fun, joined in the laughter for sheer company's sake, and seemed to enjoy it as much as ourselves, till the tears ran from his eyes, although he was evidently bewildered as to the provoking cause. Nevertheless, a laugh's a laugh, and too good a thing to be despised at any time; it expands the midriff, spurs a sleepy nature, comforts the members, cures infirmity, is the death of diseases, and not only dispels melancholy, but destroys many mischiefs and vices. A merry man is rarely a vicious man. Your Falstaff is not dangerous to the State-it is the men of downcast eye and sober jowl-men of the lean and hungry look that live upon the excogitation of-

"Treasons, stratagems, and spoils."

"You seem to hold the merry-andrews in some kind of respect, since you ascribe a similarity of possible occupation to Mr. Malone, suggested we, recovering ourselves from our cachinnatory attack.

"And why shouldn't I, your honour? I' faix, I've heerd more wit and wisdom from a merry-andrew in half-an-hour than I ever was trayted to by a rale lord in my whole life. Sure, the most part of them, your honour, thinks of nothing but pleasure, and is only fit for follying a fox or casting the dice at a gaming-table."

"I don't know that, Mr. O'Brallaghan; there are lords and lords men: some are of the kind you speak of, but others are wise and good men who govern the country at the expense of great care and pains to themselves of many an anxious home and many a sleepless night -and are the best friends of the Crown and the people."

"Perhaps 'tis so, sir. I would not misdoubt your word; but most of those we see have no great wisdom. All the common sense that many of them has would not cover the point of my bradawl, and that you know has neither length, breadth, nor thickness,' as one Euclid has it. I delight myself scratching problems of Euclid on a scrap of leather with my awl sometimes, and I begin to think I'm as wise as any lord of the whole lot when I succeed in making them out; but Mr. Merryman beats us all. I'll tell you what I heerd him say once-he called it the three wonders:—

"I wonder,' says he, that min take the trouble to kill one another in battle, for they're all sure to die if they will only wait a while.'

“And I wonder,' says he, that people shake apples off a tree, for they are sure to fall to the ground if let alone.'

"And I wonder,' says he, that the gintlemen ask the ladies to marry, for if they would only hould their tongues the ladies would be certain to come round, and ax them theirselves.'

"Now, that I take to be sharp and clear beyond anything a lord ever composed in his life."

Sharp and amusing enough in its way, Mr. O'Brallaghan, but many noblemen can do much better than that."

"But nivver a one of them, I think, could earn his own bread; no, nor ever a gintleman studient of them all. It's well they were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, or I doubt they'd never

win the price of a horn one by their labour. Can ye tell me, sir, what's the use of a lord ?"

Our friend of the lapstone will be perceived at once to have been a person of advanced political opinions, a friend to Radical Reform, and something more. So we evaded his question by simply stating that inequality of social condition had always prevailed in the worl and always would do so to the end of time. Besides, we suggested that distinction of classes, founded on birth and ancestry, was really the least offensive basis on which it could be grounded. We added moreover, that if those who wrought for their bread were happy n their calling they had no ground for murmuring against the lot of those who had not indeed their toil, but who also rarely shared their happiness.

Tis true, your honour, I do not envy, and I will try not to scorn. But all the great min and learned min I ever saw was a helpless set-servants to do every hand's turn for them, and their own fingers as useless to serve themselves as the flappin' fins of a st I'd get rich with my cobblin' old shoes where they'd starve. Does your honour know the old song of the Scholar and the Shoemaker (they were two brothers, your honour)? When I get tired sittin' on my binch, stitching, and hammering, and pulling away, I often croon it over to myself, an' it's as good as a smoke, an' far better than a glass of whisky, for it cheers my heart, and leaves me as fresh as a daisy :

Willie and Jonathan came to town together,

Willie stuck to learning, and Jonathan to leather;
While Johnnie in the cellar like any hog grew fat,

Poor Willie in the garret was as lean as a starv'd rat—
With his learning Latin, Greek, and Syntax, Prosody, and Logic.
With his learning Latin, Greek, and Syntax, Prosody, and Logic.

*

**

So sing Leather, Lapstone, Hammer, Nippers, Pegging Awl, and Bristle,

So sing Leather, Lapstone, Hammer, Nippers, Pegging Awl, and Bristle!

