This “bio-bibliography”—a chronology of principal events in Malkin’s life and incorporating a list of his publications—was prepared many years ago for an abortive web project. It is presented here with additions and amendments, but remains a work in progress.
Benjamin Heath Malkin, antiquary and author, born in London in 1769, was headmaster of King Edward's School, Bury St Edmunds for many years, and later, more briefly, Professor of History at London University. He lived part of each year in Cowbridge, his wife’s home in the Vale of Glamorgan, from where he pursued his interests in local history and topography, and died there in 1842.
G.E. Bentley Jr. suggests that Malkin made the acquaintance of William Blake in 1803, soon after Blake returned to London from his three years in Felpham. But it is also possible that the two men were previously acquainted through the publisher Joseph Johnson for whom Blake had worked. William Godwin reports meeting Malkin at dinner at Horne Tooke’s in 1796 and 1797 and at Fuseli’s Milton Gallery in 1800, which suggests that Blake and Malkin may have shared some political and artistic sympathies. Malkin also lived close to Blake’s patron Thomas Butts in Hackney, and knew George Cumberland, another friend.
Malkin is remembered today chiefly for his book A Father’s Memoirs of his Child, a personal record of his eldest son, Thomas, a gifted child who died in 1802 at the age of six. Malkin’s “introductory letter”, dedicated to Thomas Johnes of Hafod, discourses at some length (xviii-xli) on Blake, his life and his poetry. Blake is an example of unregarded genius to put alongside the unrealised genius of the lost son. Malkin reflects here on the sad fate of “men of transcendent faculties” (xvi); Blake’s is a case in point and Malkin uses this, bitterly, to console himself for his son’s early death. This opening preamble is of interest in giving us the first and fullest account of Blake’s early life, one that derives directly from Blake himself, and one that includes a selection of Blake’s poems, which it brought to the attention of the general public. Malkin prints for the first time outside of the privately circulated Poetical Sketches and the illuminated book Songs of Innocence and of Experience, six poems (including “The Tyger”). Blake’s opinion of Master Malkin’s artistic talents is quoted on pages 33-4, and Malkin makes reference to Blake’s designs to Robert Blair’s The Grave on pages xxiv-xxv. Malkin did much to promote Blake’s later career and is thought to have been the author of the texts accompanying Blake’s illustrations to The Grave.
Malkin’s other publications include a travel book (1804), several collections of essays, literary, political and economic (1795, 1825, 1831), a play (1804), and a translation (1809) of Le Sage’s Gil Blas, reprinted several times.
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BIO-BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Title-pages illustrated are from books in my possession.)
1769
MARCH 23Benjamin Heath Malkin, born 23 March 1769, in London, only son of Thomas Malkin (1738–1805) of St Mary-le-Bow and his wife Mary Heath (1735-1811). (His birth was registered at Dr Williams’s Library on 18 October 1771, but with his date of birth recorded as 23 March 1770.)
1779
In 1779, Benjamin Heath Malkin was admitted to Harrow School where his godfather, his mother’s brother Benjamin Heath (1739-1817), was headmaster. Malkin was head boy of the school in 1787.1788
JANUARY 5Malkin entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a pensioner on 5 January 1788, matriculated Michaelmas Term 1792, and graduated B.A. (1792) and M.A. (1802).
1791
FEBRUARY 3Malkin was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn on 3 February 1791.
1793
MARCH 4On 4 March 1793 Malkin was married at Cowbridge Church in the Vale of Glamorgan to Charlotte Williams, the daughter of Thomas Williams, B.D., of Llanblethian, master of Cowbridge grammar school and curate of Cowbridge. Thomas Williams had been headmaster of the local grammar school from 1764 until his death in 1783. Some two months previously Charlotte’s sister, Elizabeth, had been married in the same church to William Williams, a young Oxford graduate from Dolgellau, Merionethshire, appointed headmaster at Cowbridge in 1787 and remaining in that post until he died sixty years later.
1794
title : CONSIDERATIONS ON THE C A U S E S AND ALARMING CONSEQUENCES OF THE PRESENT WAR, AND THE NECESSITY OF IMMEDIATE P E A C E. [swelled rule] BY A GRADUATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. [swelled rule] Tolerabilius esset, si res Eorum, quorum interest, monomachiis finiretur. Sed quid commeruere cives et agricolæ, qui spoliantur fortunis, exiguntur sedibus, trahuntur captivi, trucidantur, ac laniatur? O ferreos principum animos, si hæc perpendunt, ac ferunt: ô crassos, si non intelligunt; supinos, si non expendunt. ERASMUS TO BERALDUS. [double rule] L O N D O N: PRINTED FOR J. S. JORDAN, NO. 166, FLEET-STREET. [double rule] M DCCXCIV.physical description : viii, 9-151, [1] p. ; 21 cm. ; 8vo. [A]4 B-T4.
reference : ESTC T52995.
contents : iii-viii, Preface.—9-60, Chapter 1. On the situation and resources of England.—61-108, Chap. II. On the situation and resources of France.—109-113, Chap. III. Recapitulation.—114-141, Chap. IV. Conclusion.—143, Appendix.
note : Author’s Preface is dated May 1, 1794. The authorship is attributed to Benjamin Heath Malkin on the basis of an inscribed copy now in Trinity College, Dublin (OLS L-2-213 no.10) : “The Dublin Library Society from the author Benj. Heath Malkin”.
note : Jordan’s advertisements, verso of final leaf (T4). The publisher, Jeremiah Samuel Jordan, was the bookseller who took over the sale and distribution of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (1791) when the intended publisher, Joseph Johnson, got cold feet.
note : The epigraph derives from Erasmus De conscribendis epistolis (1522). In his dedicatory epistle to Beraldus (Nicolas Berauld), Erasmus writes with grief and detestation of the wars between France and the Empire. He wishes that ambitious princes could terminate their quarrels in duelling, and not involve their innocent and unhappy subjects in such misery.
note : A riposte to Malkin came from William Hunter, Considerations on the causes and effects of the present war, and on the necessity of continuing it, till a regular government is established in France (London: printed for John Stockdale, 1794). Hunter continued to express similar views in later years, being also the author of Reasons for not making peace with Buonaparte (2nd ed. London, 1807).
1795
OCTOBER 30His first-born child, a son, Thomas Williams Malkin, was born 30 October 1795. His name commemorates both grandfathers and probably also indicates that Malkin’s brother-in-law, William Williams, stood godparent.
title : E S S A Y S ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH CIVILIZATION. [double rule] BY BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN, TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. [double rule] London: PRINTED BY E. HODSON, BELL-YARD, TEMPLE-BAR, FOR C. DILLY, IN THE POULTRY. [double rule] 1795.
physical description : [4], ii, [2], 293, [1] p. ; 19 cm. ; 8vo.
note : Errata before page 5 [first sequence]. With additional half-title page. Final page is blank.
reference : ESTC T100702.
contents : Essay I. Introductory. — Essay II. On education. — Essay III. The same subject continued. — Essay IV. On government. — Essay V. The same subject continued. — Essay VI. On religious establishments. — Essay VII. On manners and amusements. — Essay VIII. On the arts. — Essay IV. [i.e. IX] On the female character. — Essay X. Conclusion.
price : 4s.-
note : This collection of Essays is one of Malkin’s most revealing achievements. They show Malkin to be an enthusiast for perfectibility. “The history of the world”, he says in “Essay X, Conclusion”, “undoubtedly confirms the probability of such a termination to terrestrial evil. When we reflect on the vices of enormous magnitude, which were prevalent in ancient times; we can scarcely doubt the progressive improvement of the human race”. Advocacy of equal education was one of his principal commitments, for “the pleasing prospect” of “continual approximations to perfection” (5), depended on nurturing women’s reason, for “intellect admits of no sexual distinction” (258).
“Essay IX, On the Female Character” includes one of the earliest critiques of Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published just three years previously. Malkin supports some of Wollstonecraft’s ideas but is unconvinced by others. “There is no subject, which has been more uniformly and even wilfully misunderstood, than the appropriate character of the female sex”, claims Malkin. “Mrs Wollstonecraft has been successful in setting those prejudices in a strong point of view, which have prevailed to the exclusion of half our species from the common rights of humanity, and the unfettered exercise of reason” (257). “On the whole,” Malkin concedes, “the author of The Vindication has rectified many erroneous principles on the subject of female manners and character, has displayed a meritorious zeal for justice and for liberty, and has produced a work, which properly qualified may be productive of beneficial effects”.
review : “Malkin's Essays on Civilization”, The Monthly Review; or, Literary Journal, Enlarged: From May to August 1796 with Appendix, Volume XX.—Published by R. Griffiths, London, 1796
1797
SEPTEMBER 29Birth of his second son, 29 September 1797, at Grove Place, Hackney and named Benjamin Heath Malkin like his father. The birth was registered at Dr Williams’s Library, 20 October 1800.
