few thought could have been written, and none but whom have admired.
Burke, as we have seen, was one of the first. His large views and comprehensive information had foreseen the difficulty; and so great was his curiosity that on receiving the work, although in the midst of serious engagements, he went nearly through it at once, and immediately as we have seen, testified his gratification. Writers who have since touched this theme, amid endless differences upon all other points, have uniformly borne similar testimony.
Malone, therefore, had the merit of originating and completing a great work in the history of letters, as one of our greatest authorities has testified. “The stage,” said Burke on this occasion, “may be considered as the republic of active literature, and its history as the history of that state.” What was thus accomplished no pains were spared by our author to improve; for much of his subsequent career was spent in fishing out for a second edition all that could be supposed wanting in the first. As to Shakspeare he mainly devoted his life, so to his skirts he may lawfully cling for a touch of that immortality which his principal has so wonderfully earned.
Among other pursuits of taste and leisure was a collection of engraved portraits of persons in English history; chiefly poets and others of literary eminence. These, now in the possession of the Reverend Thomas R. Rooper of Brighton, I have looked over with much interest. One large volume contains four hundred and sixty-three of various merit. Twenty-three are of Shakspeare, eleven or twelve of Dryden,
