Page:Life of Edmond Malone.djvu/401

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MALONIANA.
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but I have never met with it. Perhaps it fell into Congreve’s hands. Kneller probably copied the picture which Betterton then had, and which the Duke of Chandos now possesses. It might however have fallen into the hands of Charles Earl of Dorset, Dryden’s patron; and it may be the very picture of Shakspeare now at Knowle.[1]


Swift used often to make extempore distichs. Having preached one Sunday at St. Ann’s Church, in Dublin, where there is only the basement of a tower without any spire, the building never having been finished, the present Archdeacon Mahon who was then a boy, followed Swift from curiosity when he went out of the church, and heard him grumble out—

A beggarly people!
A church and no steeple!

(Ex relatione Mr. Downes, brother-in-law to Mr. Mahon.)


Mr. Drumgoold, who had resided long at St. Germains, told Mr. Burke that old Grammont, whose memoirs are so entertaining, was a very cross, unpleasant old fellow. Count Hamilton, who really wrote the book, invented several of the anecdotes told in it, and mixed them with such facts as he could pick up from the old man, who was pleased to hear these tales when put into a handsome dress.


When Sir J. Reynolds, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Burke, and others went to Lord Mansfield’s house to bail

  1. The pictures of Mr. Douglass were sold by auction by Christie in January 1792, but this picture of Shakspeare was not sent with the rest.