1800
Birth of his third son, Frederic Malkin, at Hackney, in 1800 or 1801. (This is as much as I currently can find; my guess is that, in their distress at his eldest brother’s death in 1802, his parents forgot to register Frederic’s birth at Dr Williams’s Library.)1802
JULY 31Thomas Williams Malkin died at Hackney, aged six years and nine months, on 31 July 1802, from what would now be called peritonitis due to a ruptured appendix, though “water on the brain” was at one time suspected.
Dinah Craik, “A Child’s Life Sixty Years Ago”, in The Unkind Word & Other Stories (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1870), criticizes Malkin for acceding to Thomas’s requests to be educated at an early age and believes it did overtax his brain and contribute to his death; but she also admits that the other boys did well in life.
NOVEMBER 1
title : ACCOUNT of THOMAS WILLIAMS MALKIN, a CHILD of extraordinary ATTAINMENTS, who lately died at HACKNEY.
in : Monthly Magazine, XIV (1 November 1802), 329-31.
note : “In a former Obituary we had occasion notice the death of Thomas Williams Malkin, at the early age of six years and nine months. The bare mention of such an event would, in an ordinary case, be deemed sufficient; but we cannot pass over a circumstance which equally arrests the attention of the moralist and the sympathy of the philanthropist, without observing how suddenly and unexpectedly the brightest prospects vanish, which depend on the precarious tenure of human life, however bright and promising the dawn of intellect—however encouraging the appearances of corporeal stability.” (329)
This first version of A Father’s Memoirs appeared in the Monthly Magazine, and “S.P.” asked for further memoirs in the 1 December 1802 issue (page 409). “I transmitted a short sketch of this little life, to be inserted in a periodical publication, and meant with that to have closed the subject on my part for ever.”—Memoirs, iii-iv.
1803
Birth of his fourth son, Arthur Thomas Malkin in Hackney, Middlesex. Baptism, 22 Jul 1807,at Plaxtol, Kent.
We know next to nothing of Malkin’s career between his marriage in 1793 and his appointment as headmaster of the Free Grammar School at Bury St. Edmund’s in 1809; but it was doubtless through visits to Cowbridge, associating with men such as his brother-in-law William Williams and the scholarly stonemason Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg) that he acquired an interest in Welsh history and literature—an interest that was to culminate in two excursions through South Wales in the year 1803 and soon afterwards in his narrative account of The Scenery, Antiquities, and Biography of South Wales published in a quarto volume in 1804 and in smaller format in 1807. Both editions were dedicated to William Williams, and no reader will fail to observe how much Malkin owed to the help of Iolo Morganwg. (However, Malkin is not listed among the subscribers to Edward Williams, Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, London, 1794, which probably indicates that his friendship with Iolo began some years later.)
1804
title : ALMAHIDE AND HAMET, A TRAGEDY. BY BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN, ESQ. M.A. LONDON: PRINTED BY T. BENSLEY, BOLT COURT, FOR LONGMAN AND REES, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1804.physical description : 158 p. ; 25 cm. ; 8vo.
contents : 1-57, To John Philip Kemble, Esquire.—58-158, Almahide and Hamet.
price : 6s.
note: The play (in five acts and in verse), which was never acted, is founded on Dryden’s Conquest of Granada (1672).
reviews : The play was reviewed in Poetical Register, 4 (1804), 507; Imperial Review, 1 (Mar. 1804), 433-36; The Annual Review & History of Literature, A. Aikin, editor, 3 (1805), Chap. X, 605; Monthly Review, ns, v46 (Feb. 1805), 188-92; British Critic, 25 (June 1805), 683-84; Monthly Magazine, Suppl. v19 (July 28, 1805), 660; Monthly Mirror, 22 (July 1806), 42.
title : THE SCENERY, ANTIQUITIES, AND BIOGRAPHY, OF South Wales, FROM MATERIALS COLLECTED DURING TWO EXCURSIONS IN THE YEAR 1803. [double rule] By BENJ. HEATH MALKIN, Esq. M.A. F.S.A. [double rule] EMBELLISHED WITH VIEWS, DRAWN ON THE SPOT AND ENGRAVED BY LAPORTE; AND A MAP OF THE COUNTRY. [double rule] LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. N. LONGMAN AND O. REES, PATER-NOSTER ROW, BY T. BENSLEY, BOLT COURT, FLEET STREET. 1804.
physical description : vii, 634, [2] p: fold map, 12 plates; 28 cm. ; 4to
price : 52s 6d.
illustrations : 12 plates “Drawn & Engraved by J. Laporte” distributed through the text, and a folded map facing page 1. Each plate is “Published by Longman & Rees, London, March 20, 1804” with the exception of “Pembroke Castle and Town”, which is “Published by Longman & Rees, London, March 1, 1804.”
Plates are as follows: “The Fall of the Rydoll” (frontispiece); “New Bridge” (facing page 83); “Caerphilly Castle” (facing page 161); “The Pass from Pont Neath Vechan to Merthyr” (facing page 208); “Aberedwy” (facing page 282); “Rhayader” (facing page 298); “The Upper Fall at Havod” (facing page 345); “Havod Inn” (facing page 368); “Pembroke Castle and Town” (facing page 496); “Laugharne Castle” (facing page 543); “Melincourt” (facing page 597); “Britton Ferry” (facing page 609).
note : page 635: “Directions to the Binder for placing the Plates.”—page 636: “Lately published by the same Author, ALMAHIDE and HAMET ...”
note : For a long time Malkin’s best-known work (the only Malkin title in the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, III, #1681), and dedicated to his brother-in-law, the Revd. William Williams, now prebendary of Llandaff. Pages 126-130 contain a brief biography of Edward Williams, “a man who is capable of doing the world more service, than the world seems willing either to receive or to return” (126). Malkin’s encomium on Williams’s various talents concludes “I am sorry to say that the proverb of a prophet in his own country is but too much verified in him; for while Mr. Williams the antiquarian is mentioned elsewhere with the respect due to the attainments, without the estate, of a gentleman, there are few in Glamorganshire who know him by any other name than that of Ned Williams the stonecutter” (129).
review : ART. X. The Scenery, Antiquities, and Biography of South Wales, from Materials collected during two Excursions in the Year 1803. By BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN, Esq. M.A. F.S.A. Embellished with Views, drawn on the Spot, and engraved by Laporte; and a Map of the Country. 4to. pp.641.
in : The Annual Review & History of Literature. Arthur Aiken, editor (1805), 890-98.
NOVEMBER
Cromek issued a prospectus: “Blair’s Grave, Illustrated with FIFTEEN PRINTS FROM DESIGNS INVENTED AND TO BE ENGRAVED BY WILLIAM BLAKE; with a Preface CONTAINING AN EXPLANATION OF THE ARTIST’S VIEW IN THE DESIGNS, and a critique on the poem ... The Preface will be contributed by BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN .... The work will be printed by T. BENSLEY, in Imperial Quarto. The Price to Subscribers will be TWO GUINEAS ...”.
There is no “Preface” to the published work, and nothing is signed by Malkin, but the description “Of the Designs”, included in the published work, gives “the artist’s view in the designs” (as Malkin’s preface was said to do in this 1805 prospectus), thus is probably by Malkin.
FEBRUARY 1
title : A FATHER’S MEMOIRS OF HIS CHILD. BY BENJ. HEATH MALKIN, ESQ. M.A. F.A.S. [double rule] Great loss to all that ever him did see; Great loss to all, but greatest loss to me. ASTROPHEL. [double rule] LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER ROW; BY T. BENSLEY, BOLT COURT, FLEET STREET. 1806.
physical description : [4], xlviii, 172 p. : ill., port., facsims, fold. map; 26 cm. ; 8vo.
price : 10s. 6d.
note : A Father’s Memoirs of his Child is an account of the life and death of Malkin’s son Thomas Williams Malkin, who along with his brother Benjamin is described as a child prodigy with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. He apparently learned the alphabet from blocks as an infant and would point to the correct letters when they were named. He did not speak until he was about two years old. Before he was three, he taught himself to write by copying print in books. Malkin insists that he did not push Thomas but followed his lead and taught him subjects such as Latin or mathematics only by request. Thomas also invented an imaginary country called Allestone, including details of its history, geography and monetary system, and an elaborate (for a five-year-old) map. Much of this material is included in the book, partly as proof that Thomas acted independently and was not coerced to achievements.
note : Dedicated to Thomas Johnes, of Hafod : “My pen seems destined to owe its employment, in some shape or other, to Hafod. ... The fever of authorship never preyed upon my better sense, till your magic creation in the wilds of Cardiganshire gave vent to its fury.”
printing : Bensley printed 1,000 copies of Malkin’s Memoirs for the author in January 1806. Bentley in Blake Books (1977), #482, transcribes the expenses of the book as entered in the records of Longman, Green, and Co.
