“By woe, the soul to daring action swells;
By woe, in plaintless patience it excels:
From patience prudent, clear experience springs,
And traces knowledge through the course of things.
Thence hope is formed, thence fortitude, success,
Renown—whate’er men covet and caress.”
This performance was always considered by himself as his masterpiece; and
Mr. Pope, when he asked his opinion of it, told him that he read it once
over, and was not displeased with it; that it gave him more pleasure at
the second perusal, and delighted him still more at the third.
It has been generally objected to “The Wanderer,” that the disposition of
the parts is irregular; that the design is obscure, and the plan
perplexed; that the images, however beautiful, succeed each other without
order; and that the whole performance is not so much a regular fabric, as
a heap of shining materials thrown together by accident, which strikes
rather with the solemn magnificence of a stupendous ruin than the elegant
grandeur of a finished pile. This criticism is universal, and therefore
it is reasonable to believe it at least in a degree just; but Mr. Savage
was always of a contrary opinion, and thought his drift could only be
missed by negligence or stupidity, and that the whole plan was regular,
and the parts distinct. It was never denied to abound with strong
representations of nature, and just observations upon life; and it may
easily be observed that most of his pictures have an evident tendency to
illustrate his first great position, “that good is the consequence of
evil.” The sun that burns up the mountains fructifies the vales; the
deluge that rushes down the broken rocks with dreadful impetuosity is
separated into purling brooks; and the rage of the hurricane purifies the
air.
Even in this poem he has not been able to forbear one touch upon the
cruelty of his mother, which, though remarkably delicate and tender, is a
proof how deep an impression it had upon his mind. This must be at least
acknowledged, which ought to be thought equivalent to many other
excellences, that this poem can promote no other purposes than those of
virtue, and that it is written with a very strong sense of the efficacy
of religion. But my province is rather to give the history of Mr.
Savage’s performances than to display their beauties, or to obviate the
criticisms which they have occasioned, and therefore I shall not dwell
upon the particular passages which deserve applause. I shall neither show
the excellence of his descriptions, nor expatiate on the terrific
portrait of suicide, nor point out the artful touches by which he has
distinguished the intellectual features of the rebels, who suffer death
in his last canto. It is, however, proper to observe, that Mr. Savage
always declared the characters wholly fictitious, and without the least
allusion to any real persons or actions.
From a poem so diligently laboured, and so successfully finished, it
might be reasonably expected that he should have gained considerable
advantage; nor can it, without some degree of indignation and concern, be
told, that he sold the copy for ten guineas, of which he afterwards
returned two, that the two last sheets of the work might be reprinted, of
which he had in his absence entrusted the correction to a friend, who was
too indolent to perform it with accuracy.
A superstitious regard to the correction of his sheets was one of Mr.
Savage’s peculiarities: he often altered, revised, recurred to his first
reading or punctuation, and again adopted the alteration; he was dubious
and irresolute without end, as on a question of the last importance, and
at last was seldom satisfied. The intrusion or omission of a comma was
sufficient to discompose him, and he would lament an error of a single
letter as a heavy calamity. In one of his letters relating to an
impression of some verses he remarks that he had, with regard to the
correction of the proof, “a spell upon him;” and indeed the anxiety with
which he dwelt upon the minutest and most trifling niceties, deserved no
other name than that of fascination. That he sold so valuable a
performance for so small a price was not to be imputed either to
necessity, by which the learned and ingenious are often obliged to submit
to very hard conditions, or to avarice, by which the booksellers are
frequently incited to oppress that genius by which they are supported,
but to that intemperate desire of pleasure, and habitual slavery to his
passions, which involved him in many perplexities. He happened at that
time to be engaged in the pursuit of some trifling gratification, and,
being without money for the present occasion, sold his poem to the first
bidder, and perhaps for the first price that was proposed, and would
probably have been content with less if less had been offered him.
This poem was addressed to the Lord Tyrconnel, not only in the first
lines, but in a formal dedication filled with the highest strains of
panegyric, and the warmest professions of gratitude, but by no means
remarkable for delicacy of connection or elegance of style. These praises
in a short time he found himself inclined to retract, being discarded by
the man on whom he had bestowed them, and whom he then immediately
discovered not to have deserved them. Of this quarrel, which every day
made more bitter, Lord Tyrconnel and Mr. Savage assigned very different
reasons, which might perhaps all in reality concur, though they were not
all convenient to be alleged by either party. Lord Tyrconnel affirmed
that it was the constant practice of Mr. Savage to enter a tavern with
any company that proposed it, drink the most expensive wines with great
profusion, and when the reckoning was demanded to be without money. If,
as it often happened, his company were willing to defray his part, the
affair ended without any ill consequences; but if they were refractory,
and expected that the wine should be paid for by him that drank it, his
method of composition was, to take them with him to his own apartment,
assume the government of the house, and order the butler in an imperious
manner to set the best wine in the cellar before his company, who often
drank till they forgot the respect due to the house in which they were
entertained, indulged themselves in the utmost extravagance of merriment,
practised the most licentious frolics, and committed all the outrages of
drunkenness. Nor was this the only charge which Lord Tyrconnel brought
against him. Having given him a collection of valuable books, stamped
with his own arms, he had the mortification to see them in a short time
exposed to sale upon the stalls, it being usual with Mr. Savage, when he
wanted a small sum, to take his books to the pawnbroker.
Whoever was acquainted with Mr. Savage easily credited both these
accusations; for having been obliged, from his first entrance into the
world, to subsist upon expedients, affluence was not able to exalt him
above them; and so much was he delighted with wine and conversation, and
so long had he been accustomed to live by chance, that he would at any
time go to the tavern without scruple, and trust for the reckoning to the
liberality of his company, and frequently of company to whom he was very
little known. This conduct, indeed, very seldom drew upon him those
inconveniences that might be feared by any other person, for his
conversation was so entertaining, and his address so pleasing, that few
thought the pleasure which they received from him dearly purchased by
paying for his wine. It was his peculiar happiness that he scarcely ever
found a stranger whom he did not leave a friend; but it must likewise be
added, that he had not often a friend long without obliging him to become
a stranger.
