And desperation drove, have been committed

By those who once would start to hear them named.
Agnes. And add to these detested suicide,
Which, by a crime much less, we may avoid.

Wil. The inhospitable murder of our guest?
How couldst thou form a thought so very tempting,
So advantageous, so secure, and easy;
And yet so cruel, and so full of horror?

Agnes. 'Tis less impiety, less against nature, To take another's life than end our own.

Wil. It is no matter whether this or that
Be in itself the less or greater crime :
Howe'er we may deceive ourselves or others,
We act from inclination, not by rule,

Or none could act amiss. And that all err,
None but the conscious hypocrite denies.
Oh, what is man, his excellence and strength,
When in an hour of trial and desertion,
Reason, his noblest power, may be suborned
To plead the cause of vile assassination !
Agnes. You're too severe : reason may justly plead
For her own preservation.

Whose wasteful riots ruined our estate,
And drove our son, ere the first down had spread
His rosy cheeks, spite of my sad presages,
Earnest entreaties, agonies, and tears,

To seek his bread 'mongst strangers, and to perish
In some remote inhospitable land.
The loveliest youth in person and in mind
That ever crowned a groaning mother's pains!
Where was thy pity, where thy patience then?
Thou cruel husband! thou unnatural father!
Thou most remorseless, most ungrateful man!
To waste my fortune, rob me of my son,
To drive me to despair, and then reproach me
For being what thou 'st made me.
Wil.

Dry thy tears:
I ought not to reproach thee. I confess
That thou hast suffered much so have we both.

Thy thoughts are perishing; thy youthful joys,
Touched by the icy hand of grisly death,

Are withering in their bloom. But though extinguished,
He'll never know the loss, nor feel the bitter
Pangs of disappointment. Then I was wrong
In counting him a wretch: to die well pleased
Is all the happiest of mankind can hope for.
To be a wretch is to survive the loss

Of every joy, and even hope itself,

As I have done. Why do I mourn him then?

For, by the anguish of my tortured soul,

He's to be envied, if compared with me.

There is a memoir of Lillo prefixed to an edition of his dramatic works by T. Davies (2nd ed. 1810).

John Byrom (1692–1763) was born near Manchester. He took his degree at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1712, and studied medicine at Montpellier in France. On his return he applied himself to teach a system of shorthand which he had invented. Among his pupils were Gibbon and Horace Walpole; Bentley, Hoadly, Bishop Butler, John Wesley, Hartley, and William Law were amongst his friends. The latter part of Byrom's life was spent in easy circumstances; he succeeded by the death of an elder brother to the family property in and about Manchester, and there he lived highly respected. His poetry has the virtue of a genuine simplicity, and is sometimes pointed and rhythmical, rarely melodious; often it is mere doggerel, or measured lengths of rhymed prose. He put everything into rhymetheological and historical arguments, petitions to the king, and even translations from the mystical theology of Ruysbrock, Boehme, and Law (of the Serious Call). He was very much of a mystic himself, regarded Malebranche as the greatest of divines and philosophers, and admired Fénelon and the visionary Madame Bourignon; but he met in a friendly way heretics like Whiston and deists like Collins. Throughout life he was strongly Jacobite, though he avoided compromising himself. Byrom's (not Swift's) was the famous epigram about the dispute between Handel and Buononcini : Some say, compared to Bononcini, That Mynheer Handel's but a ninny; Others aver that he to Handel

Is scarcely fit to hold a candle.
Strange all this difference should be
'Twixt tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee!

His Latin verse also is pointed rather than poetical. Some of his smartest things are in broad Lancashire dialect, such as the dialogue on the 'Heelanders' in Lancashire in 1745. His Colin and Phebe, contributed to the Spectator in 1714, gave him some standing as a poet. Phebe was said to have been Jug Bentley, the sprightly daughter of the great Master of Trinity. But an early biographer earnestly denied this, and with some reason said the poem was really addressed to his favourite sister, Phebe Byrom. The Journal is a light, gossiping record, which adds little to our knowledge of the public events of the period, but exhibits its author as an opinionative, kindly, cheerful, and happy man.

Colin and Phebe-A Pastoral.

My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent,
When Phebe went with me wherever I went ;
Ten thousand sweet pleasures I felt in my breast:
Sure never fond shepherd like Colin was blest!
But now she is gone, and has left me behind,
What a marvellous change on a sudden I find!
When things seemed as fine as could possibly be,
I thought 'twas the Spring; but alas! it was she.

