Among many of his manuscript remains submitted to Malone, one only appeared fit for the press, Parliamentary Logick. To this were added a few poetical pieces printed after leaving college; and a short notice by Dr. Johnson of the corn-laws of that day (1767), which had been found in his own handwriting among Hamilton’s papers.[1]
Malone edited these, and was constitutionally fitted for an editor—for his friendships survived his friends. He was proud of their names and their remains being equally remembered. He and the deceased had travelled down the hill of life together without finding cause to part company by the way. They valued each other, were in habits of intercourse, visited in the same circles—that is, the best informed societies in London,—and he wished now to test whether public opinion would stamp as sterling that reputation which in private life had been freely awarded him.
Hamilton was one of those men whose history presents some anomalies in English public life, not always easy to reconcile. Elsewhere I have glanced at the earlier portion of his career. He has left us little of himself to contemplate; and if the portrait be unsatisfactory, the fault can scarcely be laid to the charge of the limner.
- ↑ Boswell, in one of his letters to Malone, written just before the publication of Johnson’s life, thus writes of Hamilton:—“That nervous mortal, W. G. H., is not satisfied with some particulars which I wrote down from his own mouth, and is so much agitated that Courtenay has persuaded me to allow a new edition of them by H. himself, to be made at H.’s expense.” On this Mr. Croker remarks—“Mr. Hamilton’s nervousness increases our regret at not being able to penetrate the secret of his political transactions with Johnson. It was clearly something that he did not like to reveal.” This, however, is probably an error. It was more likely temperament—a nature painfully fastidious about small matters.
