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 L10,000. 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 L1000
in her will between Glover and Mallett to write a Life of her husband.
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