PREFACE.
He who has expended learning and industry in making known the lives and labours of others, deserves the record he bestows. It forms a debt of honour, if not of gratitude, which literary men are bound to bestow upon each other. The neglect of it is injustice to their class. And in this instance, it would be to sin against an eminent literary antiquary and critic, an amiable man, and the intimate personal friend of several of the very first characters of their time.
No name is more suggestive than that of Malone whenever we take up a volume of Shakspeare, of Dryden, of the history of the stage, of Boswell, or of biographical sketches of a few eminent contemporary friends who had just passed away. Upon Pope, Aubrey, and others of a previous age, considerable labour had been expended without having its results ushered into light. While to works of more varied general information, such as the Biographia Dramatica, he had contributed largely in personal anecdote.
Of his own career I found little. The only connected sketch was an article in the Gentleman’s Magazine afterwards enlarged into a pamphlet, by the younger Boswell, to whom in his illness he had assigned the duty of completing and issuing the enlarged edition of Shakspeare in twenty-one volumes. But this scant outline was only meant to allay the curiosity of the moment. Had that gentleman lived, no doubt we should have had a fuller account of a round of persevering studies in ancient poetic and dramatic literature by his friend, such as few other critical antiquaries have achieved.
Although I had been often impressed by the want of more satisfactory information respecting Malone, accident led to the present attempt to supply it. While at Brighton in 1856, in conversation with an eminent literary friend and likewise with a warm lover of letters, Mr. William Tooke, the latter mentioned having a resident friend there, the Reverend Thomas R. Rooper, a connection of the Malone family,[1] who possessed several of the books, letters, prints, and memoranda of Edmond, which he deemed worthy of close examination. I remembered that one of the letters of that gentleman to Bishop Percy had been quoted by me in the Life of Goldsmith, twenty years before, stating that he had once possessed some manuscript verses of that poet, which had been so carefully folded in one of his books that they could not then or afterward be found. It immediately occurred to me that the lost lines might be among these memorials. Mr. Rooper was applied to, who kindly assented to the search, which however proved vain. But the introduction led to some conversations on Malone’s career and spirit of research, and eventually to the project of his life. Diligent inquiry and indifferent health have, however, postponed its appearance longer than I had anticipated. In addition to the materials supplied by this gentleman, he was good enough to procure from the present Earl of Charlemont a packet of letters written to Malone by the late lord, and which Mr. Rooper had returned to the family. The letters of Malone to that nobleman during a correspondence of twenty years have disappeared—by some said to be lost, by others destroyed.
A contingency against which there is no provision, caused the dispersion of many other papers. After the publication of Shakspeare, an agreeable evening spent by the younger Boswell with the Malone family induced the ladies, at the suggestion of Mr. Rooper, to propose his acceptance of some memorial of their late brother. The most appropriate was deemed to be a box of papers, letters, and notes upon books, men, or miscellaneous subjects which his pursuits might turn to useful public account. A note to that effect was sent him next day. The box followed in a day or two more. No acknowledgment being made, the ladies, upon inquiry, ascertained to their surprise and regret, that his death had occurred the day after its reception. Unluckily, he proved to be in pecuniary difficulties; the creditors reckoned these papers among his property; and they became scattered at the sale of his effects in 1825.
For the manuscript anecdotes subjoined to the life, with free permission for their use, I am indebted to the Reverend J. H. Gabell, to whose father, the eminent master of Winchester School, they were given by the Misses Malone.
I am likewise obliged to the Reverend R. M. Jephson of Brentwood, for several letters of his relative, Robert Jephson, the dramatic poet, of whom and of his family, it will be seen that Malone was an attached friend. To the Honourable Mrs. Caulfield, Miss Jephson of Castle Martyr, Ireland, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. West, and a few others, including an attached intimate of the Malone family, I have to express my thanks for several useful communications. Nor should I omit to mention polite attentions received in the Bodleian Library from the Reverends Dr. Bandinel and H. A. Coxe.
Of collections made to illustrate literary history, some notice will be found at the conclusion of the Life. But Malone’s fame as a collector will rest chiefly on the rare and valuable gift made to the Bodleian, which confers equal honour on his judgment, taste, and public spirit; while still closer examination of its contents will assuredly add to our estimate of its value.
- ↑ Nephew of Lady Sunderlin, wife to the elder brother of Edmond.