Waller, Cowley, Rochester, Dorset, and Swift, did not attempt an imitation of Dryden. His own poetry indeed was only Dryden’s versification rendered by incessant care more smooth and musical, but less flowing and less varied.
The elder Cibber was, I believe, the most celebrated performer of Bayes in the Rehearsal. To him succeeded Garrick, who though he doubtless departed in some measure from the original idea, made the representation incomparably pleasant. Lacy formed the original Bayes; after him Joseph Haines, celebrated for dancing and mimicry. . . .
The Duchess of Portsmouth (Louise de Querouaille), who was alleged to be an abettor of Rochester in the outrage on Dryden, returned to France on the death of her royal paramour. In 1699 she paid a visit to England, when according to Burnett, she told Mr. Anthony Henley, of the Grange in Hampshire, that Charles the Second had been poisoned. She died at Paris in 1728, much advanced in life.
Had not the whole of Lord Shaftesbury’s political life made him so justly odious, Dryden’s connections would naturally have led him to represent that nobleman in a favourable light. For Shaftesbury had married Margaret, daughter of William, second Lord Spencer; and Henry Howard, one of the brothers of Dryden’s wife, married Elizabeth, another of Lord Spencer’s daughters.
The discomfiture and flight of Shaftesbury to Holland in 1682, gave great satisfaction to the adherents of the Duke of York. It amounted in their view almost to a second Restoration. He had been represented on the stage in various evil imaginary forms; on one occasion with fiends’ wings and snakes twisted round the body, while rebellious heads sucked poison out of his side which ran out by a tap. It appeared that previous to the Restoration he made a journey to Breda; was overturned; an abscess eventually formed in the side, which was obliged to be punctured, or tapped. With allusion to this circumstance and the hopes he was said to have once formed of being elected King of Poland, he figured often in the lampoons of the time by the name of Tapsky.
It is curious that so little of this remarkable man, who occupied so prominent a position in that day, should now be accurately known. Yet he used due diligence to be remembered by writing his memoirs. Like those of the Marquis of Halifax however the fire, not the press, became their destination; and this under the influence of two celebrated literary names. Pope, as guardian of the character of the Catholics, persuaded Lady Burlington to destroy the memoirs of the Marquis. Locke, afraid of having questionable papers found in his house such as Shaftesbury’s were deemed to be, followed the example. Were those precedents generally followed, how little should we know of the secret springs which colour and influence history!
There is a tradition that when poor Otway died, he had about him the copy of a tragedy which it seems he had sold to Bentley, the bookseller; for there was an advertisement published soon after his death, at the end of one of L’Estrange’s political papers, offering a reward to any one who should bring it to Bentley’s shop.
A Lord Chancellor has occasionally dabbled in the drama. Hecuba, a tragedy, printed in 1726, was written beyond doubt by Mr. West, some time Lord Chancellor of Ireland. From the author’s preface, it appears that the piece is a translation from Euripides, and that it was damned the first night.
Congreve is said to have been only nineteen when he wrote the Old Bachelor. It is announced as ready for the stage in the Gentleman’s Journal (by Motteaux) for January, 1692–3; so it must have been written in 1692. But Congreve, instead of being nineteen as has been stated in all the books of biography, was twenty-three; for he was born some time in 1669, as appears from the register of the college where he was entered a student—Trinity College, Dublin—April 5, 1685, being then in his sixteenth year—“Annos natus sexdecim.”
It has been scarcely noticed that Aaron Hill, besides his prose and poetical compositions printed in four volumes octavo, was the author of a periodical paper called the Prompter, the first number of which was published Nov. 12, 1734, and the last, I believe, June 29, 1736. These papers were printed in folio, and have never been collected into volumes.
Dryden was sometimes aided by the profits of the dramatic productions of his friends. Mr. George Granville wrote The Jew of Venice with that view; but Dryden dying before its representation, the profits were given to his eldest son. In like manner it is probable he gave him the profits of his two plays, The She Gallants, and Heroick Love, the former acted in 1696, the latter in Jan. 1697–8. Before Heroick Love were some encomiastic verses by Dryden. In the preface to the She Gallants Granville says that he gave the benefit of it to a friend; and that if his friend had a third day to his satisfaction he had obtained his end.
(Of the correctness of this story he afterwards found some reason to doubt; but the main facts are probably true.)