Between 7 February 1806 and 1810, Malkin took 52 copies of the book himself; in August 1811, 540 copies were pulped; and by June 1815, 445 copies had been sold, leaving 53 on hand. The book clearly sold very slowly—about 45 copies a year for ten years.
illustrations : There are four plates, three of them (at pages 33, 54, 95) after the child T. W. Malkin; though they are unsigned, we may be confident that they, like the fourth plate, were engraved by Cromek. The frontispiece engraved by Cromek after Paye and Blake shows an angel taking a child to heaven from its mother, and is inscribed : “Wm Blake invt”, “R.H. Cromek sc”, “London Published by Longman Co February 1st 1806” (plate size : 21.7 X 14.5 cm). Inset into this design is an oval portrait (7.7 X 6.0 cm) of Thomas Williams Malkin when two years old, painted, according to the introductory letter (xliv), by Richard Morton Paye.
epigraph : From “Astrophel. A Pastoral Elegie upon the Death of the most noble and valorous Knight, Sir Philip Sidney” by Edmund Spenser. The full stanza points up the relevance.
review : “Art. II. A Father’s Memoirs of his Child. By Benjamin Heath Malkin ...”, Literary Journal, 2 S., II (July 1806), 27-35.
Concludes by quoting “Laughing Song” as an example of “modern nonsense”.
review : “Art. 40. A Father’s Memoirs of his Child. By Benjamin Heath Malkin, Esq. M.A. F.A.S. Royal 8vo. 172 pp. 10s. 6d. Longman and Co. 1806”, British Critic, XXVIII (September 1806), 339.
“In a very long and elaborate address to a valuable friend ... another supposed prodigy is celebrated ... He is celebrated both as an artist and as a poet; but so little judgment is shown, in our opinion, with regard to the proofs of these talents, that we much doubt whether the encomium will be at all useful to the person praised ...” About half this rude review is devoted to a denigration of Blake, who as a poet “seems chiefly inspired by ... Divine Nonsensia”. As an artist, Blake to judge from his frontispiece, “mistakes extravagance for genius”, though the reviewer grudgingly concedes “the kneeling figure is elegant, and that of the child passable”.
review : [Christopher Lake Moody], “Monthly Catalogue. Biography. Art. 37. A Father’s Memoirs of his Child. By Benj. Heath Malkin, Esq. M.A. F.A.S. Royal 8vo. 10s. 6d. Boards. Longman and Co 1806”, Monthly Review, n.s. LI (October1806) 217.1
“In the long dedication to Mr. Johnes of Hafod, a biographical notice is inserted of Mr. William Blake the artist, with some selections from his poems, which are highly extolled : but if Watts seldom rose above the level of a mere versifier, in what class must we place Mr. Blake, who is certainly very inferior to Dr. Watts?” An analogy between Blake’s Innocence and Watts’s hymns has been reintroduced into twentieth-century Blake criticism, where it comes up as an ironic illumination about some of the Innocence poems.
review : “Half-Yearly Retrospect of Domestic Literature.” Monthly Magazine, Supplementary Number, XXII (25 Jan. 1807) 621-46.
The reviewer of Malkin steps aside to assert that while Blake’s poetry “does not rise above mediocrity; as an artist he appears to more advantage” (633).
review : “Art. XIV. A Father’s Memoirs of his Child, by Benjamin Heath Malkin ...”, Annual Review ... for 1806, V (1807), 379-81.
According to the anonymous reviewer, Blake’s “poems are certainly not devoid of merit ...”.
note : The 20th-century revival of interest in William Blake led to a number of reprints of the pages from Malkin’s Memoirs dealing with Blake’s biography. Malkin’s important account of Blake is reprinted by A.J. Symons (1907), in Bentley’s Blake Records (1969) and 2nd ed. (2004), and by J.A. Wittreich (1970). The whole work has been reprinted just once (in 1997).
title : THE SCENERY, ANTIQUITIES, AND BIOGRAPHY, OF South Wales, FROM MATERIALS COLLECTED DURING TWO EXCURSIONS IN THE YEAR 1803. BY BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN, ESQ. M.A. F.A.S. [double rule] THE SECOND EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. [double rule] VOL. I. [VOL. II.] [swelled rule] LONDON : PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, 1807.
physical description : 2 v. ([3], xi, 473; iv, 555 p.): 22 cm. ; 8vo.
note : This second edition published in two volumes of smaller format contains additional material but is much poorer from the point of view of illustration.
note : H.D. [i.e. Richard Gough], Gentleman’s Magazine Vol. 77 No i (1807), 296: “April 10. Mr. Malkin, in his “Scenery, Antiquities, and Biography of South Wales,” p.110, has hazarded a conjecture which I wish to see ascertained.” A communication to the editor regarding Malkin’s discussion of “stone heaps” in this work.
Birth of Malkin’s youngest son, Charles Johnes Malkin, 22 April 1808. He was baptised 31 May at St John at Hackney. Thomas Johnes stood godfather.
title : THE GRAVE, A POEM. BY ROBERT BLAIR. ILLUSTRATED BY Twelve Etchings EXECUTED FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS. LONDON : PRINTED BY T. BENSLEY, BOLT COURT, FOR THE PROPRIETOR, R.H. CROMEK, No 64, NEWMAN STREET; AND SOLD BY CADELL AND DAVIES, J. JOHNSON, T. PAYNE, J. WHITE, LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, W. MILLER, J. MURRAY, AND CONSTABLE AND CO. EDINBURGH. 1808.
physical description : xiv, 35 p. ; front., engraved t.p., 2pl.; 37 cm. ; 4to. [a]\2 b\4 c\1 B-F\4.
note : Also issued as a folio “proof”
note : A six-page “List of Subscribers’ records 578 subscribers (including “Benj. Heath Malkin, Esq. M.A. F.S.A. Hackney”) for 688 copies.
note : There is no “Preface” (as announced in the 1805 prospectus), and nothing is signed by Malkin, but the description “Of the Designs” (pages 33-6) gives “the artist’s view in the designs” (as Malkin’s preface was said in the 1805 prospectus to do), and is probably by Malkin.
title: ACCOUNT OF A NEW TOUR IN WALES ... BENJ. HEATH MALKIN.
in : J. Pinkerton, A General Collection of Voyages, etc. Vol. ii (1808, &c.) 4to.
note : An extract from Malkin’s The Scenery, Antiquities, and Biography of South Wales.2nd ed. 1807.
From 1809 to 1828 Malkin was headmaster of the grammar school at Bury St Edmunds, where his pupils included Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883), John Mitchell Kemble (1807-1857), and James Spedding (1808–1881). The last mentioned was later to pay a warm tribute to Malkin as an inspiring and liberal, if idiosyncratic, teacher who encouraged independence of mind and character. The attention he gave in the curriculum to essay-writing and the study of English literature was unusual for the time.
title : THE ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS OF SANTILLANE. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF LE SAGE BY B. H. MALKIN, ESQ.
publisher : London Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row; and G. Kearsley, Fleet-Street 1809.
physical description : 4v. plates : ill. ; 8vo.
note : With 24 plates from the designs of Robert Smirke. The Large Paper edition (29 cm. ; 4to.) has the plates on India paper.
note : 1749 had seen the publication, with an attribution to Tobias Smollett, of The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, a new translation from the best French edition (4 vols.). Smollett’s responsibility for the translation was disputed, as claims surfaced that he had simply directed the work of others. Although Smollett, in a letter of 8 May 1763, includes “A translation of Gil Blas”, among the items in a “genuine List of my Productions”, doubts continued to persist about Gil Blas and in 1809 Benjamin Heath Malkin, in the “Advertisement” to his own translation , declared, “It is now understood to be indebted to that popular writer only for his name”. Malkin goes on to contrast his “more easy and spirited transcript” with the translation “published under the name of Smollett”. But Smollett’s identification with Gil Blas was strong enough that, ironically, the title pages of some editions of Malkin’s translation attribute the work to Smollett.
note : On 19 August 1810, Dorothy Wordsworth told her brother that she was “reading Malkin’s Gil Blas—and it is a beautiful Book as to printing etc but I think the Translation vulgar”.
note : Malkin’s translation of Gil Blas was reprinted in 1822, 1866, 1881, 1885, 1910, 1913, 1918, and 1922; on more than one occasion with the translation attributed to Tobias Smollett.
