hout hesitation,
in Prin's Life. It has sometimes been attributed to G. Stevens. ED.]

[Footnote 192: See Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes, 162.]

MALLET.

Of David Mallet, having no written memorial, I am able to give no other
account than such as is supplied by the unauthorised loquacity of common
fame, and a very slight personal knowledge.

He was, by his original, one of the Macgregors, a clan that became,
about sixty years ago, under the conduct of Robin Roy, so formidable and
so 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 suppose, 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 surmounted 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 sons, Malloch was recommended;
and I never heard that he dishonoured his credentials.

When his pupils were sent to see the world, they were entrusted to his
care; and, having conducted them round the common circle of modish
travels, he returned with them to London, where, by the influence of the
family in which he resided, he naturally gained admission to many
persons of the highest rank, and the highest character; to wits, nobles,
and statesmen.

Of his works, I know not whether I can trace the series. His first
production was William and Margaret[193] 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 Excursion, 1728; a desultory and
capricious view of such scenes 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 striking, and many of the paragraphs are elegant.
The cast of diction seems to be copied from Thomson, whose Seasons were
then in their full blossom 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
misrepresented; and is little more than an improvement, or rather
expansion, of a fragment which Pope printed in a Miscellany long before
he