Dryden, it appears, was not displaced from his offices by the strong hand of authority as generally supposed; but as he himself has told us, conscientiously relinquished them on the lst August, 1689, by refusing to take the oaths of supremacy and abjuration which were appointed by the first parliament of King William to be taken by every person holding office under the Crown.
Addison, in his Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day, has admitted the following lines, which were supplied by Hughes, as ascertained by a manuscript note in my possession.
On bright Cecilia’s charming tongue;
Notes that sacred hearts inspired,
And with religious ardour fired
The love-sick youth, that long suppressed
The smothered passion in his breast.
Wycherley married twelve days before his death Elizabeth Jackson, one of the daughters and co-heiresses of Mr. Jos. Jackson, of Hertingfordbury, whose fortune was 1,000l., not 1,500l., as has been stated in books of biography. He settled on her a jointure of 1,000l. per annum. By his last will, which was made Saturday, Dec. 31, 1715, the day of his death and executed about two hours before that event, he leaves her, by the name of his dear and well-beloved wife Elizabeth Wycherley, after the payment of his debts and funeral charges, all the rest and residue of his estate, ready money, plate, goods and chattels whatsoever; and appoints his kinsman, Thomas Shrimpton, Esq., his executor. About three months after his death, she married that gentleman who was a half-pay captain. Mr. Wycherley’s nephew (his brother’s son) soon afterward filed a bill against Mr. and Mrs. Shrimpton, alleging that she was married to Mr. Shrimpton before she married Mr. Wycherley; that thus the old man had been imposed upon, and induced to settle a jointure on her without consideration, her fortune not having been paid to him. The defendants swore in their answer that he had received 190l. of it; and Lord Macclesfield finally decreed in their favour, so the allegation of her previous marriage must have been unfounded. The decree I beheve was made in 1718.
Wycherley about six weeks before his death was arrested by an old servant, for a pretended debt of 30l., which having lost the servant’s receipt he was obliged to pay a second time. Not having the money, he solicited all his friends in vain to assist him, and at length was released by Captain Shrimpton. See a curious letter written by that gentleman, giving an account of these transactions, in Egerton’s (i. e. Curlls’s) Life of Mrs. Oldfield, p. 122. See also Major Pack’s Memoirs of Wycherley, and Pope’s letter soon after his death.—[Other writers vary this story considerably, and some with inaccurate details.]
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Mrs. Martha Fowke, alias Sansom, in her extraordinary memoirs of her own life, in which she gives a history of various lovers, says, p. 67:—“Here, at Bath (about 1714), I became acquainted with Mr. Wycherley, who had wit without politeness; and a levity improper for his age—seventy-four, it appears. He was very little to my taste. I was much more to his; and would love have consented, I might have been wife to that poet; but my heart was averse.”—Clio, or the Secret History of the Life and Amours of the late celebrated Mrs. S—n—m, written by Herself, 8vo, 1752. It is singular that she also was a native of Hertingfordbury. Wycherleys paternal estate was situated at Cleve in Shropshire, about five miles from Shrewsbury, and was worth 600l. per annum.
Mr. Flood wrote and printed an Ode to Fame in 1775, which (ninety-four lines) has considerable merit. Also a translation of The first Pythian Ode of Pindar, about 150 lines. These, and some of his speeches, were presented (to Malone) by himself.
The speeches, says the latter, “On the Declaratory Act of Geo. II., 11th June, 1782;” and on Mr. Grattan’s ‘‘Simple Repeal,” are in my collection of Tracts, vol. 57. Those on the “Commercial Treaty, 1787;” and on “Reform of the Representation,” in vol. 60. They were never published. He died December 2nd, 1791, at Farmley, in Kilkenny. The edition, in the British Museum, is a thin quarto.
I have long endeavoured in vain to ascertain the time when Lady M. W. Montague and Pope quarrelled. Circumstances seem to fix it at some period between 1717, when Pope sent his verses on Addison to him in MS., and 1719, when that writer died. The advice she received from the latter was to avoid Pope; otherwise he would certainly play her some devilish trick. It appears certain that Pope was the first to break off the acquaintance in form.
Song in ye Praise of Melancholy.—F. 80 Bod.
The author of this beautiful piece (Dr. Strode) part of which has been ascribed unjustly to Fletcher, because it is sung in his Nice Valour, was born about the year 1600, and died Canon of Christ Church in 1644. Milton evidently took the hint of his “L’Allegro” and “Penseroso” from it.
No. 21 in Catalogue; 8vo, 96 leaves; Miscellaneous Poetry.