"There's some sense in that song, sir, and no end of truth. It's as true as the British Constitution, and that you, sir, at least will hold to be as true as the Gospel."

"The British Constitution is not perfect, Mr. O'Brallaghan, and nothing human is, but it gives great peace and prosperity to our country, grants yourself a vote in the representation and taxation of the people of the empire, and allows you to express your opinion freely of your governors, and their proceedings."

"GOD SAVE QUEEN VICTORIA, at any rate," said our friend, “azd save yourself kindly, sir, for chatting so pleasantly with us the day, and send you safe home again to the missis from the burying-place of Shakspeare Malone!"

"Thank you for your good wishes, Mr. O'Brallaghan; we wish you a good day, and shall not forget your civility, and Tootle-tootletoo in a hurry. Good-bye." And we laughed ourselves out of the amusing fellow's presence, only to indulge in the relief of a hearty éclat de rire when we were once more in the open air. Shakspeare

Malone, the quiet, plodding, studious gentleman, a mountebank at a fair, and any one on this broad earth simple enough to believe it! It was worth visiting Baronston, if only to see such a phenomenon.

In direct and diametrical contrast to this market-place celebrity, and noisy, glarey, vulgar fame, was the course of Mr. Malone: in Trinity College a promising and careful scholar, and in the Inner Temple, London, a diligent Chancery student. In 1767 he was called to the Irish bar when he was twenty-six, but we have glimpses into his heart before this, that literature and not Themis was the lady of his affections. In politics he never took a prominent part, nevertheless like most half our plagued lawyers, he found occupation for his pen in an occasional squib; in one of which, with grave irony, he deplores the improvidence of the Irish poor, who devour eggs by millions, which if allowed to become hens, would be of twenty times the value. In the year of his father's-the judge's death, 1774, he was candidate for the representation of Trinity College, on liberal principles, and addressed the electors in a speech, the heads of which still survive.

But from this stir and tumult of public life, he betakes himself to his beloved leisure with the Muses, and edits Goldsmith's works with his characteristic accuracy in 1776. As his father had left him in more than easy circumstances, whereby the necessity of following a profession was obviated, he even contemplated the entire renunciation of the bar and of Ireland together; for the dear delights of London society, authors, letters, and libraries, to a man of Malone's taste, constituted the summum bonum of bliss. This purpose he accomplished in the year 1777. Long before this, literature, and especially dramatic literature, had secured his devoted attention, and books and their makers had for years superseded, in his regard, the coif and gown. His chief acquaintance in the Irish metropolis had been not the most distinguished lawyers or politicians, but the bookworm and the antiquarian. Amongst his leading friends was that patriotic and accomplished Lord Charlemont, whose countenance lent a charm to literature, and whose political wisdom and prudence furnished that drag-chain so necessary in 1782, which kept the Irish volunteers from running over their leaders, the timely moderation of whose chief made their movement a success. Dennis Daly, member for the county of Galway, also bore a strong attachment to Malone; and men of the stamp of these two were his chosen and intimate friends-persons who cheered him with their sympathy, and agreed with him in their tastes. His English circle soon became numerous, after the transfer of his household goods to London-Dr. Johnson, Steevens, Tyrwhitt, Lort, the two Wartons, Isaac Reed, Dr. Farmer, Francklin of Cambridge, Burney, and Horace Walpole, Sir Joshua

