A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR, &c.

EDMOND MALONE was descended from an Irish family of the highest antiquity*: and all his immediate predecessors were distinguished men. His grandfather, Richard Malone, while he was yet only a student at the Temple, was entrusted with a negotiation in Holland; and so successfully acquitted himself, that he was honoured and rewarded by King William for his services. Having been called to the Irish bar about 1700, he became one of the most eminent barristers that have ever appeared in that country. His professional fame has only been eclipsed by that of his eldest son, the still more celebrated Anthony Malone, whose superiority to him has not, however, been universally acknowledged. To any one, who is even slightly acquainted with the history of Ireland, it would be superfluous to point out the extraordinary qualities which adorned the character of Anthony Malone. As a lawyer, an orator, and an able and upright statesman, he was confessedly one of the most illustrious men of which his country can boast. If any testimony to his merits were required, it will be found in the following passage from the pen of Mr. Grattan: "Mr. Malone was a

This is not the place to enlarge upon Mr. Malone's family; but a detailed account of it is to be found in the 7th volume of Archdall's Peerage of Ireland, which, it is believed, was drawn up by Mr. Malone himself, and which contains a full and interesting delineation of his grandfather and uncle.

man of the finest intellect that any country ever produced. The three ablest men I have ever heard, were Mr. Pitt (the father), Mr. Murray, and Mr. Malone. For a popular assembly I would chuse Mr. Pitt; for a privy council, Murray; for twelve wise men, Malone. This was the opinion which Lord Sackville, the Secretary of [17]53, gave of Mr. Malone to a gentleman from whom I heard it."-" He is a great sea in a calm," said Mr. Gerard Hamilton, another great judge of men and talents. "Aye,” it was replied, "but had you seen him when he was young, you would have said he was a great sea in a storm! and, like the sea, whether in calm or storm, he was a great production of nature.”

Edmond, the second son of Richard, and the father of the late Mr. Malone, was born on the 16th of April, 1704. He was called to the English bar in 1730, where he continued for ten years to practise; and, in 1740, removed to the Irish bar. After having sat in several parliaments, and gone through the usual gradations of professional rank, he was raised, in 1766, to the dignity of one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland, an office which he filled till his death in 1774. He married, in 1736, Catherine, only daughter and heir of Benjamin Collier, Esq. of Ruckholts, in the county of Essex, by whom he had four sons, Richard, created Lord Sunderlin; Edmond, the subject of our present Memoir; Anthony, and Benjamin, who died in their infancy; and two daughters, Henrietta and Catherine.

Edmond Malone was born at his father's house in Dublin, on the 4th of October, 1741. He was educated at the school of Dr. Ford, in Molesworth-street; and went from thence, in the year 1756, to the University of Dublin; where he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Here his talents very early displayed themselves; and, to use the words of a most respectable gentleman, his contemporary, He was distinguished by a successful competition for academical honours with several young men, who after

wards became the ornaments of the Irish Senate and Bar." It appears that at his outset he had laid down to himself those rules of study to which he ever afterwards steadily adhered. His pursuits were various, but they were not desultory. He was anxious for general information, as far as it could be accurately obtained; but had no value for that superficial smattering which fills the world with brisk and empty talkers. When sitting down to the perusal of any work, either antient or modern, his attention was drawn to its chronology, the history and character of its author, the feelings and prejudices of the times in which he lived; and any other collateral information which might tend to illustrate his writings, or acquaint us with his probable views and cast of thinking. In later years he was more particularly engrossed by the literature of his own country; but the knowledge he had acquired in his youth had been too assiduously collected, and too firmly fixed in his mind, not to retain possession of his memory, and preserve that purity and elegance of taste which is rarely to be met with but in those who have early derived it from the models of classical antiquity. As a proof that his youthful studies had by no means been forgotten, those who were intimate with him can well recollect the delight he at all times expressed, at receiving the letters of Dr. Michael Kearney. The communications of that elegant scholar would have gratified him had the writer been a stranger; but it is unnecessary to point out how much his pleasure was enhanced when he found them in the correspondence of one of his earliest and most highly valued friends. He appears frequently, at this period, in common with some of his accomplished contemporaries, to have amused himself with slight poetical compositions; and on the marriage of their present Majesties contributed an Ode to the collection of congratulatory verses which issued on that event from the University of Dublin. In 1763 he became a student in the Inner Temple; and in 1767 was called to the Irish bar. It

might naturally have been expected, that the example of his distinguished relatives, et pater Æneas et avunculus Hector, would have stimulated him to pursue the same career in which they had been so honourably successful; and that he would have attained to the highest rank in a profession for which he was so admirably fitted by his natural acuteness and steady habits of application; and accordingly, at his first appearance in the Courts, he gave every promise of future eminence. But an independent fortune having soon after devolved upon him, he felt himself at liberty to retire from the bar, and devote his whole attention in future to those literary pursuits which have established his reputation as a critick, and entitled him to the gratitude of every English scholar. With a view to the superior opportunities for information and study, and the society which London affords, he soon after settled in that metropolis; and resided there with very little intermission, for the remainder of his life. Such society, indeed, as he met with there, must have been a perpetual feast of intellectual enjoyment, to one so well qualified to appreciate its value. It is no exaggeration to say that centuries may elapse before two such men as Burke and Johnson can be brought together; and how long may we look in vain for such a combination of various and splendid talent as was collected by the liberal and tasteful hospitality of Sir Joshua Reynolds, himself one of the brightest ornaments of the age in which he lived! Among the many eminent men with whom he became early acquainted, he was naturally drawn by the enthusiastic admiration which he felt for Shakspeare, and the attention which he had already paid to the elucidation of his works, into a particularly intimate intercourse with Mr. Steevens. The just views which he himself had formed, led him to recognise in the system of criticism and illustration which that gentleman then adopted, the only means by which a correct exhibition of our great Poet could be obtained. Mr. Steevens was gratified to find that one so well ac