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Rh not indisposed to those antiquarian pursuits required by the undertaking. He did not, however, intend so wide a range in research as the subject of this Memoir had in view; nor was he of course so successful. Neither did he in a private capacity win the favourable opinion of contemporaries. He had the unhappy art of making enemies. He is represented as sarcastic, ill-natured, jealous, envious, self-sufficient, and while occasionally prone to a kind or generous action, quite as ready to evince bitter malignity for small or fancied offences.

Malone, from the first, seems to have felt that exclusive of what had been done for Shakspeare, there were several topics yet untouched, or scarcely touched, open to a devoted inquirer. The chronology of his plays, the stories on which they were grounded, the history of the stage during his occupation of it, the poetry and dramas of other writers of the time, the incidents of their lives, successes, and discouragements—all tended to throw light upon the principal figure.

Upon this extended canvas he set to work with characteristic zeal. No publication of the age of Elizabeth, her predecessors or successors, in the form of poem, drama, pamphlet, or miscellaneous tract, was neglected. Manuscripts, wherever found, were carefully consulted; no expense or application was spared to exhume something like truth and substance out of the graveyards of time. Collectors, antiquaries, and college men, whose lives had been spent in storing their shelves or their memories with knowledge of the past, were solicited to dis-