David Mallett was the son of a small innkeeper in Crieff, Perthshire, where he was born in the year 1700. Crieff, as many of our readers know, is situated on the western side of a hill, and commands a most varied and beautiful prospect, including Drummond Castle, with its solemn shadowy woods, and the Ochils, on the south,—Ochtertyre, one of the loveliest spots in Scotland, and the gorge of Glenturrett, on the north,—and the bold dark hills which surround the romantic village of Comrie, on the west. Crieff is now a place of considerable note, and forms a centre of summer attraction to multitudes; but at the commencement of the eighteenth century it must have been a miserable hamlet. Malloch was originally the name of the poet, and the name is still common in that part of Perthshire. David attended the college of Aberdeen, and became, afterwards, an unsalaried tutor in the family of Mr Home of Dreghorn, near Edinburgh. We find him next in the Duke of Montrose's family, with a salary of £30 per annum. In 1723, he accompanied his pupils to London, and changed his name to Mallett, as more euphonious. Next year, he produced his pretty ballad of 'William and Margaret,' and published it in Aaron Hill's 'Plain Dealer.' This served as an introduction to the literary society of the metropolis, including such names as Young and Pope. In 1733, he disgraced himself by a satire on the greatest man then living, the venerable Richard Bentley. Mallett was one of those mean creatures who always worship a rising, and turn their backs on a setting sun. By his very considerable talents, his management, and his address, he soon rose in the world. He was appointed under-secretary to the Prince of Wales, with a salary of £200 a-year. In conjunction with Thomson, to whom he was really kind, he wrote in 1740, 'The Masque of Alfred,' in honour of the birthday of the Princess Augusta. His first wife, of whom nothing is recorded, having died, he married the daughter of Lord Carlisle's steward, who brought him a fortune of £10,000. Both she and Mallett himself gave themselves out as Deists. This was partly owing to his intimacy with Bolingbroke, to gratify whom, he heaped abuse upon Pope in a preface to 'The Patriot-King,' and was rewarded by Bolingbroke leaving him the whole of his works and MSS. These he afterwards published, and exposed himself to the vengeful sarcasm of Johnson, who said that Bolingbroke was a scoundrel and a coward;—a scoundrel, to charge a blunderbuss against Christianity; and a coward, because he durst not fire it himself, but left a shilling to a beggarly Scotsman to draw the trigger after his death. Mallett ranked himself among the calumniators and, as it proved, murderers of Admiral Byng. He wrote a Life of Lord Bacon, in which, it was said, he forgot that Bacon was a philosopher, and would probably, when he came to write the Life of Marlborough, forget that he was a general. This Life of Bacon is now utterly forgotten. We happened to read it in our early days, and thought it a very contemptible performance. The Duchess of Marlborough left £1000 in her will between Glover and Mallett to write a Life of her husband. Glover threw up his share of the work, and Mallett engaged to perform the whole, to which, besides, he was stimulated by a pension from the second Duke of Marlborough. He got the money, but when he died it was found that he had not written a line of the work. In his latter days he held the lucrative office of Keeper of the Book of Entries for the port of London. He died on the 2lst April 1765.

Mallett is, on the whole, no credit to Scotland. He was a bad, mean, insincere, and unprincipled man, whose success was procured by despicable and dastardly arts. He had doubtless some genius, and his 'Birks of Invermay,' and 'William and Margaret,' shall preserve his name after his clumsy imitation of Thomson, called 'The Excursion,' and his long, rambling 'Amyntor and Theodora;' have been forgotten.

WILLIAM AND MARGARET.

1 'Twas at the silent, solemn hour
When night and morning meet;
In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,
And stood at William's feet.

2 Her face was like an April-morn,
Clad in a wintry cloud;
And clay-cold was her lily hand,
That held her sable shroud.

3 So shall the fairest face appear,
When youth and years are flown:
Such is the robe that kings must wear,
When death has reft their crown.

4 Her bloom was like the springing flower,
That sips the silver dew;
The rose was budded in her cheek,
Just opening to the view.

5 But love had, like the canker-worm,
Consumed her early prime:
The rose grew pale, and left her cheek;
She died before her time.

6 'Awake!' she cried, 'thy true love calls,
Come from her midnight-grave;
Now let thy pity hear the maid,
Thy love refused to save.

7 'This is the dumb and dreary hour,
When injured ghosts complain;
When yawning graves give up their dead,
To haunt the faithless swain.

8 'Bethink thee, William, of thy fault,
Thy pledge and broken oath!
And give me back my maiden-vow,
And give me back my troth.

9 'Why did you promise love to me,
And not that promise keep?
Why did you swear my eyes were bright,
Yet leave those eyes to weep?

10 'How could you say my face was fair,
And yet that face forsake?
How could you win my virgin-heart,
Yet leave that heart to break?

11 'Why did you say my lip was sweet,
And made the scarlet pale?
And why did I, young witless maid!
Believe the flattering tale?

12 'That face, alas! no more is fair,
Those lips no longer red:
Dark are my eyes, now closed in death,
And every charm is fled.

13 'The hungry worm my sister is;
This winding-sheet I wear:
And cold and weary lasts our night,
Till that last morn appear.

14 'But, hark! the cock has warned me hence;
A long and late adieu!
Come, see, false man, how low she lies,
Who died for love of you.'

15 The lark sung loud; the morning smiled,
With beams of rosy red:
Pale William quaked in every limb,
And raving left his bed.

16 He hied him to the fatal place
Where Margaret's body lay;
And stretched him on the green-grass turf,
That wrapped her breathless clay.

17 And thrice he called on Margaret's name.
And thrice he wept full sore;
Then laid his cheek to her cold grave,
And word spake never more!

THE BIRKS OF INVERMAY.

The smiling morn, the breathing spring,
Invite the tunefu' birds to sing;
And, while they warble from the spray,
Love melts the universal lay.
Let us, Amanda, timely wise,
Like them, improve the hour that flies;
And in soft raptures waste the day,
Among the birks of Invermay.

For soon the winter of the year,
And age, life's winter, will appear;
At this thy living bloom will fade,
As that will strip the verdant shade.
Our taste of pleasure then is o'er,
The feathered songsters are no more;
And when they drop and we decay,
Adieu the birks of Invermay!