Pope’s nephew has been mentioned by some. This was, I suppose, the son of Mrs. Racket, Pope’s half-sister, or half-sister-in-law. None of the biographers have told us whether Mrs. Racket was the daughter of Pope’s father by a former wife, or the daughter of his mother by a former husband, or the wife of one who was the son of either his father or mother. I believe she was the wife of Pope’s half-brother; for I saw her once about the year 1760, and she seemed not to be above sixty years old. Since writing the above, I see Pope in his will calls her sister-in-law.
Aubrey, in his MS. Anecdotes of the English Poets, says, that Sir John Suckling, who fled from London to Paris in the troubles in 1641, in dread of being apprehended for conspiracy against the popular interests, was poisoned and died in that capital.
Creech did not translate Manilius. The version of that poet was done by Sir Edward Sherburne, I am informed.
Lady W. Montague corresponded with Dr. Young, the poet, who a little before his death destroyed a great number of her letters, assigning as a reason that they were too indelicate for public inspection.
Swift, in a letter to the Rev. Henry Jenny of Armagh, written in 1732, gives an extremely depreciatory view of the wretchedness of Ireland and her low order of civilization—all due, he will have it, to the tyranny of England; with a passing glance at the more immediate cause in remote districts—oppressive squires. When shown to Malone, he wrote a long comment upon it in 1808, explaining the causes of the misery of the people then and long afterwards, but there is nothing of particular interest to the reader to extract.
Mr. Nichols (of the Gentleman’s Magazine), writing of Swift’s Life about the same time, says: “I was much indebted to the friendship of Mr. Malone, who, besides many useful hints, obtained for me a very valuable Essay on the earlier Part of the Life of Swift by the Rev. Dr. John Barrett, Vice Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, with numerous articles written by the Dean in early life, and then first printed. From Mr. Malone also, I received a drawing of the very excellent likeness of the Dean, taken after his death; and an original letter to Dr. Jenny on the state of Ireland (1736), copied from one in the possession of Lord Cremorne.
In 1796 the Rev. James Plumptre of Clare Hall, Cambridge, “with high respect for his critical opinions,” sends his Observations on the Tragedy of Hamlet. And John Kemble, not to be behind in complimentary offering, replies to an assailant of Shakspeare by an anonymous essay, Macbeth Reconsidered, scribed to his master in the critical art, Malone.
[Desirous of doing all honour to the person and character of Lord Southampton, Shakspeare’s patron, no opportunity was lost (see p. 179) of introducing both to our familiar acquaintance. With this view, one of his explorations for a picture of that nobleman was to Woburn, of which the following account is given to Ozias Humphrey. I am indebted for it to the kindness of Mr. Halliwell, but it came to hand too late for arrangement in chronological order.]
“Dear Sir,—A celebrated Spanish philosopher, Sancho Panza by name, I think says, ‘He is a wise father who knows his own child.’ And some other equally celebrated personage observes that ‘books are often more learned than their authors.’ These remarks were brought to my mind by the line you favoured me with from Strawberrry Hill; for most assuredly there is an original picture of Henry, Earl of Southampton, at Woburn Abbey; and from Mr. Walpole’s book it was that I first learned such a picture, painted by Wireveldt, existed there. He mentions it, I think, in the beginning of his second volume.
“I knew of the picture at Bulstrode; and three years ago went there on purpose to see it, with a view to have it engraved in honour of Shakspeare; but it is so disagreeable a picture that I gave up all thoughts of it; and then got a copy made from a bad impression (the only one I could get) of a print by Simon Pass, in the year 1617. At the time this print was engraving for me, I sent down a proof to the Duke of Bedford’s steward to compare it with the picture; and from his account of the correspondence between them, had no doubt that the picture at Woburn was a genuine one. On examining it this evening—for I am just now arrived at my inn after walking through the apartments—I am convinced that I was right; and lament much that I had not the pleasure of your company to this place to make a drawing. However, I will not yet give up the point; but hope to do something in it when I return from Ireland. There is here likewise an original picture of the celebrated Lord Essex, and some others worth your attention.
“You have made me very happy by the drawing of Shakspeare, for which I am extremely obliged. It struck me there was some little defect in one of the eyes, by too much of the white being shown, which gives the appearance of squinting, and which I do not recollect in the original. But I am no artist; and it is a hundred to one that I am mistaken. If I am right it can be easily rectified.