With such a companion to tend a few sheep,
To rise up and play, or to lie down and sleep :
So good-humoured made me, so cheerful and gay,
My heart was as light as a feather all day;
But now I so cross and so peevish am grown,
So strangely uneasy, as never was known.

My fair one is gone, and my joys are all drowned,
And my heart, I am sure, weighs more than a pound.

The fountain that wont to run sweetly along, And dance to soft murmurs the pebbles among ; Thou know'st, little Cupid, if Phebe was there, 'Twas pleasure to look at, 'twas music to hear: But now she is absent, I walk by its side,

And still, as it murmurs, do nothing but chide : 'Must you be so cheerful, while I go in pain? Peace there with your bubbling, and hear me complain.'

My lambkins around me would oftentimes play,
And Phebe and I were as joyful as they;

How pleasant their sporting, how happy their time,
When Spring, Love, and Beauty were all in their prime!
But now, in their frolics when by me they pass,
I fling at their fleeces a handful of grass;

'Be still,' then I cry, for it makes me quite mad
To see you so merry while I am so sad.'

But now she has left me, they all are in tears,
Not one of them half so delightful appears:
'Twas nought but the magic, I find, of her eyes
Which made all these beautiful prospects arise.

Sweet music attended us all the wood through, The lark, linnet, throstle, and nightingale too; Winds over us whispered, flocks by us did bleat, And chirp went the grasshopper under our feet. But now she is absent, though still they sing on, The woods are but lonely, the melody 's gone : Her voice in the concert, as now I have found, Gave everything else its agreeable sound.

Rose, what is become of thy delicate hue? And where is the violet's beautiful blue? Does aught of its sweetness the blossom beguile? That meadow, those daisies, why do they not smile? Ah rivals! I see what it was that you drest And made yourselves fine for-a place in her breast: You put on your colours to pleasure her eye, To be plucked by her hand, on her bosom to die.

How slowly Time creeps till my Phebe return! While amidst the soft zephyr's cool breezes I burn: Methinks, if I knew whereabouts he would tread,

I could breathe on his wings: it would melt down the lead.

Fly swifter, ye minutes, bring hither my dear,
And rest so much longer for 't when she is here.
Ah Colin! old Time is quite full of delay,
Nor will budge one foot faster for all thou canst say.

Will no pitying power that hears me complain,
Or cure my disquiet, or soften my pain?
To be cured, thou must, Colin, thy passion remove;
But what swain is so silly to live without love?
No, deity, bid the dear nymph to return,
For ne'er was poor shepherd so sadly forlorn.
Ah, what shall I do? I shall die with despair;
Take heed, all ye swains, how ye part with your fair.

Of the following poem (in some editions described as in imitation of Sir Philip Sidney), Southey strained a good point when he said it was 'so perfectly in the manner of Elizabeth's age, that we can hardly believe it to be an imitation, but are almost disposed to think that Byrom had transscribed it from some old author.'

Careless Content.

I am content, I do not care,

Wag as it will the world for me; When fuss and fret was all my fare, It got no ground as I could see: So when away my caring went,

I counted cost, and was content.

With more of thanks and less of thought,
I strive to make my matters meet;
To seek what ancient sages sought,

Physic and food in sour and sweet:
To take what passes in good part,
And keep the hiccups from the heart.
With good and gentle-humoured hearts.
I choose to chat where'er I come,
Whate'er the subject be that starts;
But if I get among the glum,

I hold my tongue to tell the troth, And keep my breath to cool my broth.

For chance or change of peace or pain, For Fortune's favour or her frown, For lack or glut, for loss or gain,

I never dodge nor up nor down:

But swing what way the ship shall swim, Or tack about with equal trim.

I suit not where I shall not speed, Nor trace the turn of every tide; If simple sense will not succeed,

I make no bustling, but abide : For shining wealth, or scaring woe, I force no friend, I fear no foe.

Of ups and downs, of ins and outs,

Of they're i' the wrong, and we 're i' the right,

I shun the rancours and the routs ;
And wishing well to every wight,
Whatever turn the matter takes,
I deem it all but ducks and drakes.

With whom I feast I do not fawn,

Nor if the folks should flout me, faint; If wonted welcome be withdrawn,

I cook no kind of a complaint:
With none disposed to disagree,
But like them best who best like me.

Not that I rate myself the rule

How all my betters should behave ; But fame shall find me no man's fool, Nor to a set of men a slave :

I love a friendship free and frank,
And hate to hang upon a hank.