On 3 March 1810 Malkin was incorporated of St Mary Hall, Oxford, and there, a few days later, he graduated B.C.L. and D.C.L. He was also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
physical description : iv, 61, [3] p., [1] leaf of plates : ill. ; 20 cm. ; 8vo.
note : The preface, signed by “THE EDITOR”, contains a puff for Blake’s “Canterbury Pilgrims” engraving (pages iii-iv) and states that “The original reading is copied from the edition of Thomas Speight, printed Anno. 1687; and the Translation from Mr. Ogle’s edition, 1741”. The Prologue’s preface announces that the engraving could be purchased at Blake’s brother’s shop, Colnaghi’s printshop, and at Harris’s bookshop, probably that of John Harris, who operated at 21 Ludgate St., corner of St. Paul's Churchyard.
Gilchrist plausibly suggests that the Prologue’s anonymous editor and publisher may be Benjamin Heath Malkin (Gilchrist, 1863, vol.1, page 243).
illustrations : The engraved detail and the accompanying (unsigned) vignette of a cathedral are dated 26 December 1811.
1805
Malkin’s 1803 tour of South Wales had included a visit to Cardiganshire which brought him into friendly relationship with Thomas Johnes of Hafod. In 1805 Malkin purchased a copy of Blake’s Songs of Innocence which he then gave to Johnes. Now designated as copy P of Innocence, with Johnes’s crest (two battle-axes saltireways sable) on the cover, it is preserved in the Beinecke Library at Yale University.NOVEMBER
Cromek issued a prospectus: “Blair’s Grave, Illustrated with FIFTEEN PRINTS FROM DESIGNS INVENTED AND TO BE ENGRAVED BY WILLIAM BLAKE; with a Preface CONTAINING AN EXPLANATION OF THE ARTIST’S VIEW IN THE DESIGNS, and a critique on the poem ... The Preface will be contributed by BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN .... The work will be printed by T. BENSLEY, in Imperial Quarto. The Price to Subscribers will be TWO GUINEAS ...”.
There is no “Preface” to the published work, and nothing is signed by Malkin, but the description “Of the Designs”, included in the published work, gives “the artist’s view in the designs” (as Malkin’s preface was said to do in this 1805 prospectus), thus is probably by Malkin.
1806
title : A FATHER’S MEMOIRS OF HIS CHILD. BY BENJ. HEATH MALKIN, ESQ. M.A. F.A.S. [double rule] Great loss to all that ever him did see; Great loss to all, but greatest loss to me. ASTROPHEL. [double rule] LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER ROW; BY T. BENSLEY, BOLT COURT, FLEET STREET. 1806.
physical description : [4], xlviii, 172 p. : ill., port., facsims, fold. map; 26 cm. ; 8vo.
price : 10s. 6d.
note : A Father’s Memoirs of his Child is an account of the life and death of Malkin’s son Thomas Williams Malkin, who along with his brother Benjamin is described as a child prodigy with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. He apparently learned the alphabet from blocks as an infant and would point to the correct letters when they were named. He did not speak until he was about two years old. Before he was three, he taught himself to write by copying print in books. Malkin insists that he did not push Thomas but followed his lead and taught him subjects such as Latin or mathematics only by request. Thomas also invented an imaginary country called Allestone, including details of its history, geography and monetary system, and an elaborate (for a five-year-old) map. Much of this material is included in the book, partly as proof that Thomas acted independently and was not coerced to achievements.
note : Dedicated to Thomas Johnes, of Hafod : “My pen seems destined to owe its employment, in some shape or other, to Hafod. ... The fever of authorship never preyed upon my better sense, till your magic creation in the wilds of Cardiganshire gave vent to its fury.”
printing : Bensley printed 1,000 copies of Malkin’s Memoirs for the author in January 1806. Bentley in Blake Books (1977), #482, transcribes the expenses of the book as entered in the records of Longman, Green, and Co.
Between 7 February 1806 and 1810, Malkin took 52 copies of the book himself; in August 1811, 540 copies were pulped; and by June 1815, 445 copies had been sold, leaving 53 on hand. The book clearly sold very slowly—about 45 copies a year for ten years.
illustrations : There are four plates, three of them (at pages 33, 54, 95) after the child T. W. Malkin; though they are unsigned, we may be confident that they, like the fourth plate, were engraved by Cromek. The frontispiece engraved by Cromek after Paye and Blake shows an angel taking a child to heaven from its mother, and is inscribed : “Wm Blake invt”, “R.H. Cromek sc”, “London Published by Longman Co February 1st 1806” (plate size : 21.7 X 14.5 cm). Inset into this design is an oval portrait (7.7 X 6.0 cm) of Thomas Williams Malkin when two years old, painted, according to the introductory letter (xliv), by Richard Morton Paye.
epigraph : From “Astrophel. A Pastoral Elegie upon the Death of the most noble and valorous Knight, Sir Philip Sidney” by Edmund Spenser. The full stanza points up the relevance.
What cruel Hand of cursed Foe unknown,reviews : While seemingly interested enough in the Memoirs themselves, contemporary reviewers poured scorn on Malkin for bestowing his patronage on such a wayward individual as Blake. The reviews suggest that his contemporaries were willing to tolerate Blake as a Michelangelesque artist but not as a religious poet.
Hath cropt the Stalk which bore so fair a Flowre?
Untimely cropt, before it well were grown,
And clean defaced in untimely howre.
Great loss to all that ever him did see,
Great loss to all, but greatest loss to me.
review : “Art. II. A Father’s Memoirs of his Child. By Benjamin Heath Malkin ...”, Literary Journal, 2 S., II (July 1806), 27-35.
Concludes by quoting “Laughing Song” as an example of “modern nonsense”.
review : “Art. 40. A Father’s Memoirs of his Child. By Benjamin Heath Malkin, Esq. M.A. F.A.S. Royal 8vo. 172 pp. 10s. 6d. Longman and Co. 1806”, British Critic, XXVIII (September 1806), 339.
“In a very long and elaborate address to a valuable friend ... another supposed prodigy is celebrated ... He is celebrated both as an artist and as a poet; but so little judgment is shown, in our opinion, with regard to the proofs of these talents, that we much doubt whether the encomium will be at all useful to the person praised ...” About half this rude review is devoted to a denigration of Blake, who as a poet “seems chiefly inspired by ... Divine Nonsensia”. As an artist, Blake to judge from his frontispiece, “mistakes extravagance for genius”, though the reviewer grudgingly concedes “the kneeling figure is elegant, and that of the child passable”.
review : [Christopher Lake Moody], “Monthly Catalogue. Biography. Art. 37. A Father’s Memoirs of his Child. By Benj. Heath Malkin, Esq. M.A. F.A.S. Royal 8vo. 10s. 6d. Boards. Longman and Co 1806”, Monthly Review, n.s. LI (October1806) 217.1
“In the long dedication to Mr. Johnes of Hafod, a biographical notice is inserted of Mr. William Blake the artist, with some selections from his poems, which are highly extolled : but if Watts seldom rose above the level of a mere versifier, in what class must we place Mr. Blake, who is certainly very inferior to Dr. Watts?” An analogy between Blake’s Innocence and Watts’s hymns has been reintroduced into twentieth-century Blake criticism, where it comes up as an ironic illumination about some of the Innocence poems.
review : “Half-Yearly Retrospect of Domestic Literature.” Monthly Magazine, Supplementary Number, XXII (25 Jan. 1807) 621-46.
The reviewer of Malkin steps aside to assert that while Blake’s poetry “does not rise above mediocrity; as an artist he appears to more advantage” (633).
review : “Art. XIV. A Father’s Memoirs of his Child, by Benjamin Heath Malkin ...”, Annual Review ... for 1806, V (1807), 379-81.
According to the anonymous reviewer, Blake’s “poems are certainly not devoid of merit ...”.
note : The 20th-century revival of interest in William Blake led to a number of reprints of the pages from Malkin’s Memoirs dealing with Blake’s biography. Malkin’s important account of Blake is reprinted by A.J. Symons (1907), in Bentley’s Blake Records (1969) and 2nd ed. (2004), and by J.A. Wittreich (1970). The whole work has been reprinted just once (in 1997).
