initial commit of ebook 4679HEADmain

1 files changed, 6293 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/4679.txt b/4679.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9d4877f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/4679.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6293 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and
+Swift, by Samuel Johnson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift
+
+Author: Samuel Johnson
+
+Commentator: Henry Morley
+
+Release Date: November, 2003  [EBook #4679]
+Posting Date: January 8, 2010
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF THE POETS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Les Bowler
+
+
+
+
+
+LIVES OF THE POETS: ADDISON, SAVAGE, and SWIFT
+
+
+By Samuel Johnson
+
+
+
+Contents.
+
+     Introduction by Henry Morley.
+     Joseph Addison.
+     Richard Savage.
+     Jonathan Swift.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+
+Johnson's "Lives of the Poets" were written to serve as Introductions to
+a trade edition of the works of poets whom the booksellers selected for
+republication. Sometimes, therefore, they dealt briefly with men in whom
+the public at large has long ceased to be interested. Richard Savage
+would be of this number if Johnson's account of his life had not secured
+for him lasting remembrance. Johnson's Life of Savage in this volume has
+not less interest than the Lives of Addison and Swift, between which it
+is set, although Savage himself has no right at all to be remembered in
+such company. Johnson published this piece of biography when his age was
+thirty-five; his other lives of poets appeared when that age was about
+doubled. He was very poor when the Life of Savage was written for Cave.
+Soon after its publication, we are told, Mr. Harte dined with Cave, and
+incidentally praised it. Meeting him again soon afterwards Cave said to
+Mr. Harte, "You made a man very happy t'other day." "How could that
+be?" asked Harte. "Nobody was there but ourselves." Cave answered by
+reminding him that a plate of victuals was sent behind a screen, which
+was to Johnson, dressed so shabbily that he did not choose to appear.
+
+Johnson, struggling, found Savage struggling, and was drawn to him by
+faith in the tale he told. We have seen in our own time how even an
+Arthur Orton could find sensible and good people to believe the tale
+with which he sought to enforce claim upon the Tichborne baronetcy.
+Savage had literary skill, and he could personate the manners of a
+gentleman in days when there were still gentlemen of fashion who drank,
+lied, and swaggered into midnight brawls. I have no doubt whatever that
+he was the son of the nurse with whom the Countess of Macclesfield had
+placed a child that died, and that after his mother's death he found the
+papers upon which he built his plot to personate the child, extort money
+from the Countess and her family, and bring himself into a profitable
+notoriety.
+
+Johnson's simple truthfulness and ready sympathy made it hard for him to
+doubt the story told as Savage told it to him. But when he told it again
+himself, though he denounced one whom he believed to be an unnatural
+mother, and dealt gently with his friend, he did not translate evil into
+good. Through all the generous and kindly narrative we may see clearly
+that Savage was an impostor. There is the heart of Johnson in the noble
+appeal against judgment of the self-righteous who have never known the
+harder trials of the world, when he says of Savage, "Those are no proper
+judges of his conduct, who have slumbered away their time on the down
+of plenty; nor will any wise man easily presume to say, 'Had I been in
+Savage's condition, I should have lived or written better than Savage.'"
+But Johnson, who made large allowance for temptations pressing on the
+poor, himself suffered and overcame the hardest trials, firm always to
+his duty, true servant of God and friend of man.
+
+Richard Savage's whole public life was built upon a lie. His base nature
+foiled any attempt made to befriend him; and the friends he lost, he
+slandered; Richard Steele among them. Samuel Johnson was a friend easy
+to make, and difficult to lose. There was no money to be got from him,
+for he was altogether poor in everything but the large spirit of human
+kindness. Savage drew largely on him for sympathy, and had it; although
+Johnson was too clear-sighted to be much deceived except in judgment
+upon the fraudulent claims which then gave rise to division of opinion.
+The Life of Savage is a noble piece of truth, although it rests on faith
+put in a fraud.
+
+H. M.
+
+
+
+
+ADDISON.
+
+
+Joseph Addison was born on the 1st of May, 1672, at Milston, of which
+his father, Lancelot Addison, was then rector, near Ambrosebury, in
+Wiltshire, and, appearing weak and unlikely to live, he was christened
+the same day. After the usual domestic education, which from the
+character of his father may be reasonably supposed to have given him
+strong impressions of piety, he was committed to the care of Mr. Naish
+at Ambrosebury, and afterwards of Mr. Taylor at Salisbury.
+
+Not to name the school or the masters of men illustrious for literature,
+is a kind of historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously
+diminished: I would therefore trace him through the whole process of his
+education. In 1683, in the beginning of his twelfth year, his father,
+being made Dean of Lichfield, naturally carried his family to his new
+residence, and, I believe, placed him for some time, probably not long,
+under Mr. Shaw, then master of the school at Lichfield, father of the
+late Dr. Peter Shaw. Of this interval his biographers have given no
+account, and I know it only from a story of a BARRING-OUT, told me, when
+I was a boy, by Andrew Corbet, of Shropshire, who had heard it from Mr.
+Pigot, his uncle.
