The gentleman, surprised at his resolution, endeavoured to dissuade him from publishing it, at least from prefixing his name; and declared that he could not reconcile the injunction of secrecy with his resolution to own it at its first appearance. To this Mr. Savage returned an answer agreeable to his character in the following terms: 3 'I received yours this morning; and not without a little surprise at the contents. To answer a question with a question, you ask me concerning London and Bristol, Why will I add delineated? Why did Mr. Woolaston add the same word to his Religion of Nature?? I suppose that it was his will and pleasure to add it in his case; and it is mine to do so in my own. You are pleased to tell me that you understand not why secrecy is enjoined, and yet I intend to set my name to it. My answer is-I have my private reasons, which I am not obliged to explain to any one. You doubt my friend Mr. S3 would not approve of it--And what is it to me whether he does or not? Do you imagine that Mr. S is to dictate to me? If any man who calls himself my friend should assume such an air, I would spurn at his friendship with contempt. You say, I seem to think so by not letting him know it—And suppose I do, what then? Perhaps I can give reasons for that disapprobation very foreign from what you would imagine. You go on in saying, Suppose I should not put my name to it-My answer is, that I will not suppose any such thing, being determined to the contrary: neither, Sir, would I have you suppose that I applied to you for want of another press: nor would I have you imagine that I owe Mr. S obligations which I do not.' Such was his imprudence, and such his obstinate adherence 320 to his own resolutions, however absurd. A prisoner! supported by charity! and, whatever insults he might have received during the latter part of his stay in Bristol, once caressed, esteemed, and presented with a liberal collection, he could forget on a sudden The author preferred the title of London and Bristol Delineated to that of London and Bristol Compared, which, when he began the piece, he intended to prefix to it. JOHNSON. Note in first edition of the Life [p. 168]. 2 The Queen was fond of Mr. Wollaston's book of The Religion of Nature delineated, and that made the reading of it and the talking of it fashionable.' WARBURTON, Pope's Works, viii. 149. 3 Mr. Strong of the Post Office, to whom Savage's letters quoted in Gent. Mag. 1787, p. 1039, were addressed. 4 Cave did not insert this poem in The Gent. Mag. 321 322 his danger and his obligations, to gratify the petulance of his wit, or the eagerness of his resentment, and publish a satire, by which he might reasonably expect that he should alienate those who then supported him, and provoke those whom he could neither resist nor escape'. This resolution, from the execution of which it is probable that only his death could have hindered him, is sufficient to shew how much he disregarded all considerations that opposed his present passions, and how readily he hazarded all future advantages for any immediate gratifications. Whatever was his predominant inclination, neither hope nor fear hindered him from complying with it; nor had opposition any other effect than to heighten his ardour, and irritate his vehemence. This performance was, however, laid aside while he was employed in soliciting assistance from several great persons; and one interruption succeeding another hindered him from supplying the chasm, and perhaps from retouching the other parts, which he can hardly be imagined to have finished in his own opinion; for it is very unequal, and some of the lines are rather inserted to rhyme to others than to support or improve the sense: but the first and last parts are worked up with great spirit and elegance 2. 323 His time was spent in the prison for the most part in study, or in receiving visits, but sometimes he descended to lower amusements, and diverted himself in the kitchen with the conversation of the criminals3; for it was not pleasing to him 2 Johnson must have forgotten the last couplet, which is exceedingly gross. 3 Howard writes of the prison in 1777: 'For Men-felons there is a day-room, with a court-yard adjacent, twenty feet by twelve. Their dungeon, the Pit, down eighteen steps, is about eighteen feet by seventeen, and nine feet high; barrack bedsteads; no bedding nor straw. It is close and offensive; only a small window.' State of the Prisons, P. 392. In the Crace Collection in the British Museum, vol. xxvii, p. 63, is a picture of the exterior of the room in which Savage died. to be much without company, and though he was very capable of a judicious choice he was often contented with the first that offered for this he was sometimes reproved by his friends, who found him surrounded with felons; but the reproof was on that, as on other occasions, thrown away: he continued to gratify himself, and to set very little value on the opinion of others. But here, as in every other scene of his life, he made use of 324 such opportunities as occurred of benefiting those who were more miserable than himself, and was always ready to perform any office of humanity to his fellow-prisoners 2. He had now ceased from corresponding with any of his 325 subscribers except one3, who yet continued to remit him the twenty pounds a year which he had promised him, and by whom it was expected that he would have been in a very short time enlarged, because he had directed the keeper to enquire after the state of his debts. However, he took care to enter his name according to the 326 forms of the court, that the creditor might be obliged to make him some allowance if he was continued a prisoner, and when on that occasion he appeared in the hall was treated with very unusual respect *. But the resentment of the city was afterwards raised by some 327 accounts that had been spread of the satire, and he was informed that some of the merchants intended to pay the allowance which the law required, and to detain him a prisoner at their own expence. This he treated as an empty menace 5; and perhaps might have hastened the publication, only to shew how much he was superior to their insults, had not all his schemes been suddenly destroyed. When he had been six months in prison he received from one 328 * Prior, according to tradition, was in this below Savage. He was ‘willing to descend from the dignity of the poet and the statesman to the low delights of mean company.' Ante, PRIOR, 49. 