Mr. Savage, on the other hand, declared that Lord Tyrconnel quarrelled
with him because he would not subtract from his own luxury and
extravagance what he had promised to allow him, and that his resentment
was only a plea for the violation of his promise. He asserted that he had
done nothing that ought to exclude him from that subsistence which he
thought not so much a favour as a debt, since it was offered him upon
conditions which he had never broken: and that his only fault was, that
he could not be supported with nothing. He acknowledged that Lord
Tyrconnel often exhorted him to regulate his method of life, and not to
spend all his nights in taverns, and that he appeared desirous that he
would pass those hours with him which he so freely bestowed upon others.
This demand Mr. Savage considered as a censure of his conduct which he
could never patiently bear, and which, in the latter and cooler parts of
his life, was so offensive to him, that he declared it as his resolution
“to spurn that friend who should pretend to dictate to him;” and it is
not likely that in his earlier years he received admonitions with more
calmness. He was likewise inclined to resent such expectations, as
tending to infringe his liberty, of which he was very jealous, when it
was necessary to the gratification of his passions; and declared that the
request was still more unreasonable as the company to which he was to
have been confined was insupportably disagreeable. This assertion affords
another instance of that inconsistency of his writings with his
conversation which was so often to be observed. He forgot how lavishly he
had, in his dedication to “The Wanderer,” extolled the delicacy and
penetration, the humanity and generosity, the candour and politeness of
the man whom, when he no longer loved him, he declared to be a wretch
without understanding, without good nature, and without justice; of whose
name he thought himself obliged to leave no trace in any future edition
of his writings, and accordingly blotted it out of that copy of “The
Wanderer” which was in his hands.
During his continuance with the Lord Tyrconnel, he wrote “The Triumph of
Health and Mirth,” on the recovery of Lady Tyrconnel from a languishing
illness. This performance is remarkable, not only for the gaiety of the
ideas and the melody of the numbers, but for the agreeable fiction upon
which it is formed. Mirth, overwhelmed with sorrow for the sickness of
her favourite, takes a flight in quest of her sister Health, whom she
finds reclined upon the brow of a lofty mountain, amidst the fragrance of
perpetual spring, with the breezes of the morning sporting about her.
Being solicited by her sister Mirth, she readily promises her assistance,
flies away in a cloud, and impregnates the waters of Bath with new
virtues, by which the sickness of Belinda is relieved. As the reputation
of his abilities, the particular circumstances of his birth and life, the
splendour of his appearance, and the distinction which was for some time
paid him by Lord Tyrconnel, entitled him to familiarity with persons of
higher rank than those to whose conversation he had been before admitted,
he did not fail to gratify that curiosity which induced him to take a
nearer view of those whom their birth, their employments, or their
fortunes necessarily placed at a distance from the greatest part of
mankind, and to examine whether their merit was magnified or diminished
by the medium through which it was contemplated; whether the splendour
with which they dazzled their admirers was inherent in themselves, or
only reflected on them by the objects that surrounded them; and whether
great men were selected for high stations, or high stations made great
men.
For this purpose he took all opportunities of conversing familiarly with
those who were most conspicuous at that time for their power or their
influence; he watched their looser moments, and examined their domestic
behaviour, with that acuteness which nature had given him, and which the
uncommon variety of his life had contributed to increase, and that
inquisitiveness which must always be produced in a vigorous mind by an
absolute freedom from all pressing or domestic engagements. His
discernment was quick, and therefore he soon found in every person, and
in every affair, something that deserved attention; he was supported by
others, without any care for himself, and was therefore at leisure to
pursue his observations. More circumstances to constitute a critic on
human life could not easily concur; nor, indeed, could any man, who
assumed from accidental advantages more praise than he could justly claim
from his real merit, admit any acquaintance more dangerous than that of
Savage; of whom likewise it must be confessed, that abilities really
exalted above the common level, or virtue refined from passion, or proof
against corruption, could not easily find an abler judge or a warmer
advocate.
What was the result of Mr. Savage’s inquiry, though he was not much
accustomed to conceal his discoveries, it may not be entirely safe to
relate, because the persons whose characters he criticised are powerful,
and power and resentment are seldom strangers; nor would it perhaps be
wholly just, because what he asserted in conversation might, though true
in general, be heightened by some momentary ardour of imagination, and as
it can be delivered only from memory, may be imperfectly represented, so
that the picture, at first aggravated, and then unskilfully copied, may
be justly suspected to retain no great resemblance of the original.
It may, however, be observed, that he did not appear to have formed very
elevated ideas of those to whom the administration of affairs, or the
conduct of parties, has been intrusted; who have been considered as the
advocates of the Crown, or the guardians of the people; and who have
obtained the most implicit confidence, and the loudest applauses. Of one
particular person, who has been at one time so popular as to be generally
esteemed, and at another so formidable as to be universally detested, he
observed that his acquisitions had been small, or that his capacity was
narrow, and that the whole range of his mind was from obscenity to
politics, and from politics to obscenity.