1807
physical description : 2 v. ([3], xi, 473; iv, 555 p.): 22 cm. ; 8vo.
note : This second edition published in two volumes of smaller format contains additional material but is much poorer from the point of view of illustration.
note : H.D. [i.e. Richard Gough], Gentleman’s Magazine Vol. 77 No i (1807), 296: “April 10. Mr. Malkin, in his “Scenery, Antiquities, and Biography of South Wales,” p.110, has hazarded a conjecture which I wish to see ascertained.” A communication to the editor regarding Malkin’s discussion of “stone heaps” in this work.
1808
APRIL 22 Birth of Malkin’s youngest son, Charles Johnes Malkin, 22 April 1808. He was baptised 31 May at St John at Hackney. Thomas Johnes stood godfather.
title : THE GRAVE, A POEM. BY ROBERT BLAIR. ILLUSTRATED BY Twelve Etchings EXECUTED FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS. LONDON : PRINTED BY T. BENSLEY, BOLT COURT, FOR THE PROPRIETOR, R.H. CROMEK, No 64, NEWMAN STREET; AND SOLD BY CADELL AND DAVIES, J. JOHNSON, T. PAYNE, J. WHITE, LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, W. MILLER, J. MURRAY, AND CONSTABLE AND CO. EDINBURGH. 1808.
physical description : xiv, 35 p. ; front., engraved t.p., 2pl.; 37 cm. ; 4to. [a]\2 b\4 c\1 B-F\4.
note : Also issued as a folio “proof”
note : A six-page “List of Subscribers’ records 578 subscribers (including “Benj. Heath Malkin, Esq. M.A. F.S.A. Hackney”) for 688 copies.
note : There is no “Preface” (as announced in the 1805 prospectus), and nothing is signed by Malkin, but the description “Of the Designs” (pages 33-6) gives “the artist’s view in the designs” (as Malkin’s preface was said in the 1805 prospectus to do), and is probably by Malkin.
title: ACCOUNT OF A NEW TOUR IN WALES ... BENJ. HEATH MALKIN.
in : J. Pinkerton, A General Collection of Voyages, etc. Vol. ii (1808, &c.) 4to.
note : An extract from Malkin’s The Scenery, Antiquities, and Biography of South Wales.2nd ed. 1807.
1809
In 1809, Blake apparently presented Malkin with a copy of his Descriptive Catalogue, though this cannot be identified with any surviving copy.From 1809 to 1828 Malkin was headmaster of the grammar school at Bury St Edmunds, where his pupils included Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883), John Mitchell Kemble (1807-1857), and James Spedding (1808–1881). The last mentioned was later to pay a warm tribute to Malkin as an inspiring and liberal, if idiosyncratic, teacher who encouraged independence of mind and character. The attention he gave in the curriculum to essay-writing and the study of English literature was unusual for the time.
title : THE ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS OF SANTILLANE. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF LE SAGE BY B. H. MALKIN, ESQ.
publisher : London Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row; and G. Kearsley, Fleet-Street 1809.
physical description : 4v. plates : ill. ; 8vo.
note : With 24 plates from the designs of Robert Smirke. The Large Paper edition (29 cm. ; 4to.) has the plates on India paper.
note : 1749 had seen the publication, with an attribution to Tobias Smollett, of The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, a new translation from the best French edition (4 vols.). Smollett’s responsibility for the translation was disputed, as claims surfaced that he had simply directed the work of others. Although Smollett, in a letter of 8 May 1763, includes “A translation of Gil Blas”, among the items in a “genuine List of my Productions”, doubts continued to persist about Gil Blas and in 1809 Benjamin Heath Malkin, in the “Advertisement” to his own translation , declared, “It is now understood to be indebted to that popular writer only for his name”. Malkin goes on to contrast his “more easy and spirited transcript” with the translation “published under the name of Smollett”. But Smollett’s identification with Gil Blas was strong enough that, ironically, the title pages of some editions of Malkin’s translation attribute the work to Smollett.
note : On 19 August 1810, Dorothy Wordsworth told her brother that she was “reading Malkin’s Gil Blas—and it is a beautiful Book as to printing etc but I think the Translation vulgar”.
note : Malkin’s translation of Gil Blas was reprinted in 1822, 1866, 1881, 1885, 1910, 1913, 1918, and 1922; on more than one occasion with the translation attributed to Tobias Smollett.
1810
MARCH 3On 3 March 1810 Malkin was incorporated of St Mary Hall, Oxford, and there, a few days later, he graduated B.C.L. and D.C.L. He was also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
1812
title : THE PROLOGUE AND CHARACTERS OF Chaucer’s Pilgrims, SELECTED FROM HIS CANTERBURY TALES : INTENDED TO ILLUSTRATE A PARTICULAR DESIGN OF MR. WILLIAM BLAKE, WHICH IS ENGRAVED BY HIMSELF. And may be seen at Mr. COLNAGHI’s, Cockspur Street; at Mr. BLAKE’s, No. 28, Broad Street, Golden Square; and at the Publisher’s, Mr. HARRIS, Bookseller, St. Paul’s Church Yard [swelled rule] PRICE TWO SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE. [swelled rule] M.DCCC.XII physical description : iv, 61, [3] p., [1] leaf of plates : ill. ; 20 cm. ; 8vo.
note : The preface, signed by “THE EDITOR”, contains a puff for Blake’s “Canterbury Pilgrims” engraving (pages iii-iv) and states that “The original reading is copied from the edition of Thomas Speight, printed Anno. 1687; and the Translation from Mr. Ogle’s edition, 1741”. The Prologue’s preface announces that the engraving could be purchased at Blake’s brother’s shop, Colnaghi’s printshop, and at Harris’s bookshop, probably that of John Harris, who operated at 21 Ludgate St., corner of St. Paul's Churchyard.
Gilchrist plausibly suggests that the Prologue’s anonymous editor and publisher may be Benjamin Heath Malkin (Gilchrist, 1863, vol.1, page 243).
illustrations : The engraved detail and the accompanying (unsigned) vignette of a cathedral are dated 26 December 1811.
1814
JULY-AUGUST
On Saturday 2 July 1814, Malkin, accompnied by his wife Charlotte, their son, Benjamin, and a family friend (an otherwise unidentified “Miss Hall”), left Bury St Edmunds on a tour of Scotland. Over the following weeks they reached Skye, Mull, and Staffa, and completed extensive circuits of the central belt and southern Highlands, taking in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the Trossachs, parts of Perthshire and Strathearn. In contrast to the tour of South Wales in 1803, this time it was Charlotte who kept a detailed travel diary. They returned to Suffolk on Wednesday 31 August.
1819
title : THE CYCLOPÆDIA; OR, UNIVERSAL DICTIONARY OF Arts, Sciences, and Literature. BY ABRAHAM REES, D.D. F.R.S. F.L.S. S.Amer.Soc. WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF EMINENT PROFESSIONAL GENTLEMEN. [swelled rule] ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVNGS, BY THE MOST DISTINGUISHED ARTISTS. [swelled rule] IN THIRTY-NINE VOLUMES. VOL. I. [etc.] [swelled rule] LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, & BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW, F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON, A. STRAHAN, PAYNE AND FOSS, SCATCHERD AND LETTERMAN, J. CUTHELL, CLARKE AND SONS, LACKINGTON HUGHES HARDING MAYOR AND JONES, J. AND A. ARCH, CADELL AND DAVIES, R. BAGSTER, J. MAWMAN, JAMES BLACK AND SON, BLACK KINGSBURY PARBURY AND ALLEN, R. SCOLEY, J. BOOTH, J. BOOKER, SUTTABY EVANCE AND FOX, BALDWIN CRADOCK AND JOY, SHERWOOD NEELY AND JONES, N. SAUNDERS, HURST ROBINSON AND CO., J. DICKINSON, J. PATERSON, E. WHITESIDE, WILSON AND SONS, AND BRODIE AND DOWDING. 1819.physical description : in 39 vols.
note : Malkin contributed biographical articles to Rees’s Cyclopædia. No further data.
1822
physical description : 4 vol. ; 12mo.