Fond of a true and trusty tie,

I never loose where'er I link; Though if a business budges by,

I talk thereon just as I think; My word, my work, my heart, my hand, Still on a side together stand.

If names or notions make a noise,
Whatever hap the question hath,
The point impartially I poise,

And read or write, but without wrath; For should I burn or break my brains, Pray who will pay me for my pains?

I love my neighbour as myself,

Myself like him too, by his leave; Nor to his pleasure, power, or pelf,

Came I to crouch, as I conceive: Dame Nature doubtless has designed A man the monarch of his mind.

Now taste and try this temper, sirs, Mood it and brood it in your breast; Or if ye ween, for worldly stirs,

That man does right to mar his rest, Let me be deft, and debonair,

I am content I do not care.

The following is a fair specimen of Byrom's theological argumentation (against Sherlock):

When tempted Adam, yielding to deceit,
Presumed of the fordidden tree to eat,
The Bishop tells us that he did not die :
Pray will you ask him, sir, the reason why?
Why he would contradict the sacred text,
Where death to sin so surely is annexed.
'The day thou eatest' are the words, you know,
And yet by his account, it was not so. . .

The often-sung hymn, 'Christians awake, salute the happy morn,' is a selection from Byrom's Christmas Carol. The following is his happiest jeu d'esprit:

Jacobite Toast.

God bless the king, God bless the Faith's Defender,
God bless-no harm in blessing-the Pretender.
But who Pretender is, and who is king,

God bless us all! that's quite another thing.

Byrom's poems were republished, with Life and notes, in 18:4; were included in Chalmers's Poets; and were re-edited in 1894-95 by Prof. Ward for the Chetham Society (4 vols.). The Journal and Literary Remains appeared in 1854-57 (2 vols. ; Chetham Society).

Thomas Amory (1691?-1788) was a miscellaneous writer and humourist of an eccentric type. He was of Irish descent-his father acquired property as secretary for the confiscated estatesand he went to school in Dublin; but he is found established in Westminster in 1757. In 1755 he published, anonymously, Memoirs containing the Lives of several Ladies of Great Britain; A History of Antiquities; Observations on the Christian Religion; with a variety of Disquisitions (in two volumes)—an extraordinary miscellany of religion, scenery, autobiography, and fictitious adventures. His next work is practically a continuation: The Life of John Buncle, Esq. (2 vols. 1756-66). The author's aim in both works was to promote good morals and Unitarian doctrines, or rather a kind of 'Christian Deism;' the ladies whose charms and virtues are commemorated belong very obviously to the fictitious side of the enterprise. In the first he travels among the wild hills of Northumberland, and meets there, in a secluded spot (which he invests with all the beauty and softness of a scene in Kent or Devon), the daughter of a deceased college friend, who had been disinherited for refusing to sign the Thirty-nine Articles. The young lady entertains her father's friend, and introduces him to other ladies. They undertake a visit to the Western Islands, and encounter various adventures and vicissitudes, besides indulging in philosophical and polemical discussions. The Life of John Buncle is of like complexion, but in the form of an autobiography. Buncle has in succession no less than seven wives, all wooed and won upon his peculiar Christian principles.' To such reviewers as should attempt to raise the laugh against him he replies: 'I think it unreasonable and impious to grieve immoderately for the dead. A decent and proper tribute of tears and sorrow, humanity requires; but when that duty has been paid, we must