But the opportunity of indulging his speculations on great characters was
now at an end. He was banished from the table of Lord Tyrconnel, and
turned again adrift upon the world, without prospect of finding quickly
any other harbour. As prudence was not one of the virtues by which he was
distinguished, he made no provision against a misfortune like this. And
though it is not to be imagined but that the separation must for some
time have been preceded by coldness, peevishness, or neglect, though it
was undoubtedly the consequence of accumulated provocations on both
sides, yet every one that knew Savage will readily believe that to him it
was sudden as a stroke of thunder; that, though he might have transiently
suspected it, he had never suffered any thought so unpleasing to sink
into his mind, but that he had driven it away by amusements or dreams of
future felicity and affluence, and had never taken any measures by which
he might prevent a precipitation from plenty to indigence. This quarrel
and separation, and the difficulties to which Mr. Savage was exposed by
them, were soon known both to his friends and enemies; nor was it long
before he perceived, from the behaviour of both, how much is added to the
lustre of genius by the ornaments of wealth. His condition did not appear
to excite much compassion, for he had not been always careful to use the
advantages he enjoyed with that moderation which ought to have been with
more than usual caution preserved by him, who knew, if he had reflected,
that he was only a dependent on the bounty of another, whom he could
expect to support him no longer than he endeavoured to preserve his
favour by complying with his inclinations, and whom he nevertheless set
at defiance, and was continually irritating by negligence or
encroachments.
Examples need not be sought at any great distance to prove that
superiority of fortune has a natural tendency to kindle pride, and that
pride seldom fails to exert itself in contempt and insult; and if this is
often the effect of hereditary wealth, and of honours enjoyed only by the
merits of others, it is some extenuation of any indecent triumphs to
which this unhappy man may have been betrayed, that his prosperity was
heightened by the force of novelty, and made more intoxicating by a sense
of the misery in which he had so long languished, and perhaps of the
insults which he had formerly borne, and which he might now think himself
entitled to revenge. It is too common for those who have unjustly
suffered pain to inflict it likewise in their turn with the same
injustice, and to imagine that they have a right to treat others as they
have themselves been treated.
That Mr. Savage was too much elevated by any good fortune is generally
known; and some passages of his Introduction to “The Author to be Let”
sufficiently show that he did not wholly refrain from such satire, as he
afterwards thought very unjust when he was exposed to it himself; for,
when he was afterwards ridiculed in the character of a distressed poet,
he very easily discovered that distress was not a proper subject for
merriment or topic of invective. He was then able to discern, that if
misery be the effect of virtue, it ought to be reverenced; if of ill
fortune, to be pitied; and if of vice, not to be insulted, because it is
perhaps itself a punishment adequate to the crime by which it was
produced. And the humanity of that man can deserve no panegyric who is
capable of reproaching a criminal in the hands of the executioner. But
these reflections, though they readily occurred to him in the first and
last parts of his life, were, I am afraid, for a long time forgotten; at
least they were, like many other maxims, treasured up in his mind rather
for show than use, and operated very little upon his conduct, however
elegantly he might sometimes explain, or however forcibly he might
inculcate them. His degradation, therefore, from the condition which he
had enjoyed with such wanton thoughtlessness, was considered by many as
an occasion of triumph. Those who had before paid their court to him
without success soon returned the contempt which they had suffered; and
they who had received favours from him, for of such favours as he could
bestow he was very liberal, did not always remember them. So much more
certain are the effects of resentment than of gratitude. It is not only
to many more pleasing to recollect those faults which place others below
them, than those virtues by which they are themselves comparatively
depressed: but it is likewise more easy to neglect than to recompense.
And though there are few who will practise a laborious virtue, there will
never be wanting multitudes that will indulge in easy vice.
Savage, however, was very little disturbed at the marks of contempt which
his ill fortune brought upon him from those whom he never esteemed, and
with whom he never considered himself as levelled by any calamities: and
though it was not without some uneasiness that he saw some whose
friendship he valued change their behaviour, he yet observed their
coldness without much emotion, considered them as the slaves of fortune,
and the worshippers of prosperity, and was more inclined to despise them
than to lament himself.
It does not appear that after this return of his wants he found mankind
equally favourable to him, as at his first appearance in the world. His
story, though in reality not less melancholy, was less affecting, because
it was no longer new. It therefore procured him no new friends, and those
that had formerly relieved him thought they might now consign him to
others. He was now likewise considered by many rather as criminal than as
unhappy, for the friends of Lord Tyrconnel, and of his mother, were
sufficiently industrious to publish his weaknesses, which were indeed
very numerous, and nothing was forgotten that might make him either
hateful or ridiculous. It cannot but be imagined that such
representations of his faults must make great numbers less sensible of
his distress; many who had only an opportunity to hear one part made no
scruple to propagate the account which they received; many assisted their
circulation from malice or revenge; and perhaps many pretended to credit
them, that they might with a better grace withdraw their regard, or
withhold their assistance.
Savage, however, was not one of those who suffered himself to be injured
without resistance, nor was he less diligent in exposing the faults of
Lord Tyrconnel, over whom he obtained at least this advantage, that he
drove him first to the practice of outrage and violence; for he was so
much provoked by the wit and virulence of Savage, that he came with a
number of attendants, that did no honour to his courage, to beat him at a
coffee-house. But it happened that he had left the place a few minutes,
and his lordship had, without danger, the pleasure of boasting how he
would have treated him. Mr. Savage went next day to repay his visit at
his own house, but was prevailed on by his domestics to retire without
insisting on seeing him.
Lord Tyrconnel was accused by Mr. Savage of some actions which scarcely
any provocation will be thought sufficient to justify, such as seizing
what he had in his lodgings, and other instances of wanton cruelty, by
which he increased the distress of Savage without any advantage to
himself.
These mutual accusations were retorted on both sides, for many years,
with the utmost degree of virulence and rage; and time seemed rather to
augment than diminish their resentment. That the anger of Mr. Savage
should be kept alive is not strange, because he felt every day the
consequences of the quarrel; but it might reasonably have been hoped that
Lord Tyrconnel might have relented, and at length have forgot those
provocations, which, however they might have once inflamed him, had not
in reality much hurt him. The spirit of Mr. Savage, indeed, never
suffered him to solicit a reconciliation; he returned reproach for
reproach, and insult for insult; his superiority of wit supplied the
disadvantages of his fortune, and enabled him to form a party, and
prejudice great numbers in his favour. But though this might be some
gratification of his vanity, it afforded very little relief to his
necessities, and he was frequently reduced to uncommon hardships, of
which, however, he never made any mean or importunate complaints, being
formed rather to bear misery with fortitude than enjoy prosperity with
moderation.
