To Johnson, Steevens, and many others of note, he soon added Tyrwhitt, Dr. Lort, the two Wartons, Isaac Reed, Dr. Farmer, Dr. Francklin (of Cambridge), Burney, and several more.
At what period he first knew Burke does not appear, though doubtless before settling in London, through the introduction of mutual Irish acquaintance. The date assigned in his private memoranda to intercourse with Sir Joshua Reynolds is 1778; in a printed statement, 1777. But there is little doubt that he knew him, though not intimately, at a still earlier period. In the President’s memoranda, as Mr. Cotton obligingly informs me, Mr. Malone paid the first instalment for his portrait (36l. 13s.) in May 1774; the second, a similar sum, in July 1778. The same memorial states that an equal sum remained then due for the portrait of Chancellor Malone (Anthony); so that the former appears to have been Edmond or his elder brother.
The intimacy with Sir Joshua became, after some time, cordial attachment. Each exercised that gentleman-like hospitality which gives to London life one of its powerful attractions. They often met at the houses of mutual friends, and sometimes took short country excursions together. Both were men of sterling worth, of social habits, good-natured, well-informed, attached to literature and literary men as sources of rational enjoyment, and esteemed by all who had admission to their society. Both were, as Malone has minutely recorded, of similar stature and weight, and although of considerable difference in age, each fond of testing his physical vigour as a pedestrian.