1825
NOVEMBER 23 Charles Johnes Malkin, his youngest son, died 23 November 1825, aged 17. Buried 25 November 1825, Saint James in Bury Saint Edmunds. (At Bury school 1817-25. Four years in sixth form. Second in the school in May 1825.)
title : CLASSICAL DISQUISITIONS AND CURIOSITIES, CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL. BY BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN, L.L.D. & F.S.A. HEAD MASTER OF BURY SCHOOL. [rule] LONDON; PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1825.
physical description : xxvi, 460 p.; 23 cm. ; 8vo. A-Z Aa-Hh4.
note : originally issued with blue paper sides, brown paper spine with printed paper spine label.
summary : An eloquent apologia for a traditional classical education as distinct from a more “professional” one. Malkin argues against those who believe that a conventional education in “the humanities” must be of limited utility in the modern world. He is out of sympathy with the current craze for “experimental philosophy”, commending instead a balanced programme of instruction. By implication Malkin defends the public school system from the attacks of contemporary progressive educationalists.
note : Republished under a pseudonym in 1826. Reissued under Malkin’s authorship in 1830.
1826
title : CLASSICAL DISQUISITIONS AND CURIOSITIES, HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL BY THE REV. EGERTON BRIDGEWATER MONTAGUE, A.M. LATE OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, VICAR OF SANDON, BERKS.publisher : London : Burgess and Smith, Bishopsgate; Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, Paternoster Row; Whitmore and Fenn, Charing Cross; Nicholls, Parliament Street 1826
physical description : [4], xxv-xxvi, 460p. ; 8vo.
note : Imprint on p. 460: London: Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode, New-Street-Square.
note : A pseudonymous re-issue of the 1825 edition published under Malkin’s name (by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Green only), with the removal of the original title-page and preface “To my former pupils”(pages [xxv]-xxvi); pages 1-460 remaining as in the original. With a new dedication leaf following the new title-page. I have no explanation for this curious publication.
1828
MARCH 22title : CATALOGUE OF THE VALUABLE LIBRARY OF BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN, ESQ. LL.D. HEAD MASTER OF BURY SCHOOL, INCLUDING Galerie du Palais Royal, 5 vol. LARGEST PAPER, PROOFS BEFORE THE LETTERS, VERY RARE. Galerie de Florence et du Palais Pitti, 4 vol. VELLUM PAPER, PROOFS BEFORE THE LETTERS. Bartoli Recueil de Peintures Antiques, 3 vol. in 2, original Edition, fine copy from the Lamoignon Collection. Chamberlaine’s Imitations of Drawings, by Hans Holbein, 2 vol. very fine copy in morocco. Lodge’s Portraits, 29 Numbers, LARGE PAPER, PROOFS ON INDIA PAPER. Macklin’s Bible, with the Apocrypha, 8 vol. in blue morocco. Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, 49 Parts, LARGE PAPER. Virgilii Opera, 3 vol. ILLUSTRATED WITH ABOVE 600 PRINTS. Psalterium Latinum, A RICHLY ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT UPON VELLUM. Homeri Opera, EDITIO PRINCEPS, 1488. Anthologia Græca, PRINTED IN CAPITAL LETTERS, 1494. Luciani Opera, EDITIO PRINCEPS, 1496. Cebes, EDITIO PRINCEPS. Aulus Gellius, EDITIO PRINCEPS, 1469. Delphin Classics, 63 vol. complete. Villoison Anecdota Græca, 2 vol. PRINTED UPON VELLUM, DIBDIN’S BIBLIOMANIA, and all his other works on LARGE PAPER. Britton’s Architectural and Cathedral Antiquities, LARGE PAPER. Strutt’s Works. Academie des Inscriptions, 51 vol. Philosophical Transactions at large, 116 vol. Many of the earliest productions of the Aldine Press, &c. &c. WHICH WILL BE SOLD BY AUCTION, BY MR. EVANS, AT HIS HOUSE, No. 93, PALL MALL, On Saturday, March 22, and Six following Days, (Sunday excepted) 1828.
note : It would appear that the sale of Malkin’s library took place on the relinquishment of his post of headmaster at Bury. It was a typical eighteenth century library, strong in classical and English literature, travel and topography, backed by a strong section on art. Many books were in large paper, special editions, and the earliest productions of the Aldine Press were well represented.
Highlights of the sale were
Lodge’s Portraits, large paper, 1821-7; bought by Colnaghi for £84.There are no important books on Wales, but the main productions of the Hafod Press are featured at surprisingly high prices for this date:
The 1798 Didot Paris edition of Virgil’s Works, 3 vols. folio, illustrated with above six hundred plates, realised £42.
Stuarts Antiquities of Athens, 4 vols. folio 1762 made £29. 8. 0.
116 vols. of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1665 to 1820 made £56.
A Psalter of the fifteenth century, 172 leaves all richly illuminated, and including the portraits of Lord Lincoln and his wife, for whom this manuscript was executed, sold for £13. 5. 0d.
Monstrelet’s Chronicles made £10. 2. 6.
HAKLUYT’S Voyages. 3 vols. Small folio. 1599-1600. With the Map. This fetched £8. 15s
Brocquiere Travels £3. 13. 6.And at the lower end of prices realised
Froissart’s Chronicles £14. 14. 0.
Joinville’s Memoirs £7. 0. 0.
Blake’s Illustrations of Blair’s Grave — 1808; sold to “Hillman” for 17/-.And an exceedingly rare early topographical work, Lambarde’s Perambulation of Kent, 1576, was sold for only 4/6d.
Brothers’s Prophecies, — — — 1794; sold to “Cochran” for 1/6.
The library was dispersed in 1660 lots over seven days. The “End of the Sale” raised £3,539.1.6. The library in due course was followed by another sale of his collection of prints.
MARCH 31
title : CATALOGUE OF THE COLLECTION OF ENGRAVINGS OF BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN, ESQ. LL.D. HEAD MASTER OF BURY SCHOOL, CONSISTING OF SPECIMENS OF DISTINGUISHED ARTISTS OF THE VARIOUS SCHOOLS; WORKS OF MARC ANTONIO, JULIO BONASONE WOOLLETT, STRANGE, BARTOLOZZI, &c. INTERESTING BRITISH PORTRAITS, ALSO A LARGE COLLECTION OF FINE ENGRAVINGS FRAMED AND GLAZED. WHICH WILL BE SOLD BY AUCTION, BY MR. EVANS, AT HIS HOUSE, No. 93, PALL MALL, On Monday, March 31. The Sale will commence at Half-past Twelve. 1828.
note : 110 lots; at “End of the Sale”, £169.13.-. The only Blake item was [lot] 41 Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn, Hogarth. Beggar’s Opera, after Ditto, by Blake, fine, &c., which sold to “Roth” for 15/-.
1829
DECEMBERIn December 1829 Malkin was appointed to be the first professor of history, ancient and modern, at the newly-established University of London.
1830
From about 1830 Malkin lived part of each year at the Old Hall, Cowbridge, Glamorgan, his wife’s home, from where he pursued his interests in local history and topography. He interested himself in the life of Glamorgan, founded “The Society for the Improvement of the Working Population in ... Glamorgan” (of which he was president and secretary), and edited its twelve pamphlets (the “Cowbridge Tracts”); he also published separately a lecture delivered by him to the Society (not traced).MARCH 11
Inaugural lecture at University College, London. Malkin was Professor of History, Ancient and Modern at the University of London, 1830-33.
MAY 22
His third son, Frederic Malkin, also a fellow of Trinity, died on 22 May 1830, aged 28.
physical description : 23 p. ; 8vo. B, C4.
note : LONDON : PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS — t.p. verso.
context : Malkin compares the modern age with past eras and declares unequivocally that the days of slavish ignorance are now over and done with; the prospect of further advancement may well be extended so that individuals can become freer and happier, and thus more inclined to embrace the just systems of government.
note : The lecture is printed by Thomas Davison of Whitefriars. This is the successor firm, run by his widow, to Thomas Davison (1794-1826), known for his republican and Deist views. Davison’s publication of material critical of the Bible in his Deist’s Magazine resulted in his prosecution in October 1820. Davison was fined £100 and imprisoned for two years. He was also John Murray’s printer for most of Byron in the 1810s (but not after he went to jail). Of course the decision to have his lecture printed by Davison was probably made by the publisher, Taylor, but Malkin’s agreement with the use of a printer of some notoriety must surely, like the 1794 anti-war piece, put Malkin within the social and cultural circles of early nineteenth-century radicalism.
title : CLASSICAL DISQUISITIONS AND CURIOSITIES, CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL. BY BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN, L.L.D. F.S.A. [rule] CAMBRIDGE: PUBLISHED BY J. & J. J. DEIGHTON. 1830.
physical description : xxvi, 460 p.; 8vo.
note : Reissue of publication of 1825.