He now thought himself again at liberty to expose the cruelty of his
mother; and therefore, I believe, about this time, published “The
Bastard,” a poem remarkable for the vivacious sallies of thought in the
beginning, where he makes a pompous enumeration of the imaginary
advantages of base birth, and the pathetic sentiments at the end, where
he recounts the real calamities which he suffered by the crime of his
parents. The vigour and spirit of the verses, the peculiar circumstances
of the author, the novelty of the subject, and the notoriety of the story
to which the allusions are made, procured this performance a very
favourable reception; great numbers were immediately dispersed, and
editions were multiplied with unusual rapidity.
One circumstance attended the publication which Savage used to relate
with great satisfaction. His mother, to whom the poem was with “due
reverence” inscribed, happened then to be at Bath, where she could not
conveniently retire from censure, or conceal herself from observation;
and no sooner did the reputation of the poem begin to spread, than she
heard it repeated in all places of concourse; nor could she enter the
assembly-rooms or cross the walks without being saluted with some lines
from “The Bastard.”
This was perhaps the first time that she ever discovered a sense of
shame, and on this occasion the power of wit was very conspicuous; the
wretch who had, without scruple, proclaimed herself an adulteress, and
who had first endeavoured to starve her son, then to transport him, and
afterwards to hang him, was not able to bear the representation of her
own conduct, but fled from reproach, though she felt no pain from guilt,
and left Bath in the utmost haste to shelter herself among the crowds of
London. Thus Savage had the satisfaction of finding that, though he could
not reform his mother, he could punish her, and that he did not always
suffer alone.
The pleasure which he received from this increase of his poetical
reputation was sufficient for some time to overbalance the miseries of
want, which this performance did not much alleviate; for it was sold for
a very trivial sum to a bookseller, who, though the success was so
uncommon that five impressions were sold, of which many were undoubtedly
very numerous, had not generosity sufficient to admit the unhappy writer
to any part of the profit. The sale of this poem was always mentioned by
Mr. Savage with the utmost elevation of heart, and referred to by him as
an incontestable proof of a general acknowledgment of his abilities. It
was, indeed, the only production of which he could justly boast a general
reception. But, though he did not lose the opportunity which success gave
him of setting a high rate on his abilities, but paid due deference to
the suffrages of mankind when they were given in his favour, he did not
suffer his esteem of himself to depend upon others, nor found anything
sacred in the voice of the people when they were inclined to censure him;
he then readily showed the folly of expecting that the public should
judge right, observed how slowly poetical merit had often forced its way
into the world; he contented himself with the applause of men of
judgment, and was somewhat disposed to exclude all those from the
character of men of judgment who did not applaud him. But he was at other
times more favourable to mankind than to think them blind to the beauties
of his works, and imputed the slowness of their sale to other causes;
either they were published at a time when the town was empty, or when the
attention of the public was engrossed by some struggle in the Parliament
or some other object of general concern; or they were, by the neglect of
the publisher, not diligently dispersed, or, by his avarice, not
advertised with sufficient frequency. Address, or industry, or liberality
was always wanting, and the blame was laid rather on any person than the
author.
By arts like these, arts which every man practises in some degree, and to
which too much of the little tranquillity of life is to be ascribed,
Savage was always able to live at peace with himself. Had he, indeed,
only made use of these expedients to alleviate the loss or want of
fortune or reputation, or any other advantages which it is not in a man’s
power to bestow upon himself, they might have been justly mentioned as
instances of a philosophical mind, and very properly proposed to the
imitation of multitudes who, for want of diverting their imaginations
with the same dexterity, languish under afflictions which might be easily
removed.
It were doubtless to be wished that truth and reason were universally
prevalent; that everything were esteemed according to its real value; and
that men would secure themselves from being disappointed, in their
endeavours after happiness, by placing it only in virtue, which is always
to be obtained; but, if adventitious and foreign pleasures must be
pursued, it would be perhaps of some benefit, since that pursuit must
frequently be fruitless, if the practice of Savage could be taught, that
folly might be an antidote to folly, and one fallacy be obviated by
another. But the danger of this pleasing intoxication must not be
concealed; nor, indeed, can any one, after having observed the life of
Savage, need to be cautioned against it. By imputing none of his miseries
to himself, he continued to act upon the same principles, and to follow
the same path; was never made wiser by his sufferings, nor preserved by
one misfortune from falling into another. He proceeded throughout his
life to tread the same steps on the same circle; always applauding his
past conduct, or at least forgetting it, to amuse himself with phantoms
of happiness, which were dancing before him; and willingly turned his
eyes from the light of reason, when it would have discovered the
illusion, and shown him, what he never wished to see, his real state. He
is even accused, after having lulled his imagination with those ideal
opiates, of having tried the same experiment upon his conscience; and,
having accustomed himself to impute all deviations from the right to
foreign causes, it is certain that he was upon every occasion too easily
reconciled to himself, and that he appeared very little to regret those
practices which had impaired his reputation. The reigning error of his
life was that he mistook the love for the practice of virtue, and was
indeed not so much a good man as the friend of goodness.
This, at least, must be allowed him, that he always preserved a strong
sense of the dignity, the beauty, and the necessity of virtue; and that
he never contributed deliberately to spread corruption amongst mankind.