+
+The practice of BARRING-OUT was a savage licence, practised in many
+schools to the end of the last century, by which the boys, when the
+periodical vacation drew near, growing petulant at the approach of
+liberty, some days before the time of regular recess, took possession
+of the school, of which they barred the doors, and bade their master
+defiance from the windows. It is not easy to suppose that on such
+occasions the master would do more than laugh; yet, if tradition may be
+credited, he often struggled hard to force or surprise the garrison. The
+master, when Pigot was a schoolboy, was BARRED OUT at Lichfield; and the
+whole operation, as he said, was planned and conducted by Addison.
+
+To judge better of the probability of this story, I have inquired
+when he was sent to the Chartreux; but, as he was not one of those who
+enjoyed the founder's benefaction, there is no account preserved of
+his admission. At the school of the Chartreux, to which he was removed
+either from that of Salisbury or Lichfield, he pursued his juvenile
+studies under the care of Dr. Ellis, and contracted that intimacy
+with Sir Richard Steele which their joint labours have so effectually
+recorded.
+
+Of this memorable friendship the greater praise must be given to Steele.
+It is not hard to love those from whom nothing can be feared; and
+Addison never considered Steele as a rival; but Steele lived, as he
+confesses, under an habitual subjection to the predominating genius
+of Addison, whom he always mentioned with reverence, and treated with
+obsequiousness.
+
+Addison, who knew his own dignity, could not always forbear to show it,
+by playing a little upon his admirer; but he was in no danger of retort;
+his jests were endured without resistance or resentment. But the sneer
+of jocularity was not the worst. Steele, whose imprudence of generosity,
+or vanity of profusion, kept him always incurably necessitous, upon some
+pressing exigence, in an evil hour, borrowed a hundred pounds of his
+friend probably without much purpose of repayment; but Addison, who
+seems to have had other notions of a hundred pounds, grew impatient of
+delay, and reclaimed his loan by an execution. Steele felt with great
+sensibility the obduracy of his creditor, but with emotions of sorrow
+rather than of anger.
+
+In 1687 he was entered into Queen's College in Oxford, where, in 1689,
+the accidental perusal of some Latin verses gained him the patronage
+of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards Provost of Queen's College; by whose
+recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College as a demy, a term by
+which that society denominates those who are elsewhere called scholars:
+young men who partake of the founder's benefaction, and succeed in their
+order to vacant fellowships. Here he continued to cultivate poetry and
+criticism, and grew first eminent by his Latin compositions, which are
+indeed entitled to particular praise. He has not confined himself to
+the imitation of any ancient author, but has formed his style from
+the general language, such as a diligent perusal of the productions of
+different ages happened to supply. His Latin compositions seem to have
+had much of his fondness, for he collected a second volume of the "Musae
+Anglicanae" perhaps for a convenient receptacle, in which all his Latin
+pieces are inserted, and where his poem on the Peace has the first
+place. He afterwards presented the collection to Boileau, who from that
+time "conceived," says Tickell, "an opinion of the English genius
+for poetry." Nothing is better known of Boileau than that he had an
+injudicious and peevish contempt of modern Latin, and therefore his
+profession of regard was probably the effect of his civility rather than
+approbation.
+
+Three of his Latin poems are upon subjects on which perhaps he would not
+have ventured to have written in his own language: "The Battle of the
+Pigmies and Cranes," "The Barometer," and "A Bowling-green." When the
+matter is low or scanty, a dead language, in which nothing is mean
+because nothing is familiar, affords great conveniences; and by the
+sonorous magnificence of Roman syllables, the writer conceals penury
+of thought, and want of novelty, often from the reader and often from
+himself.
+
+In his twenty-second year he first showed his power of English poetry by
+some verses addressed to Dryden; and soon after published a translation
+of the greater part of the Fourth Georgic upon Bees; after which, says
+Dryden, "my latter swarm is scarcely worth the hiving." About the same
+time he composed the arguments prefixed to the several books of Dryden's
+Virgil; and produced an Essay on the Georgics, juvenile, superficial,
+and uninstructive, without much either of the scholar's learning or the
+critic's penetration. His next paper of verses contained a character
+of the principal English poets, inscribed to Henry Sacheverell, who was
+then, if not a poet, a writer of verses; as is shown by his version of
+a small part of Virgil's Georgics, published in the Miscellanies; and
+a Latin encomium on Queen Mary, in the "Musae Anglicanae." These verses
+exhibit all the fondness of friendship; but, on one side or the other,
+friendship was afterwards too weak for the malignity of faction. In this
+poem is a very confident and discriminate character of Spenser, whose
+work he had then never read; so little sometimes is criticism the effect
+of judgment. It is necessary to inform the reader that about this
+time he was introduced by Congreve to Montague, then Chancellor of
+the Exchequer: Addison was then learning the trade of a courtier, and
+subjoined Montague as a poetical name to those of Cowley and of Dryden.
+By the influence of Mr. Montague, concurring, according to Tickell,
+with his natural modesty, he was diverted from his original design of
+entering into holy orders. Montague alleged the corruption of men who
+engaged in civil employments without liberal education; and declared
+that, though he was represented as an enemy to the Church, he would
+never do it any injury but by withholding Addison from it.