“I suppose you will not for some time look at old Shakspeare’s face; but if any one can prevail upon you to copy what you have done, remember that I am to have the original. When Mr. Hall has done with it, and when next we have the pleasure of meeting, I will settle with you on the subject. In the meantime believe me, dear sir, &c. &c.
“My address in Ireland is Baronston, Mullingar.”
Dr. Farmer, who had been enlisted in the same pursuit, sends some further information of his lordship with an apology for omitting his notes on the three parts of Henry VI.
“My Dear Sir,—I hoped to have seen you in my way through town, but I spent only one day there, and that at the other end of it.
“You should have heard from me a post or two sooner, but our Registrar was out of the University, and I could not earlier get into the office. I find that Henry, Earl of Southampton, was admitted to the degree of B.A. in 1589, and proceeded no farther; and luckily examining the Book of Matriculations, I at last fell upon ‘Hen. Comes Southampton, impubes, 12 an°. of St. John’s College, Dec. 11, 1585.’ Here we have his age as well as college. Essex was of Trin. June 1, 1579.
***
“Whatever you may have fancied, I solemnly declare to you that I always meant to send you my notes on the Henrys, if I could find them, and I flattered myself they might be among some papers at Canterbury. I cannot yet find them, and you want no assistance. As I remember, you have some of my arguments but not all. I have supposed the plays—originally Marlowe’s, and altered after his death by Shakspeare; this I argued from style and manner; with many quotations from passages contradictory to others in Shakspeare’s genuine plays, and others clashing in the Henrys themselves, which show different hands,” &c. &c.
Malone’s aim at minute correctness we have seen excited an occasional smile among the more fly-along order of readers and writers. Occasionally he was compelled to be exact, in consequence of being watched. Steevens sometimes sought to find him tripping. Hence the origin of the following note to Isaac Reed, with which I am obliged from the stores of Mr. J. H. Anderdon.
“My dear Sir,—In a note on Dodsley’s Preface to the Old Plays, p. 11, speaking of the Curtain Theatre, you refer to Sir John Hawkins’ History of Music, iv. 67, but I can find nothing there upon the subject. I suppose there is an error of the press in the page referred to, and request you will let me know the true reference if you can light on it, as I have occasion to speak of the Curtain Theatre.
“I never could learn on what authority Mr. Steevens says the sign was a striped curtain. Perhaps you may know. The sign without doubt was a curtain, and it is of little consequence whether variegated; yet as we are henceforth to speak by the Card, one would wish to be correct. I sent my servant last night with the paper, that he might find you at home to inquire about the dreadful fire at Emanuel College. If you have had a line from Dr. Farmer, pray be so good as to let me know what the extent of the mischief may be. . . . I wrote a long letter to Dr. Farmer on Monday, but it must have reached his hands in the midst of the calamity,” &c. &c.
Among the papers of Edmond, I have met with only one letter of his celebrated uncle Anthony Malone (see p. 3), of whom I am informed there are few remains, and which thence may find place here. It is a melancholy effusion to the elder sister of Edmond, written soon after the death of a wife to whom he was fondly attached; and in which we trace the sinking spirit in advanced life instinctively preparing to follow whither a beloved partner had preceded him.
From Rt. Hon. Anthony Malone to his Niece.
My dearest Harriett,—I had the favour of a letter from you yesterday, and was glad to hear you had got so well to the end of your journey, and in so good time, notwithstanding the disappointments you met with on the road, and that you found your father so well.
If the country, which you say looks very beautiful, be to you a melancholy place, consider in what light it must appear to me who have so lately lost my all—the faithful and affectionate partner of my heart—who alone could make either town or country pleasing to me. I have lost all relish for both; all plans are become quite indifferent to me; and I think it of very little moment to consider in what place I should indulge the melancholy reflections which attend my solitary hours, and which necessarily must accompany me wherever I go, especially when I add to them the disappointments I have lately met with where I least expected it. The only plan which my imagination could suggest as most likely to produce honour or advantage to my family, and a little comfort and satisfaction to myself, is by continuing that correspondence with friends which I have endeavoured, for the greatest part of my life, to cultivate and maintain, and which alone can alleviate my affliction, and make the short remainder of my life pass quietly.
But I will say no more. Perhaps I have already said too much; but you must excuse it, as being occasioned by the overflowing of a disturbed mind and disconsolate heart. In all events, however, you may be assured I am and shall continue your affectionate and sincere friend, and am, with love to your father and sister, my dearest Harriett, your very affectionate though disconsolate uncle,
Dublin, 5th Aug. 1773.