His actions, which were generally precipitate, were often blameable; but
his writings, being the production of study, uniformly tended to the
exaltation of the mind and the propagation of morality and piety. These
writings may improve mankind when his failings shall be forgotten; and
therefore he must be considered, upon the whole, as a benefactor to the
world. Nor can his personal example do any hurt, since whoever hears of
his faults will hear of the miseries which they brought upon him, and
which would deserve less pity had not his condition been such as made his
faults pardonable. He may be considered as a child exposed to all the
temptations of indigence, at an age when resolution was not yet
strengthened by conviction, nor virtue confirmed by habit; a circumstance
which, in his “Bastard,” he laments in a very affecting manner:—
“No mother’s care
Shielded my infant innocence with prayer;
No father’s guardian hand my youth maintained,
Called forth my virtues, or from vice restrained.”
“The Bastard,” however it might provoke or mortify his mother, could not
be expected to melt her to compassion, so that he was still under the
same want of the necessaries of life; and he therefore exerted all the
interest which his wit, or his birth, or his misfortunes could procure to
obtain, upon the death of Eusden, the place of Poet Laureate, and
prosecuted his application with so much diligence that the king publicly
declared it his intention to bestow it upon him; but such was the fate of
Savage that even the king, when he intended his advantage, was
disappointed in his schemes; for the Lord Chamberlain, who has the
disposal of the laurel as one of the appendages of his office, either did
not know the king’s design, or did not approve it, or thought the
nomination of the Laureate an encroachment upon his rights, and therefore
bestowed the laurel upon Colley Cibber.
Mr. Savage, thus disappointed, took a resolution of applying to the
queen, that, having once given him life, she would enable him to support
it, and therefore published a short poem on her birthday, to which he
gave the odd title of “Volunteer Laureate.” The event of this essay he
has himself related in the following letter, which he prefixed to the
poem when he afterwards reprinted it in _The Gentleman’s Magazine_,
whence I have copied it entire, as this was one of the few attempts in
which Mr. Savage succeeded.
“MR. URBAN,—In your Magazine for February you published the last
‘Volunteer Laureate,’ written on a very melancholy occasion, the
death of the royal patroness of arts and literature in general, and
of the author of that poem in particular; I now send you the first
that Mr. Savage wrote under that title. This gentleman,
notwithstanding a very considerable interest, being, on the death of
Mr. Eusden, disappointed of the Laureate’s place, wrote the following
verses; which were no sooner published, but the late queen sent to a
bookseller for them. The author had not at that time a friend either
to get him introduced, or his poem presented at Court; yet, such was
the unspeakable goodness of that princess, that, notwithstanding this
act of ceremony was wanting, in a few days after publication Mr.
Savage received a bank-bill of fifty pounds, and a gracious message
from her Majesty, by the Lord North and Guilford, to this effect:
‘That her Majesty was highly pleased with the verses; that she took
particularly kind his lines there relating to the king; that he had
permission to write annually on the same subject; and that he should
yearly receive the like present, till something better (which was her
Majesty’s intention) could be done for him.’ After this he was
permitted to present one of his annual poems to her Majesty, had the
honour of kissing her hand, and met with the most gracious reception.
“Yours, etc.”
Such was the performance, and such its reception; a reception which,
though by no means unkind, was yet not in the highest degree generous. To
chain down the genius of a writer to an annual panegyric showed in the
queen too much desire of hearing her own praises, and a greater regard to
herself than to him on whom her bounty was conferred. It was a kind of
avaricious generosity, by which flattery was rather purchased than genius
rewarded.
Mrs. Oldfield had formerly given him the same allowance with much more
heroic intention: she had no other view than to enable him to prosecute
his studies, and to set himself above the want of assistance, and was
contented with doing good without stipulating for encomiums.
Mr. Savage, however, was not at liberty to make exceptions, but was
ravished with the favours which he had received, and probably yet more
with those which he was promised: he considered himself now as a
favourite of the queen, and did not doubt but a few annual poems would
establish him in some profitable employment. He therefore assumed the
title of “Volunteer Laureate,” not without some reprehensions from
Cibber, who informed him that the title of “Laureate” was a mark of
honour conferred by the king, from whom all honour is derived, and which,
therefore, no man has a right to bestow upon himself; and added that he
might with equal propriety style himself a Volunteer Lord or Volunteer
Baronet. It cannot be denied that the remark was just; but Savage did not
think any title which was conferred upon Mr. Cibber so honourable as that
the usurpation of it could be imputed to him as an instance of very
exorbitant vanity, and therefore continued to write under the same title,
and received every year the same reward. He did not appear to consider
these encomiums as tests of his abilities, or as anything more than
annual hints to the queen of her promise, or acts of ceremony, by the
performance of which he was entitled to his pension, and therefore did
not labour them with great diligence, or print more than fifty each year,
except that for some of the last years he regularly inserted them in _The
Gentleman’s Magazine_, by which they were dispersed over the kingdom.
Of some of them he had himself so low an opinion that he intended to omit
them in the collection of poems for which he printed proposals, and
solicited subscriptions; nor can it seem strange that, being confined to
the same subject, he should be at some times indolent and at others
unsuccessful; that he should sometimes delay a disagreeable task till it
was too late to perform it well; or that he should sometimes repeat the
same sentiment on the same occasion, or at others be misled by an attempt
after novelty to forced conceptions and far-fetched images. He wrote
indeed with a double intention, which supplied him with some variety; for
his business was to praise the queen for the favours which he had
received, and to complain to her of the delay of those which she had
promised: in some of his pieces, therefore, gratitude is predominant, and
in some discontent; in some, he represents himself as happy in her
patronage; and, in others, as disconsolate to find himself neglected. Her
promise, like other promises made to this unfortunate man, was never
performed, though he took sufficient care that it should not be
forgotten. The publication of his “Volunteer Laureate” procured him no
other reward than a regular remittance of fifty pounds. He was not so
depressed by his disappointments as to neglect any opportunity that was
offered of advancing his interest. When the Princess Anne was married, he
wrote a poem upon her departure, only, as he declared, “because it was
expected from him,” and he was not willing to bar his own prospects by
any appearance of neglect. He never mentioned any advantage gained by
this poem, or any regard that was paid to it; and therefore it is likely
that it was considered at Court as an act of duty, to which he was
obliged by his dependence, and which it was therefore not necessary to
reward by any new favour: or perhaps the queen really intended his
advancement, and therefore thought it superfluous to lavish presents upon
a man whom she intended to establish for life.