+
+Soon after (in 1695) he wrote a poem to King William, with a rhyming
+introduction addressed to Lord Somers. King William had no regard to
+elegance or literature; his study was only war; yet by a choice of
+Ministers, whose disposition was very different from his own, he
+procured, without intention, a very liberal patronage to poetry. Addison
+was caressed both by Somers and Montague.
+
+In 1697 appeared his Latin verses on the Peace of Ryswick, which he
+dedicated to Montague, and which was afterwards called, by Smith, "the
+best Latin poem since the 'AEneid.'" Praise must not be too rigorously
+examined; but the performance cannot be denied to be vigorous and
+elegant. Having yet no public employment, he obtained (in 1699) a
+pension of three hundred pounds a year, that he might be enabled to
+travel. He stayed a year at Blois, probably to learn the French language
+and then proceeded in his journey to Italy, which he surveyed with the
+eyes of a poet. While he was travelling at leisure, he was far from
+being idle: for he not only collected his observations on the country,
+but found time to write his "Dialogues on Medals," and four acts of
+Cato. Such, at least, is the relation of Tickell. Perhaps he only
+collected his materials and formed his plan. Whatever were his other
+employments in Italy, he there wrote the letter to Lord Halifax which is
+justly considered as the most elegant, if not the most sublime, of his
+poetical productions. But in about two years he found it necessary to
+hasten home; being, as Swift informs us, distressed by indigence,
+and compelled to become the tutor of a travelling squire, because his
+pension was not remitted.
+
+At his return he published his Travels, with a dedication to Lord
+Somers. As his stay in foreign countries was short, his observations
+are such as might be supplied by a hasty view, and consist chiefly in
+comparisons of the present face of the country with the descriptions
+left us by the Roman poets, from whom he made preparatory collections,
+though he might have spared the trouble had he known that such
+collections had been made twice before by Italian authors.
+
+The most amusing passage of his book is his account of the minute
+republic of San Marino; of many parts it is not a very severe censure to
+say that they might have been written at home. His elegance of language,
+and variegation of prose and verse, however, gain upon the reader; and
+the book, though awhile neglected, became in time so much the favourite
+of the public that before it was reprinted it rose to five times its
+price.
+
+When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness of appearance
+which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had been reduced,
+he found his old patrons out of power, and was therefore, for a time, at
+full leisure for the cultivation of his mind; and a mind so cultivated
+gives reason to believe that little time was lost. But he remained not
+long neglected or useless. The victory at Blenheim (1704) spread triumph
+and confidence over the nation; and Lord Godolphin, lamenting to
+Lord Halifax that it had not been celebrated in a manner equal to the
+subject, desired him to propose it to some better poet. Halifax told
+him that there was no encouragement for genius; that worthless men were
+unprofitably enriched with public money, without any care to find or
+employ those whose appearance might do honour to their country. To this
+Godolphin replied that such abuses should in time be rectified; and
+that, if a man could be found capable of the task then proposed, he
+should not want an ample recompense. Halifax then named Addison, but
+required that the Treasurer should apply to him in his own person.
+Godolphin sent the message by Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord Carlton; and
+Addison, having undertaken the work, communicated it to the Treasury
+while it was yet advanced no further than the simile of the angel,
+and was immediately rewarded by succeeding Mr. Locke in the place of
+Commissioner of Appeals.
+
+In the following year he was at Hanover with Lord Halifax: and the year
+after he was made Under Secretary of State, first to Sir Charles Hedges,
+and in a few months more to the Earl of Sunderland. About this time the
+prevalent taste for Italian operas inclined him to try what would be the
+effect of a musical drama in our own language. He therefore wrote the
+opera of Rosamond, which, when exhibited on the stage, was either hissed
+or neglected; but, trusting that the readers would do him more justice,
+he published it with an inscription to the Duchess of Marlborough--a
+woman without skill, or pretensions to skill, in poetry or literature.
+His dedication was therefore an instance of servile absurdity, to be
+exceeded only by Joshua Barnes's dedication of a Greek Anacreon to the
+Duke. His reputation had been somewhat advanced by The Tender Husband, a
+comedy which Steele dedicated to him, with a confession that he owed to
+him several of the most successful scenes. To this play Addison supplied
+a prologue.
+
+When the Marquis of Wharton was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
+Addison attended him as his secretary; and was made Keeper of the
+Records, in Birmingham's Tower, with a salary of three hundred pounds
+a year. The office was little more than nominal, and the salary was
+augmented for his accommodation. Interest and faction allow little to
+the operation of particular dispositions or private opinions. Two men
+of personal characters more opposite than those of Wharton and Addison
+could not easily be brought together. Wharton was impious, profligate,
+and shameless; without regard, or appearance of regard, to right and
+wrong. Whatever is contrary to this may be said of Addison; but as
+agents of a party they were connected, and how they adjusted their other
+sentiments we cannot know.