2 Ante, SAVAGE, 93; post, 337. 3 Pope. Ante, SAVAGE, 272 n. 3. On June 19, 1743, he wrote of his creditor Mrs. Read (ante, SAVAGE, 301): I was last court-day but one sent for up by habeas corpus to the Guildhall, where a rule was entered When I appeared at the Guild- of his friends', in whose kindness he had the greatest confidence, and on whose assistance he chiefly depended, a letter that contained a charge of very atrocious ingratitude, drawn up in such terms as sudden resentment dictated 2. Henley, in one of his advertisements, had mentioned' Pope's treatment of Savage 3.' This was supposed by Pope to be the consequence of a complaint made by Savage to Henley, and was therefore mentioned by him with much resentment. Mr. Savage returned a very solemn protestation of his innocence, but, however, appeared much disturbed at the accusation. Some days after ' Mr. Pope. JOHNSON. This note first appears in The Lives of the Poets. See ante, SAVAGE, 112. 2 The next two sentences first appear in The Lives of the Poets. 3 John Henley, 'Orator Henley' as he was called, used to hold forth every Sunday in a large room near Lincoln's Inn Fields. 'To fill his house every Saturday's Journal produced a long advertisement, setting forth the next day's entertainment.' Gent. Mag. 1786, p. 295. In a footnote it is said: These advertisements were so eccentric that a collection of them were printed, which, at this time of day, would afford much entertainment.' This note should, I think, run:-'if a collection were printed, at this time of day it would, &c.' Whiston, in 1727, published Mr. Henley's Letters and Advertisements which concern Mr. Whiston, with a few Notes. Brit. Museum Cata. Pope had attacked Henley. 'And has not Colley still his lord and whore? His butchers Henley, his freemasons Moore?' Prol. Sat. 1. 97. 'Come, harmless characters, that no one hit ; Come Henley's oratory, Osborne's Horace Walpole wrote on Dec. 5, 1746:-'The famous Orator Henley is taken up for treasonable flippancies.' Letters, ii. 68. For Henley, see post, BROOME, 15. This letter-if the resentment was expressed in a letter-is not in print. Pope sent Allen a letter to forward to the simple man it is directed to [Savage]. Later on he wrote to Allen:-My last short letter showed you I was peevish. Savage's strange behaviour made me so; and yet I was in haste to relieve him, though I think nothing will relieve him.' Ruffhead's Pope, p. 506; Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), ix. 201. What is apparently Pope's last letter to him begins:-'I must be sincere with you, as our correspondence is now likely to be closed. Your language is really too high, and what I am not used to from my superiors; much too extraordinary for me, at least sufficiently so to make me obey your commands, and never more presume to advise or meddle in your affairs, but leave your own conduct entirely to your own judgment.' lb. x. 102; Ruffhead's Pope, p. 505. In Gent. Mag. Dec. 1745, p. 663, in some lines To the Memory of Mr. Richard Savage, he is described as 'Left to remorse by rage, to scorn by pride, To friendship wronged a martyr when he died.' A footnote refers to 'p. 178 of his Life, where it alludes to Mr. Pope's using the term scoundrel, which Savage could not long survive.' In the title to these lines he is 'Mr. Richard Savage.' In his lifetime all his poems in The Gent. Mag. are by 'Richard Savage, Esq.,' and so he is styled in all the verses addressed to him. wards he was seized with a pain in his back and side, which, as it was not violent, was not suspected to be dangerous; but growing daily more languid and dejected on the 25th of July he confined himself to his room, and a fever seized his spirits. The symptoms grew every day more formidable, but his condition did not enable him to procure any assistance. The last time that the keeper saw him was on July the 31st, 1743, when Savage, seeing him at his bed-side, said, with an uncommon earnestness, 'I have something to say to you, Sir'; but, after a pause, moved his hand in a melancholy manner, and, finding himself unable to recollect what he was going to communicate, said, ''Tis gone!' The keeper soon after left him ; and the next morning he died. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter, at the expence of the keeper. Such were the life and death of Richard Savage, a man 329 equally distinguished by his virtues and vices; and at once remarkable for his weaknesses and abilities. He was of a middle stature, of a thin habit of body, a long 330 visage, coarse features, and melancholy aspect2; of a grave and manly deportment, a solemn dignity of mien, but which, upon a nearer acquaintance, softened into an engaging easiness of manners. His walk was slow, and his voice tremulous and mournful. He was easily excited to smiles, but very seldom provoked to laughter. His mind was in an uncommon degree vigorous and active 3. 331 His judgement was accurate, his apprehension quick, and his memory so tenacious that he was frequently observed to know what he had learned from others in a short time, better than those by whom he was informed; and could frequently recollect incidents with all their combination of circumstances, which few would have regarded at the present time, but which the quickness of his apprehension impressed upon him. He had In the Burial Register of St. Peter's is the following entry:-'An. Dom. 1743, Aug. 2nd. Richard Savage the Poet.' N. & Q. 2 S. iv. 286. According to Gent. Mag. 1743, p. 443, he died on Aug. 5. On p. 490 is an epitaph on him in verse. 2 Earl Rivers was 'a tall handsome man, and of a very fair complexion.' Swift's Works, xii. 227. The Coun tess of Macclesfield was described 3 In this paragraph and the two |