About this time not only his hopes were in danger of being frustrated,
but his pension likewise of being obstructed, by an accidental calumny.
The writer of _The Daily Courant_, a paper then published under the
direction of the Ministry, charged him with a crime, which, though very
great in itself, would have been remarkably invidious in him, and might
very justly have incensed the queen against him. He was accused by name
of influencing elections against the Court by appearing at the head of a
Tory mob; nor did the accuser fail to aggravate his crime by representing
it as the effect of the most atrocious ingratitude, and a kind of
rebellion against the queen, who had first preserved him from an infamous
death, and afterwards distinguished him by her favour, and supported him
by her charity. The charge, as it was open and confident, was likewise by
good fortune very particular. The place of the transaction was mentioned,
and the whole series of the rioter’s conduct related. This exactness made
Mr. Savage’s vindication easy; for he never had in his life seen the
place which was declared to be the scene of his wickedness, nor ever had
been present in any town when its representatives were chosen. This
answer he therefore made haste to publish, with all the circumstances
necessary to make it credible; and very reasonably demanded that the
accusation should be retracted in the same paper, that he might no longer
suffer the imputation of sedition and ingratitude. This demand was
likewise pressed by him in a private letter to the author of the paper,
who, either trusting to the protection of those whose defence he had
undertaken, or having entertained some personal malice against Mr.
Savage, or fearing lest, by retracting so confident an assertion, he
should impair the credit of his paper, refused to give him that
satisfaction. Mr. Savage therefore thought it necessary, to his own
vindication, to prosecute him in the King’s Bench; but as he did not find
any ill effects from the accusation, having sufficiently cleared his
innocence, he thought any further procedure would have the appearance of
revenge; and therefore willingly dropped it. He saw soon afterwards a
process commenced in the same court against himself, on an information in
which he was accused of writing and publishing an obscene pamphlet.
It was always Mr. Savage’s desire to be distinguished; and, when any
controversy became popular, he never wanted some reason for engaging in
it with great ardour, and appearing at the head of the party which he had
chosen. As he was never celebrated for his prudence, he had no sooner
taken his side, and informed himself of the chief topics of the dispute,
than he took all opportunities of asserting and propagating his
principles, without much regard to his own interest, or any other visible
design than that of drawing upon himself the attention of mankind.
The dispute between the Bishop of London and the chancellor is well known
to have been for some time the chief topic of political conversation; and
therefore Mr. Savage, in pursuance of his character, endeavoured to
become conspicuous among the controvertists with which every coffee-house
was filled on that occasion. He was an indefatigable opposer of all the
claims of ecclesiastical power, though he did not know on what they were
founded; and was therefore no friend to the Bishop of London. But he had
another reason for appearing as a warm advocate for Dr. Rundle; for he
was the friend of Mr. Foster and Mr. Thomson, who were the friends of Mr.
Savage.
Thus remote was his interest in the question, which, however, as he
imagined, concerned him so nearly, that it was not sufficient to harangue
and dispute, but necessary likewise to write upon it. He therefore
engaged with great ardour in a new poem, called by him, “The Progress of
a Divine;” in which he conducts a profligate priest, by all the
gradations of wickedness, from a poor curacy in the country to the
highest preferments of the Church; and describes, with that humour which
was natural to him, and that knowledge which was extended to all the
diversities of human life, his behaviour in every station; and insinuates
that this priest, thus accomplished, found at last a patron in the Bishop
of London. When he was asked, by one of his friends, on what pretence he
could charge the bishop with such an action, he had no more to say than
that he had only inverted the accusation; and that he thought it
reasonable to believe that he who obstructed the rise of a good man
without reason would for bad reasons promote the exaltation of a villain.
The clergy were universally provoked by this satire; and Savage, who, as
was his constant practice, had set his name to his performance, was
censured in _The Weekly Miscellany_ with severity, which he did not seem
inclined to forget.
But return of invective was not thought a sufficient punishment. The
Court of King’s Bench was therefore moved against him; and he was obliged
to return an answer to a charge of obscenity. It was urged, in his
defence, that obscenity was criminal when it was intended to promote the
practice of vice; but that Mr. Savage had only introduced obscene ideas
with the view of exposing them to detestation, and of amending the age by
showing the deformity of wickedness. This plea was admitted; and Sir
Philip Yorke, who then presided in that court, dismissed the information,
with encomiums upon the purity and excellence of Mr. Savage’s writings.
The prosecution, however, answered in some measure the purpose of those
by whom it was set on foot; for Mr. Savage was so far intimidated by it
that, when the edition of his poem was sold, he did not venture to
reprint it; so that it was in a short time forgotten, or forgotten by all
but those whom it offended. It is said that some endeavours were used to
incense the queen against him: but he found advocates to obviate at least
part of their effect; for though he was never advanced, he still
continued to receive his pension.
This poem drew more infamy upon him than any incident of his life; and,
as his conduct cannot be vindicated, it is proper to secure his memory
from reproach by informing those whom he made his enemies that he never
intended to repeat the provocation; and that, though whenever he thought
he had any reason to complain of the clergy, he used to threaten them
with a new edition of “The Progress of a Divine,” it was his calm and
settled resolution to suppress it for ever.
