DAVID MALLET, HIS CHARACTER AND BIOGRAPHY.
When an editor selects a favourite ballad for notes and illustrations, he may be supposed, naturally, to have a sort of respect, not to say veneration, for its author. Such is the case with the recent editor of Edwin and Emma (Dr. Dinsdale), when, in his brief biography of David Mallet, he glosses over the vices of this man's character in the quietest and most inoffensive manner possible. If he was a "heartless villain" I do not see that we ought to screen him; and I think those who may choose to look into his doings will find him full as "black" as he is painted.
Southey, in his Specimens of the Later English Poets, vol. ii. p. 342., does not mince the matter. His words are these:—
"A man of more talents than honesty, who was always ready to perform any dirty work for interest; to blast the character either of the dead or the living, and to destroy life as well as reputation. Mallet was 'first assassin' in the tragedy of Admiral Byng's murder."
In a copy of Gascoigne's Works, sold in Heber's sale, was the following MS. note by George Steevens:—
"This volume was bought for 1l. 13s. at Mr. Mallet's alias Malloch's, sale, March 14, 1776. He was the only Scotchman who died in my memory unlamented by an individual of his own nation."
David Malloch, or Mallet, is said to have been born about the year 1700, at Crieff, in Perthshire, at which place his father was an innkeeper. A search has been made in the parochial registers of Crieff, from 1692 to 1730, but his baptism is not registered.
The names of various children of Charles and Donald Malloch's in the neighbourhood of Crieff occur, including a David, in 1712. This obviously was not the poet; but it appears that his father "James Malloch, and Beatrix Clark his wife," were brought before the Kirk Session of Crieff in October and November, 1704, for profanation of the Lord's day, "by some strangers drinking and fighting in their house on the Sabbath immediately following Michaelmas." On the 12th of November, "they being both rebuked for giving entertainment to such folks on the sabbath-day, and promising never to do the like, were dismissed."
Some of Mallet's letters are printed in the Edinburgh Magazine, a literary miscellany, for 1793. They contain a number of curious literary notices, including some particulars of the writer's life not generally known.
Much interesting matter concerning the literary career and character of David Mallet may also be found in the recent Life of David Hume by John Hill Burton, Esq., Advocate.
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.