happy boldness annihilates, by a stroke of humor or a phrase of geniality, the barriers of artificial reserve. He is the modern knight-errant; prompt to challenge recognition, and, with gallant bearing, win the guerdon to which he aspires, whether it be the smile of beauty, the companionship of rank, or the privileges that wealth dispenses.

Experience in shifts, and a sanguine temper united to capacity for reflection, render him withal a philosopher; so that, although keenly alive to present enjoyment, he can suffer with fortitude, and heroically sport with deprivation. He is vividly conscious of what Madame de Staël declares is one great secret of delight -its fragility. His existence is singularly detached from routine, and, like a bird or a butterfly, he soars or alights, as caprice suggests a chartered adventurer, to whom has been presented the freedom of nature. Leisure gives scope to his observation; need quickens his perception; and the very uncertainty of subsistence adds infinitely to the relish of each gratification. A voluntary outlaw, he claims ransom from those his talents have made captive; regarding himself as a public benefactor, he deems society under obligations to take care of him; prodigal in his mental riches, he despises those who are parsimonious either of their time or their hospitality; and sincere in his admiration, and perhaps in his advocacy, of all that is magnanimous and beautiful, he learns to regard material advantage as his just inheritance, which directly to seek would obscure the heraldry bestowed by his genius, and sanctioned by misfortune.

To him might be literally applied Valentine's argument in Fletcher's comedy of "Wit without Money:"

"Means

Why, all good men 's my means; my wit's my plough,
The town's my stock, tavern 's my standing-house

(And all the world knows there's no want); all gentlemen

That love society love me; all purses

That wit and pleasure open are my tenants;

Every man's clothes fit me; the next fair lodging

Is but my next remove; and, when I please

To be more eminent, and take the air,

A piece is levied, and a coach prepared,

And I go I care not whither."

"What's my knowledge, uncle?
Is 't not worth money? What's my understanding?
Travel! reading! wit! all these digested! My daily
Making men, some to speak, that too much phlegm
Had frozen up; some, that spoke too much, to hold
Their peace, and put their tongues to pensions.
Besides these ways to teach

The way of nature, a manly love, community
To all that are deservers, not examining

How much or what 's done for them; it is wicked."

It is peculiar to this class of men to be unconscious of the diverse attractions of talents and character. Their egotism prevents an habitual recognition of the important fact that the entertainment afforded by conversational abilities and personal sympathy are two very distinct things. Because their talk is listened to with avidity, their wit productive of laughter, and their reputation of deference, they deduce the erroneous conclusion that individually and for themselves an interest is awakened; whereas, in most cases, the charm is purely objective. By men of the world genius of a literary kind is regarded in the same light as dramatic, artistic and juggling cleverness; the result is not associated with the person; it is the pastime, not the man, that wins. A conviction so wounding to self-love is not easily adopted; and, as a natural consequence, the deluded victims of social applause continue, in spite of mortifying experience, to look for a degree of consideration, and demand a sympathy, which it is absurd to expect from any but the very liberal and the naturally kind, who confessedly form the exception, not the rule, in general society. Yet, in actors, authors, and artists, who possess great self-esteem, this error is the rock upon which the bark of hope invariably splits. There seems to be a kind of inevitable blindness in this regard. Slowly and by long degrees comes home the feeling that it is what the man of genius does, not what he is, that excites admiration. When the pageant of an hour fades, what care the narrow-minded and the selfish for those who have ministered to their pleasure? Only enthusiasm lingers and pays tribute; only gratitude is sensible of an obligation incurred; reverence alone dreams of any return, and conscientiousness is the sole monitor that pays the debt.

