MALLET, Edme, was born at Melun in 1713, and enjoyed a curacy in the neighbourhood of his native place till 1751, when he went to Paris to be professor of theology in the college of Navarre, of which he was admitted a doctor. Boyer, the late bishop of Mirepoix, was at first much prejudiced against him; but being afterwards undeceived, he conferred upon him the fee of Verdun as a reward for his doctrine and morals. Janfenism had been imputed to him by his enemies with this prelate; and the gazette which went by the name of Ecclésiastique, accused him of impiety. Either of these imputations was equally undeserved by the abbé Mallet: as a Christian, he was grieved at the disputes of the French church; and, as a philosopher, he was astonished that the government had not, from the very beginning of those dissensions imposed silence on both parties. He died at Paris in 1755, at the age of 42. The principal of his works are,
1. Principes pour la lecture des Poètes, 1745, 12mo, 2 vols.
2. Essai sur l'Etude des Belles Lettres, 1747, 12mo.
Mallet, 12mo. 3. Essai sur les bienfaisance oratoires, 1753, 12mo.
Mallicollo, 4. Principes pour la leçons des Orateurs, 1753, 12mo.
3 vols. 5. Histoire des Guerres civiles de France sous les
regnes de François II. Charles IX. Henri III. et
Henry IV. translated from the Italian of d'Avila.—
In Mallet's work on the Poets, Orators, and the
Belles Lettres, his object is no more than to explain
with accuracy and precision the rules of the great
masters, and to support them by examples from au-
thors ancient and modern. The style of his different
writings, to which his mind bore a great resemblance,
was neat, easy, and unaffected. But what must ren-
der his memory estimable, was his attachment to his
friends, his candour, moderation, gentleness, and mo-
desty. He was employed to write the theological and
belles lettres articles in the Encyclopédie; and whatever
he wrote in that dictionary was in general well com-
posed. Abbé Mallet was preparing two important
works when the world was deprived of him by death.
The first was Une Histoire générale de nos Guerres depuis
le commencement de la Monarchie; the second, Une Hi-
stoire de Concile de Trente, which he intended to set in
opposition to that of Father Paul translated by Father
le Courayer.