tices on Shakspeare and in the Lives of the Poets, of which only a few remain. Malone considered Johnson right in some disputed notes, as in “Asses of great charge,” and wrong in “To be, or not to be.” Like Johnson and Pope, he deemed rhyme necessary for the full effect of English poetry. Like the former, he entertained dislike to the politics, temper, and conduct of Milton; and on another occasion is violent against Milton’s master, Cromwell. He told Johnson that he had censured Lord Marchmont wrongly for not taking care of Pope’s papers; for Lord Bolingbroke alone had been entrusted with that charge. But Johnson forgot on this as on some other occasions to make the necessary corrections in a new edition. He corroborated the fact tated by Johnson though doubted by others, of Addison having put an execution into Steele’s house for debt. Burke was his authority; he having heard the story from one of Steele’s personal acquaintance, Lady Dorothea Primrose.
All communication with the great moralist added to his veneration for one so worthy of it; and to familiar friends often became the subject of conversation in future life. A lady now resident in Ireland, who more than twenty years afterwards accompanied her father on a visit to Malone in London, thus adverts to the subject in a communication to the writer:—
“Next to Shakspeare, Dr. Johnson appeared to be the great object of his admiration. He had often visited him in Bolt Court, and in a morning’s stroll took me to view the exterior of the house. On one