1831
title: UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE WORKING POPULATION IN THE COUNTY OF GLAMORGANpublisher : Cardiff: printed and sold by W. Bird, 1831
physical description : 12 parts. Each tract : 11 p ; 17 cm. ; 12mo.
note : Tracts published by the Society; No. [8] lacks collective title.
contents : 1. On the principle of compensation, as between the different conditions of human life — 2. On the principle of compensation, as respecting the conditions of the working classes at different periods — 3. On the principle of compensation, as respecting the condition of the working classes in Wales and England — 4. On the institution of property — 5. On the advantages of friendly societies — 6. On the advantages of savings= banks — 7. To the labourers of Glamorganshire — [8]. Story the first: the rich and the poor; Story the second: wages — 9-11. Third story: population, or, Patty’s marriage; Fourth story: the poor’s rate, or, The treacherous friend; Fifth story: foreign trade, or, The wedding gown / by the author of “Conversations on natural philosophy,” &c. — 12. Summary of the objects attained or projected by the Society, in the course of its first year : addressed by the committee to the Members of the Society, and to the public at large. [signed : B.H. Malkin, Chairman]
price : 1d. each.
note : In retirement Malkin became chairman of the Society for the Improvement of the Working Population in the County of Glamorgan. He was a reformer rather than a revolutionary. The Society issued this series of papers, (the so-called “Cowbridge Tracts”), on various social questions affecting the labourers of Glamorgan.
1832
title : ART. I.—The Life of Sir Isaac Newton. By DAVID (now SIR DAVID) BREWSTER, LL.D., F.R.S., 12mo. London: 1831.
in : THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. OCTOBER, 1832. [double rule] No. CXI [double rule]
physical description : 1-37 p.
note : An anonymous review. (This is the only Malkin review listed in the Wellesley index to Victorian periodicals, 1824-1900 [vol. 1] (1966). There must be other book reviews by Malkin, currently untraced.)
1833
Retired from professorship. He was succeeded by Dr. Robert Vaughan, editor of the British Quarterly Review (1845), and author of many works on nonconformist history.1837
OCTOBER 21Death of his second and eldest surviving son, Sir Benjamin Heath Malkin, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, a friend of Macaulay, and a judge of the Supreme Court at Calcutta, aged 41.
1842
MAY 26Malkin died at Cowbridge and was buried there. He and his wife are commemorated in an inscription in the church.
JUNE 4.
Obituary of Malkin in the Ipswich Journal.
AUGUST
Obituary of Malkin in the Gentleman’s Magazine, page 211.
1863
title : LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE, “PICTOR IGNOTUS.” WITH SELECTIONS FROM HIS POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS BY THE LATE ALEXANDER GILCHRIST, OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW; AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE OF WILLIAM ETTY, R.A.” ILLUSTRATED FROM BLAKE’s OWN WORKS, IN FACSIMILE BY W. J. LINTON, AND IN PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY; WITH A FEW OF BLAKE’s ORIGINAL PLATES. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. [II.] London and Cambridge: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1863. [The Right of Translation is reserved.]note : Malkin references : 9-10, 17, 24, 71, 120-21, 201, 210-12, 243. In his Chapter XIII, Gilchrist writes condescendingly of the Malkins, though he draws directly on Malkin’s account of Blake’s apprenticeship years, paraphrasing it and often quoting directly, though without acknowledgement.
1866
title : THE ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS ... TRANSLATED ... BY T. SMOLLETT. A NEW EDITION, CAREFULLY REVISED. WITH TWENTY-FOUR LINE ENGRAVINGS AFTER SMIRKE, AND TEN ETCHINGS BY G. CRUIKSHANK publisher : London: G. Routledge & Sons, 1866.
physical description : xiv, 442 p. ; 17 cm. ; 8vo.
note : Actually Malkin’s translation.
note : reissued 1881 as part of the “Excelsior Series.”.
1881
title : ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE [rule] THE ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS OF SANTILLANE TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY TOBIAS SMOLLETT. PRECEDED BY A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTICE OF LE SAGE By GEORGE SAINTSBURY. With Twelve Original Etchings by R. De Los Rios. IN THREE VOLUMES—VOL. I [etc.] LONDON J. C. NIMMO AND BAIN 14 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C. 1881.physical description : 8vo.
note : Malkin’s translation.
1885
title: THE ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS ... Translated by T. Smollett. A new edition, carefully revised. With twenty-four line engravings after Smirke, and ten etchings by G. Cruikshank.publisher : H.G. Bohn, 1885.—Bohn’s Illustrated Library.
physical description : xii, 600 p. ; 8vo.
note : The translation is by B.H. Malkin.
1888
NOVEMBER 18Arthur Thomas Malkin, fourth son of Benjamin Heath Malkin, died 18 November 1888 aged 85.
1907
title : WILLIAM BLAKE. BY ARTHUR SYMONS.publisher : London : A. Constable, 1907.
physical description : xviii p., 1 l., 433 p. diagr. 23 cm.
contents : Pt. I. William Blake [by A. Symons] — pt. II. Records from contemporary sources : 1. Extracts from the Diary, letters, and reminiscences of H. C. Robinson, transcribed from the original mss. in Dr. William’s library, 1810-1852.—2. From A father’s memoirs of his child. By B. H. Malkin. London, 1806.—3. From Lady Charlotte Bury’s Diary illustrative of the times of George the Fourth, 1820.—4. Blake’s horoscope, 1825.—5. Obituary notices in the Literary Gazette, and Gentleman’s Magazine, 1827.—6. Extract from Varley’s Zodiacal Physiognomy, 1828.—7. Biographical sketch of Blake; extract from v. 2 of Nollekens and his Times. By J. T. Smith. London : H. Colburn, 1828.—8. Life of Blake; extract from v. 2 of Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. By Alan Cunningham. London : J. Murray, 1830
note : “List of books consulted”: page xiii-xv.
note : also published New York : E. P. Dutton 1907.
note : Facsimile reprint Kila MT : Kessinger Publishing, 1997. ISBN 1564595617
1910
year of publication : 1910.—Everyman’s Library, 437, 438.
physical description : 2v., 17 cm. ; 8vo.
note : With an introduction by Anatole Le Braz.
note : The translation is by B.H. Malkin:
“The chief English translation is that based on Smollett’s, 1749, and still called after him, though freely revised and much improved by B. H. Malkin, whose text is followed in this edition.” (v. 1, p. xv.)
I am puzzled by this unwillingness fully to credit Malkin for his translation. Perhaps commercial considerations would justify an attribution to the well-known Smollett rather than the little-known Malkin.
note : Reprinted 1914, 1921, 1928, 1938.
1913
title : THE ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS OF SANTILLANE. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF LESAGE BY TOBIAS SMOLLETT. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY WILLIAM MORTON FULLERTON.publisher : London : ; George Routledge & Sons New York : E. P. Dutton & Co., 1913.—Library of Early Novelists. Picaresque Section; 2.
physical description : xxxviii, 442 p. ; 21 cm.
note : Malkin’s translation.
1918
title : THE ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS OF SANTILLANE. By A.R. Le Sage ; translated by B.H. Malkin ; with a frontispiece by Robert Smirke.publisher : London Greening [1918].—The Lotus library
physical description : 588 p., [1] leaf of plates : 1 ill. ; 18 cm.
1922
title : THE ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS OF SANTILLANE by A R. LE SAGE Translated by B.H. MALKIN NEW YORK : BRENTANO’Syear of publication : [1922?].
physical description : 588 p. ;
1969
title : BLAKE RECORDS [rule] G. E. BENTLEY, Jr. OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1969physical description : xxviii, 678 p., 62 pl : illustrations, facsimiles, plans, portraits ; 23 cm
reference : ISBN 019811639X
note : “The purpose of the Blake Records is to collect and publish as many as possible of the references to Blake made by his contemporaries” (xxiv), including the biographical essays by Malkin, Crabb Robinson, J.T. Smith, Cunningham and Tatham, with separate sections on Blake’s Residences, Accounts, and Engravings. There are 67 illustrations, including all the plates for Blair’s Grave.
Malkin references : 13, 169, 174-7, 181-2, 192, 223, 225, 230, 254, 318, 349, 385, 421-31, 433, 444, 504, 510, 511, 537, 562, 563, 574, 616, 617, 622-3.
note : A Supplement was issued in 1988, and a 2nd edition in 2004.