+
+Addison must, however, not be too hastily condemned. It is not necessary
+to refuse benefits from a bad man when the acceptance implies no
+approbation of his crimes; nor has the subordinate officer any
+obligation to examine the opinions or conduct of those under whom he
+acts, except that he may not be made the instrument of wickedness. It is
+reasonable to suppose that Addison counteracted, as far as he was able,
+the malignant and blasting influence of the Lieutenant; and that
+at least by his intervention some good was done, and some mischief
+prevented. When he was in office he made a law to himself, as Swift has
+recorded, never to remit his regular fees in civility to his friends:
+"for," said he, "I may have a hundred friends; and if my fee be two
+guineas, I shall, by relinquishing my right, lose two hundred guineas,
+and no friend gain more than two; there is therefore no proportion
+between the good imparted and the evil suffered." He was in Ireland when
+Steele, without any communication of his design, began the publication
+of the Tatler; but he was not long concealed; by inserting a remark on
+Virgil which Addison had given him he discovered himself. It is, indeed,
+not easy for any man to write upon literature or common life so as not
+to make himself known to those with whom he familiarly converses, and
+who are acquainted with his track of study, his favourite topic, his
+peculiar notions, and his habitual phrases.
+
+If Steele desired to write in secret, he was not lucky; a single month
+detected him. His first Tatler was published April 22 (1709); and
+Addison's contribution appeared May 26. Tickell observes that the Tatler
+began and was concluded without his concurrence. This is doubtless
+literally true; but the work did not suffer much by his unconsciousness
+of its commencement, or his absence at its cessation; for he continued
+his assistance to December 23, and the paper stopped on January 2. He
+did not distinguish his pieces by any signature; and I know not whether
+his name was not kept secret till the papers were collected into
+volumes.
+
+To the Tatler, in about two months, succeeded the Spectator: a series
+of essays of the same kind, but written with less levity, upon a more
+regular plan, and published daily. Such an undertaking showed the
+writers not to distrust their own copiousness of materials or facility
+of composition, and their performance justified their confidence. They
+found, however, in their progress many auxiliaries. To attempt a single
+paper was no terrifying labour; many pieces were offered, and many were
+received.
+
+Addison had enough of the zeal of party; but Steele had at that time
+almost nothing else. The Spectator, in one of the first papers, showed
+the political tenets of its authors; but a resolution was soon taken of
+courting general approbation by general topics, and subjects on which
+faction had produced no diversity of sentiments--such as literature,
+morality, and familiar life. To this practice they adhered with
+few deviations. The ardour of Steele once broke out in praise of
+Marlborough; and when Dr. Fleetwood prefixed to some sermons a preface
+overflowing with Whiggish opinions, that it might be read by the Queen,
+it was reprinted in the Spectator.
+
+To teach the minuter decencies and inferior duties, to regulate the
+practice of daily conversation, to correct those depravities which are
+rather ridiculous than criminal, and remove those grievances which, if
+they produce no lasting calamities, impress hourly vexation, was first
+attempted by Casa in his book of "Manners," and Castiglione in his
+"Courtier:" two books yet celebrated in Italy for purity and elegance,
+and which, if they are now less read, are neglected only because they
+have effected that reformation which their authors intended, and their
+precepts now are no longer wanted. Their usefulness to the age in which
+they were written is sufficiently attested by the translations which
+almost all the nations of Europe were in haste to obtain.
+
+This species of instruction was continued, and perhaps advanced, by the
+French; among whom La Bruyere's "Manners of the Age" (though, as Boileau
+remarked, it is written without connection) certainly deserves praise
+for liveliness of description and justness of observation. Before the
+Tatler and Spectator, if the writers for the theatre are excepted,
+England had no masters of common life. No writers had yet undertaken
+to reform either the savageness of neglect, or the impertinence of
+civility; to show when to speak, or to be silent; how to refuse, or how
+to comply. We had many books to teach us our more important duties,
+and to settle opinions in philosophy or politics; but an arbiter
+elegantiarum, (a judge of propriety) was yet wanting who should survey
+the track of daily conversation, and free it from thorns and prickles,
+which tease the passer, though they do not wound him. For this purpose
+nothing is so proper as the frequent publication of short papers, which
+we read, not as study, but amusement. If the subject be slight, the
+treatise is short. The busy may find time, and the idle may find
+patience. This mode of conveying cheap and easy knowledge began among us
+in the civil war, when it was much the interest of either party to raise
+and fix the prejudices of the people. At that time appeared Mercurius
+Aulicus, Mercurius Rusticus, and Mercurius Civicus. It is said that when
+any title grew popular, it was stolen by the antagonist, who by this
+stratagem conveyed his notions to those who would not have received him
+had he not worn the appearance of a friend. The tumult of those
+unhappy days left scarcely any man leisure to treasure up occasional
+compositions; and so much were they neglected that a complete collection
+is nowhere to be found.
+
+These Mercuries were succeeded by L'Estrange's Observator; and that by
+Lesley's Rehearsal, and perhaps by others; but hitherto nothing had
+been conveyed to the people, in this commodious manner, but controversy
+relating to the Church or State; of which they taught many to talk, whom
+they could not teach to judge.
