Mallet, David, originally David Malloch c.1705-1765
Scottish poet

Born near Crieff, Perthshire, he worked as the janitor at Edinburgh High School (1717-18), then studied at Edinburgh University. In 1720 he became a tutor, working from 1723 to 1731 in the family of the Duke of Montrose. Living mostly in London, he changed his name from Scots Malloch to English Mallet. William and Margaret (1723), developed from the fragment of an old ballad, gained him a reputation as a poet, which he enhanced by The Excursion (1728). He also wrote a play, Mustapha, which had a brief success in 1739. Alfred, a Masque (1740), was written in conjunction with James Thomson, and one of its songs, 'Rule Britannia', was claimed by both.