ABSTRACT
Alexander Malcolm is a little-known figure of the eighteenth century, to whom we owe a treatise on music published at Edinburgh in 1721. Theoretician and teacher, scholar of mathematics, Malcolm emigrated to America at some time before 1734 and continued in the teaching profession until 1759. The Treatise not only betrays the author's clear interest in mathematics, it also reveals a knowledge of the Lockeian philosophy of mind and philosophical debates of the time, and a particular concern with history. The work is dedicated to the Royal Academy of Music. Malcolm's work is introduced by an Ode on the Power of Music, inscribed to Mr Malcom, as a Monument of Friendship, by Mr Mitchell, which provides a typical example of the praise of music. The ode can, in all probability, be attributed to Joseph Mitchell, Scottish poet and dramatist who, like Malcolm, attended the University of Edinburgh. The last of the poem's thirteen stanzas closes with an encomium of Malcolm.