+
+It has been suggested that the Royal Society was instituted soon after
+the Restoration to divert the attention of the people from public
+discontent. The Tatler and Spectator had the same tendency; they were
+published at a time when two parties--loud, restless, and violent,
+each with plausible declarations, and each perhaps without any distinct
+termination of its views--were agitating the nation; to minds heated
+with political contest they supplied cooler and more inoffensive
+reflections; and it is said by Addison, in a subsequent work, that they
+had a perceptible influence upon the conversation of that time, and
+taught the frolic and the gay to unite merriment with decency--an effect
+which they can never wholly lose while they continue to be among the
+first books by which both sexes are initiated in the elegances of
+knowledge.
+
+The Tatler and Spectator adjusted, like Casa, the unsettled practice
+of daily intercourse by propriety and politeness; and, like La Bruyere,
+exhibited the "Characters and Manners of the Age." The personages
+introduced in these papers were not merely ideal; they were then known,
+and conspicuous in various stations. Of the Tatler this is told by
+Steele in his last paper; and of the Spectator by Budgell in the preface
+to "Theophrastus," a book which Addison has recommended, and which
+he was suspected to have revised, if he did not write it. Of those
+portraits which may be supposed to be sometimes embellished, and
+sometimes aggravated, the originals are now partly known, and partly
+forgotten. But to say that they united the plans of two or three eminent
+writers, is to give them but a small part of their due praise; they
+superadded literature and criticism, and sometimes towered far above
+their predecessors; and taught, with great justness of argument and
+dignity of language, the most important duties and sublime truths.
+All these topics were happily varied with elegant fictions and refined
+allegories, and illuminated with different changes of style and
+felicities of invention.
+
+It is recorded by Budgell, that of the characters feigned or exhibited
+in the Spectator, the favourite of Addison was Sir Roger de Coverley, of
+whom he had formed a very delicate and discriminate idea, which he
+would not suffer to be violated; and therefore when Steele had shown him
+innocently picking up a girl in the Temple, and taking her to a tavern,
+he drew upon himself so much of his friend's indignation that he was
+forced to appease him by a promise of forbearing Sir Roger for the time
+to come.
+
+The reason which induced Cervantes to bring his hero to the grave, para
+mi sola nacio Don Quixote, y yo para el, made Addison declare, with
+undue vehemence of expression, that he would kill Sir Roger; being of
+opinion that they were born for one another, and that any other hand
+would do him wrong.
+
+It may be doubted whether Addison ever filled up his original
+delineation. He describes his knight as having his imagination somewhat
+warped; but of this perversion he has made very little use. The
+irregularities in Sir Roger's conduct seem not so much the effects of a
+mind deviating from the beaten track of life, by the perpetual pressure
+of some overwhelming idea, as of habitual rusticity, and that negligence
+which solitary grandeur naturally generates. The variable weather of the
+mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time
+cloud reason without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit
+that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own
+design.
+
+To Sir Roger (who, as a country gentleman, appears to be a Tory, or, as
+it is gently expressed, an adherent to the landed interest) is opposed
+Sir Andrew Freeport, a new man, a wealthy merchant, zealous for the
+moneyed interest, and a Whig. Of this contrariety of opinions, it is
+probable more consequences were at first intended than could be produced
+when the resolution was taken to exclude party from the paper. Sir
+Andrew does but little, and that little seems not to have pleased
+Addison, who, when he dismissed him from the club, changed his opinions.
+Steele had made him, in the true spirit of unfeeling commerce, declare
+that he "would not build an hospital for idle people;" but at last he
+buys land, settles in the country, and builds, not a manufactory, but
+an hospital for twelve old husbandmen--for men with whom a merchant
+has little acquaintance, and whom he commonly considers with little
+kindness.
+
+Of essays thus elegant, thus instructive, and thus commodiously
+distributed, it is natural to suppose the approbation general, and the
+sale numerous. I once heard it observed that the sale may be calculated
+by the product of the tax, related in the last number to produce more
+than twenty pounds a week, and therefore stated at one-and-twenty
+pounds, or three pounds ten shillings a day: this, at a halfpenny a
+paper, will give sixteen hundred and eighty for the daily number. This
+sale is not great; yet this, if Swift be credited, was likely to grow
+less; for he declares that the Spectator, whom he ridicules for his
+endless mention of the FAIR sex, had before his recess wearied his
+readers.
+
+The next year (1713), in which Cato came upon the stage, was the grand
+climacteric of Addison's reputation. Upon the death of Cato he had,
+as is said, planned a tragedy in the time of his travels, and had for
+several years the four first acts finished, which were shown to such as
+were likely to spread their admiration. They were seen by Pope and by
+Cibber, who relates that Steele, when he took back the copy, told him,
+in the despicable cant of literary modesty, that, whatever spirit his
+friend had shown in the composition, he doubted whether he would have
+courage sufficient to expose it to the censure of a British audience.
