Mrs. F——­’s sons were school-fellows of my eldest brother, under Dr. Malkin, the master of the grammar school of Bury St. Edmunds; and at this time we always saw Dr. and Mrs. Malkin when they visited London, and I was indebted to the doctor for a great deal of extremely kind interest which he took in my mental development and cultivation.

He suggested books for my reading, and set me, as a useful exercise, to translate Sismondi’s fine historical work, “Les Republiques Italiennes,” which he wished me to abridge for publication.  I was not a little proud of Dr. Malkin’s notice and advice; he was my brother’s school-master, an object of respectful admiration, and a kind and condescending friend to me.

He was a hearty, genial man, of portly person, and fine, intelligent, handsome face; active and energetic in his habits and movements, in spite of a slight lameness, which I remember he accounted for to me in the following manner.  He was very intimate with Miss O’Neil before she left the stage and became Lady Becher.  While dancing with her in a country-dance one evening at her house, she exclaimed, on hearing a sudden sonorous twang, “Dear me! there is one of the chords of my harp snapped.”  “Indeed it is not,” replied Dr. Malkin; “it is my tendo-Achillis which has snapped.”  And so it was; and from that time he always remained lame.

Mrs. Malkin was a more uncommon person than her husband; the strength of her character and sweetness of her disposition were alike admirable, and the bright vivacity of her countenance and singular grace and dignity of her person must be a pleasant memory in the minds of all who, like myself, knew her while she was yet in the middle bloom of life.

Dr. and Mrs. Malkin’s sons were my brother’s school and college mates.  They were all men of ability, and good scholars, as became their father’s sons.  Sir Benjamin, the eldest, achieved eminence as a lawyer, and became an Indian judge; and the others would undoubtedly have risen to distinction but for the early death that carried off Frederick and Charles, and the hesitation of speech which closed almost all public careers to their brother Arthur.

He was a prominent and able contributor to the “Library of Useful Knowledge,” and furnished a great part of the first of a whole generation of delightful publications, Murray’s “Hand-Book” for Switzerland.

One of the earliest of Alpine explorers, Arthur Malkin mounted to those icy battlements which have since been scaled by a whole army of besiegers, and planted the banner of English courage and enterprise on “peaks, passes, and glaciers” which, when he first climbed the shining summits of the Alps, were all but terra incognita to his countrymen.