remember that to lament a dead woman is not to lament a wife. A wife must be a living woman.' And, fortified by this philosophy, John Buncle proceeds on his way undisturbed after each bereavement, usually in high spirits, relishing fine old ale and good cheer, and making fresh converts to his views and opinions. The personal attractions, literary and other acquirements, of each wife, her many virtues, and her family history, are related at length. 'As I mention nothing of any children by so many wives,' he explains, 'some readers may perhaps wonder at this; and therefore, to give a general answer once for all, I think it sufficient to observe, that I had a great many to carry on the succession ; but as they never were concerned in any extraordinary affairs, nor ever did any remarkable things, that I ever heard of-only rise and breakfast, read and saunter, drink and eat, it would not be fair, in my opinion, to make any one pay for their history.' In lieu of this, the reader is treated to dissertations on the origin of language, the causes of earthquakes and of muscular motion, on phlogiston, fluxions, the Athanasian Creed, and fifty other topics brought together in heroic contempt of the unities of time and place. At a moment's notice the most unlikely personsfarmers' wives and country gentlemen's daughters -burst into long debates or disquisitions on the evidences for (improved) Christianity, the origin of language, phallic worship, the physical cause of the Deluge. Between Cumberland and Yorkshire, Buncle discovers a 'fine romantic country,' a trackless and all but impassable wilderness, with mountains higher than 'Snowden or Kedar-Idris,' appalling precipices, deafening cataracts as high as Niagara, bottomless abysses, but here and there little companies of charming recluses, sometimes wholly women. He is great on 'natural curiosities' -caverns, fossils, odd shells, rare mushrooms. There is a portentous account of a fight to the death (seen under a rather highly magnifying microscope!) between a 'gallant louse' and an active flea, who at one stage of the struggle 'fixes his flashing eyes on his foe.' The classical quotations and even the names of the authors cited leave much to be desired, and suggest second-hand (though miscellaneous and extensive) erudition. There is a vast amount of irrelevant padding in the notes. One long note gives sketches of the lives and works of St Jerome, St Ambrose, and the Gregories. Another note, running on to a tenth page, discusses Madame de Guyon, Madame Bourignon, and several other mystics, male and female. Another describes various monuments of native Irish literature, with translations. Such a fantastic and desultory work is only tolerable in virtue of its portentous eccentricity and unlikeness to any other book, with its occasionally happy, original, and unexpected thoughts and locutions. How Hazlitt could have said that the soul of Rabelais had passed into Amory is incompre

hensible; Mr Leslie Stephen, more reasonably, sees in his rhapsodies rather the 'light-headed ramblings of delirium.' If Amory was not disordered in intellect, he had a marvellously ill-balanced judgment; and probably no entirely sane person could ever read John Buncle from end to end without plentiful' skipping.'

The following, from the beginning of the Memoirs, is a portrait of the first of his heroines :

Marinda Bruce.

In the year 1739, I travelled many hundred miles to visit ancient monuments, and discover curious things; and as I wandered, to this purpose, among the vast hills of Northumberland, fortune conducted me one evening, in the month of June, when I knew not where to rest, to the sweetest retirement my eyes have ever beheld. This is Hali-farm. It is a beautiful vale surrounded with rocks, forest, and water. I found at the upper end of it the prettiest thatched house in the world, and a garden of the most artful confusion I had ever seen. The little mansion was covered on every side with the finest flowery greens. The streams all round were murmuring and falling a thousand ways. All the kind of singing-birds were here collected, and in high harmony on the sprays. The ruins of an abbey enhance the beauties of this place; they appear at the distance of four hundred yards from the house; and as some great trees are now grown up among the remains, and a river winds between the broken walls, the view is solemn, the picture fine.

When I came up to the house, the first figure I saw was the lady whose story I am going to relate. She had the charms of an angel, but her dress was quite plain and clean as a country-maid. Her person appeared faultless, and of the middle size, between the disagreeable extremes; her face, a sweet oval, and her complexion the brunette of the bright rich kind; her mouth, like a rose-bud that is just beginning to blow; and a fugitive dimple, by fits, would lighten and disappear. The finest passions were always passing in her face; and in her long, even chestnut eyes, there was a fluid fire, sufficient for half-a-dozen pair.

She had a volume of Shakspear in her hand as I came softly towards her, having left my horse at a distance with my servant; and her attention was so much engaged with the extremely poetical and fine lines which Titania speaks in the third act of the Midsummer Night's Dream,' that she did not see me till I was quite near her. She seemed then in great amazement. She could not be much more surprised if I had dropped from the clouds. But this was soon over, upon my asking her if she was not the daughter of Mr John Bruce, as I supposed, from a similitude of faces, and informing her that her father, if I was right, was my near friend, and would be glad to see his chum in that part of the world. Marinda replied: You are not wrong,' and immediately asked me in. She conducted me to a parlour that was quite beautiful in the rural way, and welcomed me to Hali-farm, as her father would have done, she said, had I arrived before his removal to a better world. She then left me for a while, and I had time to look over the room I was in. The floor was covered with rushes wrought into the prettiest mat, and the walls decorated all round with the finest flowers and shells. Robins and nightingales, the finch and the

linnet, were in the neatest reed cages of her own making; and at the upper end of the chamber, in a charming little open grotto, was the finest strix capite aurito, corpore rufo, that I have seen, that is, the great eagle owl. This beautiful bird, in a niche like a ruin, looked vastly fine. As to the flowers which adorned this room, I thought they were all natural at my first coming in; but on inspection, it appeared that several baskets of the finest kinds were inimitably painted on the walls by Marinda's hand.