+The time, however, was now come when those who affected to think liberty
+in danger affected likewise to think that a stage-play might preserve
+it; and Addison was importuned, in the name of the tutelary deities of
+Britain, to show his courage and his zeal by finishing his design.
+
+To resume his work he seemed perversely and unaccountably unwilling; and
+by a request, which perhaps he wished to be denied, desired Mr. Hughes
+to add a fifth act. Hughes supposed him serious; and, undertaking the
+supplement, brought in a few days some scenes for his examination; but
+he had in the meantime gone to work himself, and produced half an
+act, which he afterwards completed, but with brevity irregularly
+disproportionate to the foregoing parts, like a task performed with
+reluctance and hurried to its conclusion.
+
+It may yet be doubted whether Cato was made public by any change of the
+author's purpose; for Dennis charged him with raising prejudices in
+his own favour by false positions of preparatory criticism, and with
+POISONING THE TOWN by contradicting in the Spectator the established
+rule of poetical justice, because his own hero, with all his virtues,
+was to fall before a tyrant. The fact is certain; the motives we must
+guess.
+
+Addison was, I believe, sufficiently disposed to bar all avenues against
+all danger. When Pope brought him the prologue, which is properly
+accommodated to the play, there were these words, "Britains, arise! be
+worth like this approved;" meaning nothing more than--Britons, erect
+and exalt yourselves to the approbation of public virtue. Addison was
+frighted, lest he should be thought a promoter of insurrection, and the
+line was liquidated to "Britains, attend."
+
+Now "heavily in clouds came on the day, the great, the important day,"
+when Addison was to stand the hazard of the theatre. That there might,
+however, be left as little hazard as was possible, on the first night
+Steele, as himself relates, undertook to pack an audience. "This," says
+Pope, "had been tried for the first time in favour of the Distressed
+Mother; and was now, with more efficacy, practised for Cato." The danger
+was soon over. The whole nation was at that time on fire with faction.
+The Whigs applauded every line in which liberty was mentioned, as a
+satire on the Tories; and the Tories echoed every clap, to show that
+the satire was unfelt. The story of Bolingbroke is well known; he called
+Booth to his box, and gave him fifty guineas for defending the cause of
+liberty so well against a perpetual dictator. "The Whigs," says Pope,
+"design a second present, when they can accompany it with as good a
+sentence."
+
+The play, supported thus by the emulation of factious praise, was acted
+night after night for a longer time than, I believe, the public had
+allowed to any drama before; and the author, as Mrs. Porter long
+afterwards related, wandered through the whole exhibition behind the
+scenes with restless and unappeasable solicitude. When it was printed,
+notice was given that the Queen would be pleased if it was dedicated
+to her; "but, as he had designed that compliment elsewhere, he found
+himself obliged," says Tickell, "by his duty on the one hand, and his
+honour on the other, to send it into the world without any dedication."
+
+Human happiness has always its abatements; the brightest sunshine of
+success is not without a cloud. No sooner was Cato offered to the reader
+than it was attacked by the acute malignity of Dennis with all the
+violence of angry criticism. Dennis, though equally zealous, and
+probably by his temper more furious than Addison, for what they called
+liberty, and though a flatterer of the Whig Ministry, could not sit
+quiet at a successful play; but was eager to tell friends and enemies
+that they had misplaced their admirations. The world was too stubborn
+for instruction; with the fate of the censurer of Corneille's Cid, his
+animadversions showed his anger without effect, and Cato continued to be
+praised.
+
+Pope had now an opportunity of courting the friendship of Addison by
+vilifying his old enemy, and could give resentment its full play without
+appearing to revenge himself. He therefore published "A Narrative of the
+Madness of John Dennis:" a performance which left the objections to the
+play in their full force, and therefore discovered more desire of vexing
+the critic than of defending the poet.
+
+Addison, who was no stranger to the world, probably saw the selfishness
+of Pope's friendship; and, resolving that he should have the
+consequences of his officiousness to himself, informed Dennis by Steele
+that he was sorry for the insult; and that, whenever he should think fit
+to answer his remarks, he would do it in a manner to which nothing could
+be objected.
+
+The greatest weakness of the play is in the scenes of love, which are
+said by Pope to have been added to the original plan upon a subsequent
+review, in compliance with the popular practice of the stage. Such an
+authority it is hard to reject; yet the love is so intimately mingled
+with the whole action that it cannot easily be thought extrinsic and
+adventitious; for if it were taken away, what would be left? or how were
+the four acts filled in the first draft? At the publication the wits
+seemed proud to pay their attendance with encomiastic verses. The best
+are from an unknown hand, which will perhaps lose somewhat of their
+praise when the author is known to be Jeffreys.
+
+Cato had yet other honours. It was censured as a party-play by a scholar
+of Oxford; and defended in a favourable examination by Dr. Sewel. It was
+translated by Salvini into Italian, and acted at Florence; and by the
+Jesuits of St. Omer's into Latin, and played by their pupils. Of this
+version a copy was sent to Mr. Addison: it is to be wished that it could
+be found, for the sake of comparing their version of the soliloquy with
+that of Bland.