He once intended to have made a better reparation for the folly or
injustice with which he might be charged, by writing another poem, called
“The Progress of a Free-thinker,” whom he intended to lead through all
the stages of vice and folly, to convert him from virtue to wickedness,
and from religion to infidelity, by all the modish sophistry used for
that purpose; and at last to dismiss him by his own hand into the other
world. That he did not execute this design is a real loss to mankind; for
he was too well acquainted with all the scenes of debauchery to have
failed in his representations of them, and too zealous for virtue not to
have represented them in such a manner as should expose them either to
ridicule or detestation. But this plan was, like others, formed and laid
aside, till the vigour of his imagination was spent, and the
effervescence of invention had subsided; but soon gave way to some other
design, which pleased by its novelty for awhile, and then was neglected
like the former.
He was still in his usual exigencies, having no certain support but the
pension allowed him by the queen, which, though it might have kept an
exact economist from want, was very far from being sufficient for Mr.
Savage, who had never been accustomed to dismiss any of his appetites
without the gratification which they solicited, and whom nothing but want
of money withheld from partaking of every pleasure that fell within his
view. His conduct with regard to his pension was very particular. No
sooner had he changed the bill than he vanished from the sight of all his
acquaintance, and lay for some time out of the reach of all the inquiries
that friendship or curiosity could make after him. At length he appeared
again, penniless as before, but never informed even those whom he seemed
to regard most where he had been; nor was his retreat ever discovered.
This was his constant practice during the whole time that he received the
pension from the queen: he regularly disappeared and returned. He,
indeed, affirmed that he retired to study, and that the money supported
him in solitude for many months; but his friends declared that the short
time in which it was spent sufficiently confuted his own account of his
conduct.
His politeness and his wit still raised him friends who were desirous of
setting him at length free from that indigence by which he had been
hitherto oppressed; and therefore solicited Sir Robert Walpole in his
favour with so much earnestness that they obtained a promise of the next
place that should become vacant, not exceeding two hundred pounds a year.
This promise was made with an uncommon declaration, “that it was not the
promise of a minister to a petitioner, but of a friend to his friend.”
Mr. Savage now concluded himself set at ease for ever, and, as he
observes in a poem written on that incident of his life, trusted, and was
trusted; but soon found that his confidence was ill-grounded, and this
friendly promise was not inviolable. He spent a long time in
solicitations, and at last despaired and desisted. He did not indeed deny
that he had given the minister some reason to believe that he should not
strengthen his own interest by advancing him, for he had taken care to
distinguish himself in coffee-houses, as an advocate for the ministry of
the last years of Queen Anne, and was always ready to justify the
conduct, and exalt the character, of Lord Bolingbroke, whom he mentions
with great regard in an Epistle upon Authors, which he wrote about that
time, but was too wise to publish, and of which only some fragments have
appeared, inserted by him in the Magazine after his retirement.
To despair was not, however, the character of Savage; when one patronage
failed, he had recourse to another. The Prince was now extremely popular,
and had very liberally rewarded the merit of some writers whom Mr. Savage
did not think superior to himself, and therefore he resolved to address a
poem to him. For this purpose he made choice of a subject which could
regard only persons of the highest rank and greatest affluence, and which
was therefore proper for a poem intended to procure the patronage of a
prince; and having retired for some time to Richmond, that he might
prosecute his design in full tranquillity, without the temptations of
pleasure, or the solicitations of creditors, by which his meditations
were in equal danger of being disconcerted, he produced a poem “On Public
Spirit, with regard to Public Works.”
The plan of this poem is very extensive, and comprises a multitude of
topics, each of which might furnish matter sufficient for a long
performance, and of which some have already employed more eminent
writers; but as he was perhaps not fully acquainted with the whole extent
of his own design, and was writing to obtain a supply of wants too
pressing to admit of long or accurate inquiries, he passes negligently
over many public works which, even in his own opinion, deserved to be
more elaborately treated.
But though he may sometimes disappoint his reader by transient touches
upon these subjects, which have often been considered, and therefore
naturally raise expectations, he must be allowed amply to compensate his
omissions by expatiating, in the conclusion of his work, upon a kind of
beneficence not yet celebrated by any eminent poet, though it now appears
more susceptible of embellishments, more adapted to exalt the ideas and
affect the passions, than many of those which have hitherto been thought
most worthy of the ornament of verse. The settlement of colonies in
uninhabited countries, the establishment of those in security whose
misfortunes have made their own country no longer pleasing or safe, the
acquisition of property without injury to any, the appropriation of the
waste and luxuriant bounties of nature, and the enjoyment of those gifts
which Heaven has scattered upon regions uncultivated and unoccupied,
cannot be considered without giving rise to a great number of pleasing
ideas, and bewildering the imagination in delightful prospects; and
therefore, whatever speculations they may produce in those who have
confined themselves to political studies, naturally fixed the attention,
and excited the applause, of a poet. The politician, when he considers
men driven into other countries for shelter, and obliged to retire to
forests and deserts, and pass their lives and fix their posterity in the
remotest corners of the world to avoid those hardships which they suffer
or fear in their native place, may very properly inquire why the
legislature does not provide a remedy for these miseries rather than
encourage an escape from them. He may conclude that the flight of every
honest man is a loss to the community; that those who are unhappy without
guilt ought to be relieved; and the life which is overburthened by
accidental calamities set at ease by the care of the public; and that
those who have by misconduct forfeited their claim to favour ought rather
to be made useful to the society which they have injured than be driven
from it. But the poet is employed in a more pleasing undertaking than
that of proposing laws which, however just or expedient, will never be
made; or endeavouring to reduce to rational schemes of government
societies which were formed by chance, and are conducted by the private
passions of those who preside in them. He guides the unhappy fugitive,
from want and persecution, to plenty, quiet, and security, and seats him
in scenes of peaceful solitude and undisturbed repose.
