Note B — CRITICAL STRICTURES, &c.

(P. 15) "We heard it once asserted by David Hume, Esq." On 4 November 1762, in Hume's house in James's Court, Edinburgh. "Mr. Mallet has written bad Tragedies because he is deficient in the pathetic, and hence it is doubted if he is the Author of William and Margaret. Mr. Hume said he knew people who had seen it before Mallet was born. Erskine gave another proof, viz. that he has written Edwin and Emma, a Ballad in the same stile, not near so good." See Private Papers (as in the note preceding this), i. 126-127, or the Limited Edition of Boswell's London Journal, 1762-1763, McGraw-Hill and Heinemann, 1951, p. 101. Hume protested vigorously, though with good humor, at this breach of confidence, and Boswell wrote a flippant reply (LJ, pp. 206-207, 208-209).