+
+A tragedy was written on the same subject by Des Champs, a French poet,
+which was translated with a criticism on the English play. But the
+translator and the critic are now forgotten.
+
+Dennis lived on unanswered, and therefore little read. Addison knew the
+policy of literature too well to make his enemy important by drawing
+the attention of the public upon a criticism which, though sometimes
+intemperate, was often irrefragable.
+
+While Cato was upon the stage, another daily paper, called the Guardian,
+was published by Steele. To this Addison gave great assistance, whether
+occasionally or by previous engagement is not known. The character of
+Guardian was too narrow and too serious: it might properly enough admit
+both the duties and the decencies of life, but seemed not to include
+literary speculations, and was in some degree violated by merriment and
+burlesque. What had the Guardian of the Lizards to do with clubs of tall
+or of little men, with nests of ants, or with Strada's prolusions?
+Of this paper nothing is necessary to be said but that it found many
+contributors, and that it was a continuation of the Spectator, with the
+same elegance and the same variety, till some unlucky sparkle from a
+Tory paper set Steele's politics on fire, and wit at once blazed
+into faction. He was soon too hot for neutral topics, and quitted the
+Guardian to write the Englishman.
+
+The papers of Addison are marked in the Spectator by one of the letters
+in the name of Clio, and in the Guardian by a hand; whether it was, as
+Tickell pretends to think, that he was unwilling to usurp the praise of
+others, or as Steele, with far greater likelihood, insinuates, that he
+could not without discontent impart to others any of his own. I have
+heard that his avidity did not satisfy itself with the air of renown,
+but that with great eagerness he laid hold on his proportion of the
+profits.
+
+Many of these papers were written with powers truly comic, with nice
+discrimination of characters, and accurate observation of natural or
+accidental deviations from propriety; but it was not supposed that he
+had tried a comedy on the stage, till Steele after his death declared
+him the author of The Drummer. This, however, Steele did not know to
+be true by any direct testimony, for when Addison put the play into his
+hands, he only told him it was the work of a "gentleman in the company;"
+and when it was received, as is confessed, with cold disapprobation,
+he was probably less willing to claim it. Tickell omitted it in his
+collection; but the testimony of Steele, and the total silence of any
+other claimant, has determined the public to assign it to Addison, and
+it is now printed with other poetry. Steele carried The Drummer to the
+play-house, and afterwards to the press, and sold the copy for fifty
+guineas.
+
+To the opinion of Steele may be added the proof supplied by the
+play itself, of which the characters are such as Addison would have
+delineated, and the tendency such as Addison would have promoted. That
+it should have been ill received would raise wonder, did we not daily
+see the capricious distribution of theatrical praise.
+
+He was not all this time an indifferent spectator of public affairs. He
+wrote, as different exigences required (in 1707), "The Present State
+of the War, and the Necessity of an Augmentation;" which, however
+judicious, being written on temporary topics, and exhibiting no peculiar
+powers, laid hold on no attention, and has naturally sunk by its own
+weight into neglect. This cannot be said of the few papers entitled the
+Whig Examiner, in which is employed all the force of gay malevolence and
+humorous satire. Of this paper, which just appeared and expired, Swift
+remarks, with exultation, that "it is now down among the dead men." He
+might well rejoice at the death of that which he could not have killed.
+Every reader of every party, since personal malice is past, and the
+papers which once inflamed the nation are read only as effusions of wit,
+must wish for more of the Whig Examiners; for on no occasion was
+the genius of Addison more vigorously exerted, and on none did the
+superiority of his powers more evidently appear. His "Trial of Count
+Tariff," written to expose the treaty of commerce with France, lived no
+longer than the question that produced it.
+
+Not long afterwards an attempt was made to revive the Spectator, at a
+time indeed by no means favourable to literature, when the succession of
+a new family to the throne filled the nation with anxiety, discord, and
+confusion; and either the turbulence of the times, or the satiety of
+the readers, put a stop to the publication after an experiment of eighty
+numbers, which were actually collected into an eighth volume, perhaps
+more valuable than any of those that went before it. Addison produced
+more than a fourth part; and the other contributors are by no means
+unworthy of appearing as his associates. The time that had passed during
+the suspension of the Spectator, though it had not lessened his power
+of humour, seems to have increased his disposition to seriousness: the
+proportion of his religious to his comic papers is greater than in the
+former series.
+
+The Spectator, from its re-commencement, was published only three
+times a week; and no discriminative marks were added to the papers.
+To Addison, Tickell has ascribed twenty-three. The Spectator had many
+contributors; and Steele, whose negligence kept him always in a hurry,
+when it was his turn to furnish a paper, called loudly for the letters,
+of which Addison, whose materials were more, made little use--having
+recourse to sketches and hints, the product of his former studies, which
+he now reviewed and completed: among these are named by Tickell the
+Essays on Wit, those on the Pleasures of the Imagination, and the
+Criticism on Milton.