Reynolds, Percy, Bishop of Dromore, with many others. Dear golden Goldy he had known at an earlier period. And we cannot but commend the choice of his abode, if Malone intended to be, what he proved afterwards, a man of letters exclusively. There is a largeness about London intellectually, politically, and socially. which the heart of a great empire alone can show. All other spots must be more or less provincial in pursuits, habits, and preferences Malone would have been still Malone had he lived always in Ireland, as ingenious, as industrious, as he always proved, but life would ret have passed so pleasantly, nor would Shakspeare have been annotated half so well. With ample means for a bachelor and student's housekeeping, some £1,500 a year derived from landed property, he could command, and did, every advantage for the pursuit of his studies. He was able to meet the celebrities of the metropolis on equal ground, to reciprocate their civilities, and enjoy their society. Malone's labours on the works of Shakspeare were based upon a conviction that much still remained to be done for their elucidation -topics, in fact, wholly untouched, or scarcely touched, still open to the ingenious inquirer. The chronology of his plays, for instance, the stories on which they were grounded, the history of the stage during Shakpeare's occupation of it, the poetry and dramas of other writers of the time, the incidents of their lives, their successes and discouragements, might well be expected to throw light on the principal figure; and this was a vein that had hardly been broached by previous labourers on the bard. Warburton, Theobald, Steevens, Johnson, had all recently published texts and comments on the common theme; but to the gleaner, nevertheless, they left a still abundant harvest to reward his toil. And Malone was not a person who would omit any effort essential to do justice to his subject. Hence in the field of Shaksperian research no publication of the age of Elizabeth, her predecessors or successors, in the form of poem, drama, pamphlet, or miscellaneous tract was omitted. Manuscripts, whenever found, were carefully consulted; no expense or application was spared in order to exhume truth and fact from the graveyards 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 disburse such acquisitions as could be turned to the commentator's account. And not without result did he expend such industry on his work. In two years, accordingly, in 17 appeared two volumes, each of more than 700 pages, entitled, "4 Supplement to the Edition of Shakspeare's Plays by Samuel Johns and George Steevens." This publication was well received, as it

deserved.

Chatterton's fabrication could not stand before investigation so thorough as his; hence we find Malone's success fully demolishing that ingenious youth's superstructure with the sledge-hammer of his criticism, contained in a pamphlet called, "Cursory Observations the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley, a Priest of the Flesh Century." This controversy possessed for the reading public at the

close of the last century much of the interest which the Collier forgeries of Shakspearian documents possess for readers of the present day. On one side were arrayed Dean Milles, Jacob Bryant, Green, Dampier, Hickford, Rev. J. Fell; on the other, our hero, Thomas Warton, Tyrwhitt, Steevens, Pinkerton, Chalmers, and many besides. Malone was a great collector as well as a diligent investigator; hence he made an assemblage of all that was written upon the subject, and had these publications bound together and lettered for convenience of reference. This unique set of books was unfortunately sold in 1811.

A faithful friend, and influential with theatrical managers, he helped several plays of his friend, Robert Jephson, on the stagesuch as The Count of Narbonne, Julia, and The Conspiracy. Jephson published other plays-Bragonza, The Law of Lombardy-and ever felt the kindness of Malone, who spared no pains to serve him.

In 1782 our author was elected into the Literary Club, which Goldy and Johnson ennobled-but poor Goldy had long passed away. From this period and event more than civilities pass between the colossus of literature and Edmond Malone. Johnson compliments "the elegant hospitality" of his Irish friend, and Bozzy adds of him, that "the more he is known he is the more highly valued." Ursa Major warmed to the gentle genial soul of the unobtrusive scholar, and on one occasion, when Malone called at Bolt-court, and found the doctor indisposed, he rose to retire, believing him to be in too great pain to converse, but Johnson said: "Pray, sir, be seated. I cannot talk, but I like to see you there."

The acquaintance with Johnson seems to have led Malone into a kind of budding Boswellism, for he took to recording the sayings and doings of his literary friends. As for instance, under date 1783, Dr. Johnson is as correct and elegant in his common conversation as in his writings. He never seems to study either for thoughts or words; and is on all occasions so fluent, so well informed, so accurate and even eloquent, that I never left his company without regret. Sir Josh. Reynolds told me that from his first outset in life, he had always had his character: and by what means he had attained it. He told him he had early laid it down, as a fixed rule, always to do his best, on every occasion, and in every company, to impart whatever he knew in the best language he could put it in; and that by constant practice, and never suffering any careless expression to escape him, or attempting to deliver his thoughts without arranging them. in the clearest manner he could, it was now become habitual to him. "I have observed in my various visits to him, that he never relaxes in this respect. When first introduced I was very young; yet he was as accurate in his conversation as if he had been talking to the first scholar in England. I have always found him very communicative; ready to give his opinion on any subject that was mentioned. He seldom, however, starts a subject himself; but it is very easy to lead him into one."

Toward the latter part of the year 1783, was commenced the main

VOL. III.

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