seems inclined to disencumber himself from all adherences of his
original, and took upon him to change his name from Scotch Malloch
to English Mallet, without any imaginable reason of preference which
the eye or ear can discover. What other proofs he gave of
disrespect to his native country I know not; but it was remarked of
him that he was the only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend. About
this time Pope, whom he visited familiarly, published his "Essay on
Man," but concealed the author; and, when Mallet entered one day,
Pope asked him slightly what there was new. Mallet told him that
the newest piece was something called an "Essay on Man," which he
had inspected idly, and seeing the utter inability of the author,
who had neither skill in writing nor knowledge of the subject, had
tossed it away. Pope, to punish his self-conceit, told him the
secret.

A new edition of the works of Bacon being prepared (1740) for the
press, Mallet was employed to prefix a Life, which he has written
with elegance, perhaps with some affectation; but with so much more
knowledge of history than of science, that, when he afterwards
undertook the "Life of Marlborough," Warburton remarked that he
might perhaps forget that Marlborough was a general, as he had
forgotten that Bacon was a philosopher.

When the Prince of Wales was driven from the palace, and, setting
himself at the head of the opposition, kept a separate court, he
endeavoured to increase his popularity by the patronage of
literature, and made Mallet his under-secretary, with a salary of
two hundred pounds a year; Thomson likewise had a pension; and they
were associated in the composition of The Masque of Alfred, which in
its original state was played at Cliefden in 1740; it was afterwards