Savage has not forgotten, amidst the pleasing sentiments which this
prospect of retirement suggested to him, to censure those crimes which
have been generally committed by the discoverers of new regions, and to
expose the enormous wickedness of making war upon barbarous nations
because they cannot resist, and of invading countries because they are
fruitful; of extending navigation only to propagate vice; and of visiting
distant lands only to lay them waste. He has asserted the natural
equality of mankind, and endeavoured to suppress that pride which
inclines men to imagine that right is the consequence of power. His
description of the various miseries which force men to seek for refuge in
distant countries affords another instance of his proficiency in the
important and extensive study of human life; and the tenderness with
which he recounts them, another proof of his humanity and benevolence.
It is observable that the close of this poem discovers a change which
experience had made in Mr. Savage’s opinions. In a poem written by him in
his youth, and published in his Miscellanies, he declares his contempt of
the contracted views and narrow prospects of the middle state of life,
and declares his resolution either to tower like the cedar, or be
trampled like the shrub; but in this poem, though addressed to a prince,
he mentions this state of life as comprising those who ought most to
attract reward, those who merit most the confidence of power and the
familiarity of greatness; and, accidentally mentioning this passage to
one of his friends, declared that in his opinion all the virtue of
mankind was comprehended in that state.
In describing villas and gardens he did not omit to condemn that absurd
custom which prevails among the English of permitting servants to receive
money from strangers for the entertainment that they receive, and
therefore inserted in his poem these lines:
“But what the flowering pride of gardens rare,
However royal, or however fair,
If gates which to excess should still give way,
Ope but, like Peter’s paradise, for pay;
If perquisited varlets frequent stand,
And each new walk must a new tax demand;
What foreign eye but with contempt surveys?
What Muse shall from oblivion snatch their praise?”
But before the publication of his performance he recollected that the
queen allowed her garden and cave at Richmond to be shown for money; and
that she so openly countenanced the practice that she had bestowed the
privilege of showing them as a place of profit on a man whose merit she
valued herself upon rewarding, though she gave him only the liberty of
disgracing his country. He therefore thought, with more prudence than was
often exerted by him, that the publication of these lines might be
officiously represented as an insult upon the queen, to whom he owed his
life and his subsistence; and that the propriety of his observation would
be no security against the censures which the unseasonableness of it
might draw upon him; he therefore suppressed the passage in the first
edition, but after the queen’s death thought the same caution no longer
necessary, and restored it to the proper place. The poem was, therefore,
published without any political faults, and inscribed to the prince; but
Mr. Savage, having no friend upon whom he could prevail to present it to
him, had no other method of attracting his observation than the
publication of frequent advertisements, and therefore received no reward
from his patron, however generous on other occasions. This disappointment
he never mentioned without indignation, being by some means or other
confident that the prince was not ignorant of his address to him; and
insinuated that if any advances in popularity could have been made by
distinguishing him, he had not written without notice or without reward.
He was once inclined to have presented his poem in person and sent to the
printer for a copy with that design; but either his opinion changed or
his resolution deserted him, and he continued to resent neglect without
attempting to force himself into regard. Nor was the public much more
favourable than his patron; for only seventy-two were sold, though the
performance was much commended by some whose judgment in that kind of
writing is generally allowed. But Savage easily reconciled himself to
mankind without imputing any defect to his work, by observing that his
poem was unluckily published two days after the prorogation of the
parliament, and by consequence at a time when all those who could be
expected to regard it were in the hurry of preparing for their departure,
or engaged in taking leave of others upon their dismission from public
affairs. It must be however allowed, in justification of the public, that
this performance is not the most excellent of Mr. Savage’s works; and
that, though it cannot be denied to contain many striking sentiments,
majestic lines, and just observations, it is in general not sufficiently
polished in the language, or enlivened in the imagery, or digested in the
plan. Thus his poem contributed nothing to the alleviation of his
poverty, which was such as very few could have supported with equal
patience; but to which it must likewise be confessed that few would have
been exposed who received punctually fifty pounds a year; a salary which,
though by no means equal to the demands of vanity and luxury, is yet
found sufficient to support families above want, and was undoubtedly more
than the necessities of life require.
But no sooner had he received his pension than he withdrew to his darling
privacy, from which he returned in a short time to his former distress,
and for some part of the year generally lived by chance, eating only when
he was invited to the tables of his acquaintances, from which the
meanness of his dress often excluded him, when the politeness and variety
of his conversation would have been thought a sufficient recompense for
his entertainment. He lodged as much by accident as he dined, and passed
the night sometimes in mean houses which are set open at night to any
casual wanderers; sometimes in cellars, among the riot and filth of the
meanest and most profligate of the rabble; and sometimes, when he had not
money to support even the expenses of these receptacles, walked about the
streets till he was weary, and lay down in the summer upon the bulk, or
in the winter, with his associate, in poverty, among the ashes of a
glass-house.
In this manner were passed those days and those nights which nature had
enabled him to have employed in elevated speculations, useful studies, or
pleasing conversation. On a bulk, in a cellar, or in a glass-house, among
thieves and beggars, was to be found the author of “The Wanderer,” the
man of exalted sentiments, extensive views, and curious observations; the
man whose remarks on life might have assisted the statesman, whose ideas
of virtue might have enlightened the moralist, whose eloquence might have
influenced senates, and whose delicacy might have polished courts. It
cannot but be imagined that such necessities might sometimes force him
upon disreputable practices; and it is probable that these lines in “The
Wanderer” were occasioned by his reflections on his own conduct:
“Though misery leads to happiness and truth,
Unequal to the load this languid youth,
(Oh, let none censure, if, untried by grief,
If, amidst woe, untempted by relief),
He stooped reluctant to low arts of shame,
Which then, e’en then, he scorned, and blushed to name.”