These things afforded me a pleasing entertainment for about half an hour, and then Miss Bruce returned. One of the maids brought in a supper-such fare, she said, as her little cottage afforded; and the table was covered with green peas and pigeons, cream-cheese, new bread and butter. Everything was excellent in its kind. The cider and ale were admirable. Discretion and dignity appeared in Miranda's behaviour; she talked with judgment; and under the decencies of ignorance was concealed a valuable knowledge. After supper she gave me the history of her father from the time he and I parted, and concluded with saying that by his death, a year before my arrival, she became the solitary thing I saw her, in the midst of untravelled mountains, and had not in the world one friend, excepting the poor rustics of her house and neighbourhood.

Richard Savage was an undignified assistant of Pope's, who supplied the 'private intelligence and secret incidents' which add poignancy to the satire of the Dunciad. Savage is better known for his misfortunes, as related by Dr Johnson, than for the charms of his poetry, which rarely rises above the level of mediocrity, whereas his melancholy story bears to be a romance in real life. It is almost certain, however, that Johnson's memoir, derived directly or indirectly from Savage himself, is little else than a romance, and its hero an impostor. Together, often penniless, they had roamed the streets by night; and now, moved by pity to partiality, he wrote what is perhaps the most perfect short Life in the language. That the story contains 'inherent improbabilities and proved falsehoods' was demonstrated by Moy Thomas in 1858 in Notes and Queries.

Savage (1697-1743) was born in London, and according to his own account was the issue of a liaison between the wife of Charles Lord Brandon, afterwards Earl of Macclesfield, and Richard Savage, Earl Rivers. Lady Brandon had been separated from her husband about ten years when she formed a liaison with Lord Rivers, by whom she had two children, a girl (who died in infancy, having been christened after the father and mother, 'Ann Savage') and a male child, baptised as 'Richard Smith.' Richard Smith, like the preceding child, was removed and placed at nurse, being taken away by a baker's wife named Portlock, who said the child was her own, and from this time all trace of the infant is lost. If we are to believe Savage's story, the Countess (from 1700 the wife of Colonel Brett) from the hour of his birth discovered a resolution of disowning

him, and would never see him again. She suffered a large legacy left to him by his godmother to be embezzled for want of some one to prosecute his claim; told Earl Rivers, his father, on his deathbed (1712) that his child was dead, with the express object of depriving him of another legacy of £6000; endeavoured to have Richard kidnapped to the West Indies; and finally interfered to the utmost of her power, and by means of an 'atrocious calumny,' to prevent his being saved from the hangman. Most of these assertions have been disproved. Indeed, the story of the legacy is palpably untrue, for, as Croker remarked, if Savage had a title to the legacy, he could not have found any difficulty in recovering it. Had the executors resisted his claims, the whole costs, as well as the legacy, must have been paid by them, if he had been the child to whom it was given.

The writer we know as Savage is first heard of in 1717, when was published The Convocation, or a Battle of Pamphlets, a Poem written by Mr Richard Savage. Next year (1718) he produced a comedy, Love in a Veil, which was published by Curil, and stated on the title-page to be written by Richard Savage, Gent., son of the late Earl Rivers.' Steele thought well of the play, and became his friend for a time. In Jacob's Lives of the Poets (1719) the same story is repeated with additions; and Aaron Hill in his periodical, The Plain Dealer (1724), inserted letters and statements to the same effect, which were furnished by Savage. His remarkable history thus became known, but the vices of his character displayed themselves. He had some good impulses, but his habits were low and sensual. His temper was irritable and capricious, and whatever money he received was instantly spent in obscure haunts of dissipation. In a tavern brawl in 1727 he had the misfortune to kill a young man called Sinclair, for which he was tried and condemned to death, but was pardoned by Queen Caroline and set at liberty. He published poetical pieces for his living; addressed a birthday ode to the queen in 1732, calling himself the 'Volunteer Laureate' -to the annoyance, it is said, of Colley Cibber, the legitimate inheritor of the laurel; and received from Her Majesty a pension of £50. His threats, as well as the sympathetic interest of the public in the story of his wrongs, induced Lord Tyrconnel, a friend of his reputed mother, to take him into his family, where he lived on equal terms and was allowed £200 a year. This, as Johnson said, was the 'golden period' of Savage's life. But, as might have been foreseen, the habits of the poet differed widely from those of the peer; they soon quarrelled, and Savage was again set adrift on the world. The death of the queen also stopped his pension; but his friends made up an annuity for him of equal amount, to which Pope contributed £20. Savage agreed to withdraw to the country, to avoid the temptations