1970
title : WILLIAM BLAKE: SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE: A CASEBOOK EDITED BY MARGARET BOTTRALL.publisher : London : Macmillan Education, 1970.— Casebook series.
physical description : 245 p.; 21cm.
reference : ISBN 0333093925 (pbk), 0333056736
note : Includes brief extract from Malkin.
title : CRITICS ON BLAKE READINGS IN LITERARY CRITICISM EDITED BY JUDITH O’NEILL.
publisher : London : Allen and Unwin, 1970.—Readings in literary criticism; 7.
physical description : 120 p; 22 cm.
reference : ISBN 0048210250
note : Includes passages extracted from Malkin.
note : Also Coral Gables FL : University of Miami Press, [c1970], ISBN 0870241893.
title : NINETEENTH-CENTURY ACCOUNTS OF WILLIAM BLAKE BY BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN, HENRY CRABB ROBINSON, JOHN THOMAS SMITH, ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, FREDERICK TATHAM, WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS: FACSIMILE REPRODUCTIONS. EDITED WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND HEADNOTES, BY JOSEPH ANTHONY WITTREICH, JR.
publisher : Gainesville, Fla. : Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970.
physical description : ix, 289 p.; 23 cm.
note: Facsimile of extract from Malkin, Memoirs. The headnotes are perfunctory, there is no new annotation or index.
place of publication : Wakefield.
description : v, [3], vii, 636 p: 13 plates : illus., fold. map; 25 cm
reference : ISBN 0854096124
note : “A reprint of the edition published in London in 1804”.
note : “The invitation to write a foreword to this reprint of the first edition of Benjamin Heath Malkin, The Scenery, Antiquities, and Biography, of South Wales has given me more than ordinary pleasure. A copy of the second edition was the work which first aroused my interest in local history, and I count the day when I first saw and perused that copy in the library of the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, as one of the turning-points of my life.
“In conclusion I cannot do better than quote the assessment by the late Professor R. T. Jenkins. Writing in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, he described Malkin’s book as “by far the best of the old travel-books on South Wales—acute and interesting in its observation, usually tolerant in its judgements, with a substantial knowledge of Welsh history and (up to a point) of Welsh literature”. I have many friends who are in full agreement with Professor Jenkins’ opinion, and I very much hope that this reprint of the first edition will keep on doing for its readers what a copy of the second edition once did for me.” (v)
review : “Malkin, The Scenery, Antiquities and Biography of South Wales (Book Review)”, Welsh History Review = Cylchgrawn Hanes Cymru, vol. 6 (1972/1973), 230.
1973
title : AN ATLAS OF FANTASY. J. B. POST.publisher : Baltimore MD : Mirage Press, 1973.
physical description : xiv, 210 p. : ill., maps ; 22 x 28 cm.
note : Reprints the map of Allestone from Memoirs (1806).
note : New, revised edition.—New York : Ballantine Books 1979, and London : Souvenir Press 1979.
1975
title : WILLIAM BLAKE : THE CRITICAL HERITAGE. EDITED BY G. E. BENTLEY, JR.publisher : London & Boston : Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975.—The critical heritage series.
physical description : xix, 294p, [16]p of plates : ill, facsims, ports; 23cm
reference : ISBN 0415134412
note : The introduction here is an abridged version of Bentley’s essay “Blake’s Reputation and Interpreters” in Blake Books. Includes Malkin’s account of Blake from his Memoirs (1806), xviii-xli.
note : Reissued London : Routledge, 1995.
1984
title : WILLIAM BLAKE’S WORKS IN CONVENTIONAL TYPOGRAPHY : FACSIMILE REPRODUCTIONS OF POETICAL SKETCHES (1783), COPY F, THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (1791) COPY A, APPRECIATION OF MASTER MALKIN IN B. H. MALKIN, A FATHER’S MEMOIRS OF HIS CHILD (1806), ‘TO THE QUEEN’ (APRIL 1807), FROM ROBERT BLAIR, THE GRAVE (1808), ‘EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS IN FRESCO’ (1809) COPY A, ‘BLAKE’S CHAUCER : THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS’ (1809) COPY A, ‘A DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE’ ADVERTISEMENT (1809) COPY A, A DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE (1809) COPY O, ‘BLAKE’S CHAUCER : AN ORIGINAL ENGRAVING’ (1810) COPY C. Ed. and with an Introduction by G. E. Bentley, Jr.publisher : Delmar NY : Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1984.—Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints; v. 388.
physical description : xiii, 210 p : ill; 22 cm.
reference : ISBN 0820113883
note : Editorial text is on pages ix-xiii, 1-5, 81-3, 103-4, 109-11, 115-16, 119, 129-35, 209-10. The reproductions are not true-size. Reprints Blake’s comments on Thomas Williams Malkin; does not include B.H. Malkin’s words on Blake.
1997
series : Revolution and romanticism, 1789-1834; a series of facsimile reprints chosen and introduced by Jonathan Wordsworth
physical description : xlviii, 172 p., 3 plates : illustrations, 1 map ; 25 cm.
reference : ISBN 1854772104
note : One fold-out map between pages 94-95.
note : Facsimile of edition originally published: London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1806.
physical description : xlviii, 172 p., 3 plates : illustrations, 1 map ; 25 cm.
reference : ISBN 1854772104
note : One fold-out map between pages 94-95.
note : Facsimile of edition originally published: London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1806.
2004
title : Blake Records SECOND EDITION Documents (1714-1841) Concerning the Life of William Blake (1757-1827) and his Family Incorporating Blake Records (1969) Blake Records Supplement (1988) and Extensive Discoveries since 1988 G.E. Bentley, Jr Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press New Haven and Londonphysical description : xxxviii, 943 p., 32 p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm.
reference : ISBN 9780300096859
note : Includes the introductory letter to Malkin, A Father’s Memoirs (1806).
◆
Sources and Further Reading
G. E. Bentley, Jr.—Blake Books: annotated catalogues of William Blake’s writings in illuminated printing, in conventional typography, and in manuscript and reprints thereof; reproductions of his designs, books with his engravings, catalogues, books he owned, and scholarly and critical works about him.—Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1977.
A revised edition of A Blake Bibliography by G. E. Bentley, Jr. & M. K. Nurmi (1964). A Supplement was issued in 1995.
Indispensable guide both to Blake’s own works & to all subsequent materials about him & his works, including editions, criticism, etc. My complete indebtedness to Bentley should be obvious.
Robert Thomas Jenkins.—“MALKIN, BENJAMIN HEATH (1769-1842), antiquary and author” in Dictionary of Welsh Biography.—London : under the auspices of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1958, page 610.
Now available online.
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https://discover.libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk/
Jisc Library Hub Discover
https://discover.libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk/
Access to a database of 172 UK and Irish academic, national & specialist library catalogues.
Herbert J. Lloyd-Johnes.—“Benjamin Malkin’s Library” (Biographica et Bibliographica).—National Library of Wales Journal, vol.13 no.2 (1963), 197-8.
E.D. Mackerness.—“Blake and the Malkins”.—Durham University Journal, vol. LXVI no. 2, New series vol. XXXV no. 2 (March 1974), 179-84.
A biographical account of the Malkins and an extended consideration of the Memoirs.
Susan Matthews.—“Blake’s Malkin” in Re-envisioning Blake; edited by Mark Crosby, Troy Patenaude & Angus Whitehead.—Houndmills, Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pages 108-129.
Herbert J. Lloyd-Johnes.—“Benjamin Malkin’s Library” (Biographica et Bibliographica).—National Library of Wales Journal, vol.13 no.2 (1963), 197-8.
E.D. Mackerness.—“Blake and the Malkins”.—Durham University Journal, vol. LXVI no. 2, New series vol. XXXV no. 2 (March 1974), 179-84.
A biographical account of the Malkins and an extended consideration of the Memoirs.
Charlotte Malkin.—Journal of travels in Scotland 1814. Edited with an Introduction by Alex Deans in Curious Travellers Digital Editions.
Transcribed from British Library Add Ms 85321.
Using newly-discovered manuscript material, Matthews examines the reception of Blake's work by Malkin and hs social circle.
Susan Matthews.—“Charlotte Malkin's Waterloo Diary and the Politics of Waterloo Tourism”.—Literature Compass, vol 11,no 3, (March 2014), 218-231.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com
G. Martin Murphy.—“Malkin, Benjamin Heath (1770–1842)” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com
G. Martin Murphy.—“Malkin, Benjamin Heath (1770–1842)” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online).
James Spedding.—“Remarks on the character of Dr Malkin” in J.W. Donaldson.—A retrospective address read at the tercentenary commemoration of King Edward’s School, Bury St Edmunds (1850), 77–89.
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