The incidents of his life rather than the creations of his genius

have preserved the fame of Savage. His poems are his only writings now recognized, and we find them regularly included in editions of the British anthology. It is, however, but here and there, scattered through a long array of heroics, that we can detect either originality or raciness. Like his life, these effusions are crude and unsustained; they lack finish, completeness, and unity. Deformed by coarseness, and sometimes by obscurity, they often repel taste; and their frequent want of clear and uniform design induces weariness. Their most genuine interest is personal; we naturally associate them with the misfortunes of the author, and the special references are not without a pathetic zest. The "Progress of a Divine" and "The Bastard," although redeemed by wit and cleverness, are too grossly indelicate for general perusal. The bitterness of the one, and the confident hilarity with which the other begins, are very characteristic of Savage. It is evident that he possessed, in an uncommon degree, what the phrenologists call the organ of wonder, and metaphysical writers a sense of the sublime. In his descriptions of nature and life, we perceive the inspiration of a reflective ideality. His couplets occasionally glow with vital animation, and his choice of epithets is often felicitous. Vigor, fluency, and expressiveness, at times, indicate that there was an original vein in his nature, though too carelessly worked to produce a great and consistent result. "The Wanderer" is the poem upon which he evidently bestowed the greatest care. It may be regarded as his own epitaph, written by himself, and embodying the dark phases of his career, the most vivid of his sensations, and the beauty of his moral sentiments, combined with the want of system, the selfesteem, recklessness, and courage, which alternated in his feelings and conduct.

The following passages evidently allude to actual experience:

"Is chance a guilt? that my disastrous heart,
For mischief never meant, should ever smart?
Can self-defence be sin? Ah, plead no more!
What though no purposed malice stain thee o'er?
Had Heaven befriended thy unhappy side,

Thou hadst not been provoked, or thou hadst died."

No father's guardian hand my youth maintained,
Called forth my virtues, or from vice restrained."

He learned the procéss of glass manufacturing, by sleeping during winter nights, when a vagrant, near the furnaces:

"Yon limeless sands, loose driving with the wind,

In future cauldrons useful textures find,

Till, on the furnace thrown, the glowing mass

Brightens, and brightening hardens into glass."

The homeliness of such lines is like Crabbe, yet his capacity for more polished versification is shown in his allusion to Pope, as polished and emphatic as that of the master rhymer himself:

"Though gay as mirth, as curious though sedate,

As elegance polite, as power elate,
Profound as reason, and as justice clear,
Soft as compassion, and as truth severe;
As bounty copious, as persuasion sweet,
Like nature various, and like art complete,
So firm her morals, so sublime her views,
His life is almost equalled by his muse."

In metaphor, also, Savage is effective. Thus he compares the "steamy currents" at morning twilight to "veins blue winding on a fair one's arm;" and, of a river hidden in umbrage, observes:

"Yet, at one point, winds out in silver state,

Like virtue from a labyrinth of fate."

He calls shells "tinctured rivals of the showery bow;" and, describing a vast prospect, says:

"The herds seem insects in the distant glades,

And men diminished as, at noon, their shades."

His adjectives are sometimes very graphic, however inelegant; he speaks of warming himself at "chippy fires," and, detailing a repast, informs us,

"That o'er a homely board a napkin 's spread,

Crowned with a heapy canister of bread."

The gleams of high sentiment that, like flashes of heat-lightning from a dense cloud, emanate from Savage, are refreshing, and justify his biographer's tribute to his better nature. Selfindulgent as he was, he declares that

"Reason's glory is to quell desire."

Although he obviously is in his element when

"In gay converse glides the festive hour,"

he yet recognizes a providence in affliction :

"Why should I then of private loss complain,
Of loss that proves, perchance, a brother's gain?
The wind that binds one bark within the bay,
May waft a richer freight its wished-for way.
Man's bliss is like his knowledge, but surmised,
One ignorance, the other pain disguised.
When seeking joy, we seldom sorrow miss,
And often misery points the path to bliss.
Know, then, if ills oblige thee to retire,
Those ills solemnity of thought inspire."

The following random extracts betray a vivid consciousness of his own fate and tendencies:

"Loosed to the world's wide range, enjoined no aim,
Prescribed no duty, and assigned no name,
Nature's unbounded son, he stands alone,
His heart unbiased, and his mind his own."

"From ties maternal, moral, and divine,

Discharged my gasping soul; pushed me from shore,
And launched me into life without an oar."

"Born to himself, by no profession led,

In freedom fostered, and by fortune fed,

Nor guides, nor rules, his sovereign choice control,

His body independent as his soul.”

"Inly secure, though conscious soon of ill,

Nor taught by wisdom how to balance will,
Rashly deceived, I saw no pits to shun,

But thought to purpose and to act were one."

That we have not exaggerated the prominent claim of Savage to represent the literary adventurer, a glance at the account of