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MALLE T.

F DAVID MALLET, having

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no written memorial, I am able to give no other account than fuch as is fupplied by the unauthorised loquacity of common fame, and a very flight perfonal knowledge.

He was by his original one of the Macgregors, a clan that became, about fixty years ago, under the conduct of Robin Roy, fo formidable and fo infamous for violence and robbery, that the name was annulled by a legal abolition; and when they were all to denominate themselves anew, the father, I

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fuppofe, of this author called himself

Malloch.

David Malloch was, by the penury of his parents, compelled to be Janitor of the High School at Edinburgh; a mean office, of which he did not afterwards delight to hear. But he furmounted the disadvantages of his birth and fortune; for when the duke of Montrose applied to the College of Edinburgh for a tutor to educate his fons, Malloch was recommended; and I never heard that he difhonoured his credentials.

When his pupils were fent to fee the world, they were intrusted to his care; and having conducted them round the common circle of modifh travels, he

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returned with them to London, where, by the influence of the family in which he refided, he naturally gained admission to many perfons of the highest rank, and the higheft character, to wits, nobles, and statesmen.

Of his works, I know not whether I can trace the feries. His firft production was William and Margaret; of which, though it contains nothing very striking or difficult, he has been envied the reputation; and plagiarism has been boldly charged, but never proved.

Not long afterwards he published the Excurfion (1728); a defultory and capri

* Mallet's William and Margaret was printed in Aaron Hill's Plain Dealer, No 36, July 24, 1724. In its original state it was very different from what it is in this Collection.

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cious view of fuch fcenes of Nature as his fancy led him, or his knowledge enabled him, to describe. It is not devoid of poetical spirit. Many of the images are ftriking, and many of the paragraphs are elegant. The caft of diction feems to be copied from Thomfon, whofe Seafons were then in their full bloffom of reputation. He has Thomson's

beauties and his faults.

His poem on Verbal Criticism (1733) was written to pay court to Pope, on a subject which he either did not understand or willingly mifreprefented; and is little more than an improvement, or rather expanfion, of a fragment which Pope printed in a Mifcellany long before he engrafted it into a regular poem. There is in this piece more pertnefs than wit,

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and more confidence than knowledge. The verfification is tolerable, nor can eriticism allow it a higher praise.

His firft tragedy was Eurydice, acted at Drury-Lane in 1731; of which I know not the reception nor the merit, but have heard it mentioned as a mean performance. He was not then too high to accept a Prologue and Epilogue from Aaron Hill, neither of which can be much commended..

Having cleared his tongue from his native pronunciation fo as to be no longer diftinguished as a Scot, he feems inclined to difencumber himself from all adherences of his original, and took upon him to change his name from Scotch Malloch to English Mallet, with out any imaginable reafon of preference

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