Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/439

 him a commanding and venerable appearance. He had great natural abilities, a sound judgment, an even temper, and a very tenacious memory, but was not remarkable either for learning or extensive reading, and in private affairs, to judge from his will, a man of very unpractical habits. As a lawyer he held the foremost place in his profession. A fine marble bust of him used to adorn Baronston House, with an inscription from Cicero on Scaurus (De Claris Oratoribus, c. 29), which was regarded as accurately describing both his character and his style of eloquence: ‘In Scauri oratione sapientis hominis et recti, gravitas summa, et naturalis quædam inerat auctoritas, non ut causam sed ut testimonium dicere putares, cum pro reo diceret.’ A portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds was engraved by J. R. Smith.

Malone married in 1733 Rose, daughter of Sir Ralph Gore, speaker of the Irish House of Commons, but had no children. By his will, made in July 1774, he left all his estates in the counties of Westmeath, Roscommon, Longford, Cavan, and Dublin to his nephew, Richard Malone, afterwards Lord Sunderlin, eldest son and heir of his brother Edmund, ‘in the utmost confidence that they will be settled and continue in the male line of the family and branches of it, according to priority of birth and seniority of age.’ Unfortunately Lord Sunderlin, who had no children, did not obey this injunction, and on his death in 1816 the right of succession was disputed.



MALONE, EDMUND (1741–1812), critic and author, born at Dublin on 4 Oct. 1741, was second son of Edmund Malone (1704–1774), and nephew of [q. v.] The father, second son of Richard Malone of Baronston, co. Westmeath, was born in Dublin on 16 April 1704, was called to the English bar in 1730, and practised there for ten years. Returning to Ireland in 1740, he obtained a good practice in the Irish courts, sat in the Irish House of Commons for Granard from 1760 to 1766, and became in 1766 judge of the court of common pleas. He died on 22 April 1774, having married in 1736 Catherine (d. 1765), daughter and heiress of Benjamin Collier of Ruckholt, Essex. By her he had four sons, of whom the two younger died in youth, and two daughters, Henrietta and Catherine. The eldest son, Richard (1738–1816), was admitted a student of the Inner Temple, London, in 1757; graduated B.A. at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1759; was incorporated of Christ Church, Oxford, in Michaelmas term in the same year; sat in the Irish House of Commons as M.P. for Granard from 1768 to 1776, and for Banagher from 1783 till 30 June 1785, when he was raised to the Irish peerage as Lord Sunderlin. He died at Baronston on 14 April 1816. In 1778 he married Dorothea Philippa, eldest daughter of Godolphin Rooper of Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, whose portrait was painted by Reynolds, but she left no issue (cf., Peerage, ed. Archdall, vii. 292–3).

Edmund was educated at a private school in Molesworth Street, kept by Dr. Ford, and among his schoolfellows were [q. v.], William Fitzmaurice Petty, first marquis of Lansdowne, and John Baker Holroyd, first lord Sheffield. The boys practised private theatricals with much success, and Macklin the actor is said to have at times directed the performances. In 1756 Edmund removed to Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. In 1761 he contributed an ode to a volume of verse written by Dublin students in honour of George III's marriage. His college friends included Michael Kearney, Henry Flood, and John Fitzgibbon, afterwards earl of Clare. Malone paid his first visit to England in the summer of 1759, when he accompanied his mother first to Highgate and afterwards to Bath, and he made a tour through the midland counties. His mother remained at Bath till her death in 1765. In 1763 he came to London as a student of the Inner Temple, and interested himself in politics and literature. He spent his leisure at the Grecian Coffee-house in the Strand, where he found literary society, and an Irish friend, Edmund Southwell, in the autumn of 1765 introduced him to Dr. Johnson. A year later he accompanied Thomas George, afterwards viscount Southwell, and his son, Thomas Arthur, to the south of France. In March 1767 he arrived in Paris, returned to Dublin, and was soon afterwards called to the Irish bar. He joined the Munster circuit, and worked hard at his profession, but briefs were few and unremunerative. He wrote for the Irish newspapers, and in 1776 began an edition of Goldsmith's poetical and dramatic works, which was published in London in 1780. 