allowed to say nothing, since nothing was ever said of it by the public. It must be allowed of Young's poetry, that it abounds in thought, but without much accuracy or selection. When he lays hold of an illustration, he pursues it beyond expectation, sometimes happily, as in his parallel of Quicksilver with Pleasure, which I have heard repeated with approbation by a lady,5o of whose praise he would have been justly proud, and which is very ingenious, very subtle, and almost exact; but sometimes he is less lucky, as when, in his 'Night Thoughts,' having it dropped into his mind, that the orbs, floating in space, might be called the cluster of creation, he thinks on a cluster of grapes, and says that they all hang on the great vine, drinking the "nectareous juice of immortal life." His conceits are sometimes yet less valuable. In the Last Day' he hopes, to illustrate the re-assembly of the atoms that compose the human body at the Trump of Doom,' by the collection of bees into a swarm at the tinkling of a pan. The Prophet says of Tyre, that "her Merchants are Princes.' Young says of Tyre in his Merchant,' "Her merchants Princes, and each deck a Throne." Let burlesque try to go beyond him. He has the trick of joining the turgid and familiar: to buy the alliance of Britain, "Climes were paid down." Antithesis is his favourite: "They for kindness hate:" and "because she's right, she's ever in the wrong." His versification is his own; neither his blank nor his rhyming lines have any resemblance to those of former writers; he picks up no hemistichs, he copies no favourite expressions; he seems to have laid up no stores of thought or diction, but to owe all to the fortuitous suggestions of the present moment. Yet I have reason to believe that, when once he had formed a new design, he then laboured it with very patient industry, and that he composed with great labour and frequent revisions. 50 Mrs. Thrale. His verses are formed by no certain model; he is no more like himself in his different productions than he is like others. He seems never to have studied prosody, nor to have had any direction but from his own ear. But, with all his defects, he was a man of genius and a poet.51 5 Though the strain of the 'Night Thoughts' is stamped with the strongest mannerism, and both the matter and the manner are of a kind to affect the reader powerfully and deeply, Blair's 'Grave' is the only poem I can call to mind which has been composed in imitation of it.-SOUTHEY: Cowper's Works, ii. 143. MALLE T. 1698 ?-1765. Educated at Edinburgh Born in the Highlands of Scotland Made Tutor to the Sons of the Duke of Montrose - Visits London - Pub lishes William and Margaret,' a Ballad Changes his name - Publishes The Excursion,' a Poem Courts Pope by a Poem on Verbal Criticism'. Writes for the Stage Made Under-Secretary to Frederick Prince of Wales - Writes a 'Life of Bacon,' and undertakes a 'Life of the Duke of Marlborough' Publishes Amyntor and Theodora,' a Poem Seeks to blacken the memory of Pope- Left Bolingbroke's Literary Executor His Pamphlet against Admiral Byng Obtains a Pension Is twice married - Death and Burial Works and Character. 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.2 David Malloch was, by the penury of his parents, compelled to be janitor of the High School at Edinburgh,3 a mean office, Here is an error: the Clan Macgregor was outlawed long before Rob Roy's day, by an Act of the Privy Council of James I. in 1603. See Scott's Introduction to 'Rob Roy.' * The father, James Malloch, kept a small clachan, or publichouse, at Crieff, on the borders of the Highlands, where his son David was born cir. 1698. His mother's maiden name was Beatrix Clark. 6 * Johnson's statement is confirmed by subsequent researches (see Steven's History of the High School of Edinburgh,' p. 89). Mallet studied at Aberdeen under Professor Ker; and Ker's kindness is spoken of in after-life with thankfulness by the pupil, in a series of interesting letters, printed in the European Magazine,' when under the direction of Isaac Reed. His first situation, after leaving Aberdeen, was that of tutor to the four sons (the |