+
+When the House of Hanover took possession of the throne, it was
+reasonable to expect that the zeal of Addison would be suitably
+rewarded. Before the arrival of King George, he was made Secretary to
+the Regency, and was required by his office to send notice to Hanover
+that the Queen was dead, and that the throne was vacant. To do this
+would not have been difficult to any man but Addison, who was so
+overwhelmed with the greatness of the event, and so distracted by choice
+of expression, that the lords, who could not wait for the niceties of
+criticism, called Mr. Southwell, a clerk in the House, and ordered him
+to despatch the message. Southwell readily told what was necessary in
+the common style of business, and valued himself upon having done what
+was too hard for Addison. He was better qualified for the Freeholder,
+a paper which he published twice a week, from December 23, 1715, to
+the middle of the next year. This was undertaken in defence of the
+established Government, sometimes with argument, and sometimes with
+mirth. In argument he had many equals; but his humour was singular and
+matchless. Bigotry itself must be delighted with the "Tory Fox-hunter."
+There are, however, some strokes less elegant and less decent; such
+as the "Pretender's Journal," in which one topic of ridicule is his
+poverty. This mode of abuse had been employed by Milton against King
+Charles II.
+
+                                     "Jacoboei.
+     Centum exulantis viscera Marsupii regis."
+
+And Oldmixon delights to tell of some alderman of London that he had
+more money than the exiled princes; but that which might be expected
+from Milton's savageness, or Oldmixon's meanness, was not suitable to
+the delicacy of Addison.
+
+Steele thought the humour of the Freeholder too nice and gentle for such
+noisy times, and is reported to have said that the Ministry made use of
+a lute, when they should have called for a trumpet.
+
+This year (1716) he married the Countess Dowager of Warwick, whom he had
+solicited by a very long and anxious courtship, perhaps with behaviour
+not very unlike that of Sir Roger to his disdainful widow; and who, I am
+afraid, diverted herself often by playing with his passion. He is said
+to have first known her by becoming tutor to her son. "He formed," said
+Tonson, "the design of getting that lady from the time when he was
+first taken into the family." In what part of his life he obtained the
+recommendation, or how long, and in what manner he lived in the family,
+I know not. His advances at first were certainly timorous, but grew
+bolder as his reputation and influence increased; till at last the lady
+was persuaded to marry him, on terms much like those on which a Turkish
+princess is espoused, to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce,
+"Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave." The marriage, if
+uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition to his
+happiness; it neither found them nor made them equal. She always
+remembered her own rank, and thought herself entitled to treat with very
+little ceremony the tutor of her son. Rowe's ballad of the "Despairing
+Shepherd" is said to have been written, either before or after marriage,
+upon this memorable pair; and it is certain that Addison has left behind
+him no encouragement for ambitious love.
+
+The year after (1717) he rose to his highest elevation, being made
+Secretary of State. For this employment he might be justly supposed
+qualified by long practice of business, and by his regular ascent
+through other offices; but expectation is often disappointed; it is
+universally confessed that he was unequal to the duties of his place.
+In the House of Commons he could not speak, and therefore was useless to
+the defence of the Government. "In the office," says Pope, "he could not
+issue an order without losing his time in quest of fine expressions."
+What he gained in rank he lost in credit; and finding by experience his
+own inability, was forced to solicit his dismission, with a pension
+of fifteen hundred pounds a year. His friends palliated this
+relinquishment, of which both friends and enemies knew the true reason,
+with an account of declining health, and the necessity of recess and
+quiet. He now returned to his vocation, and began to plan literary
+occupations for his future life. He purposed a tragedy on the death of
+Socrates: a story of which, as Tickell remarks, the basis is narrow,
+and to which I know not how love could have been appended. There would,
+however, have been no want either of virtue in the sentiments, or
+elegance in the language. He engaged in a nobler work, a "Defence of the
+Christian Religion," of which part was published after his death; and he
+designed to have made a new poetical version of the Psalms.
+
+These pious compositions Pope imputed to a selfish motive, upon the
+credit, as he owns, of Tonson; who, having quarrelled with Addison, and
+not loving him, said that when he laid down the Secretary's office
+he intended to take orders and obtain a bishopric; "for," said he, "I
+always thought him a priest in his heart."
+
+That Pope should have thought this conjecture of Tonson worth
+remembrance, is a proof--but indeed, so far as I have found, the only
+proof--that he retained some malignity from their ancient rivalry.
+Tonson pretended to guess it; no other mortal ever suspected it; and
+Pope might have reflected that a man who had been Secretary of State
+in the Ministry of Sunderland knew a nearer way to a bishopric than by
+defending religion or translating the Psalms.
+
+It is related that he had once a design to make an English dictionary,
+and that he considered Dr. Tillotson as the writer of highest authority.
+There was formerly sent to me by Mr. Locker, clerk of the Leathersellers
+Company, who was eminent for curiosity and literature, a collection of
+examples selected from Tillotson's works, as Locker said, by Addison. It
+came too late to be of use, so I inspected it but slightly, and remember
+it indistinctly. I thought the passages too short. Addison, however,
+did not conclude his life in peaceful studies, but relapsed, when he was
+near his end, to a political dispute.
+
+It so happened that (1718-19) a controversy was agitated with great
+vehemence between those friends of long continuance, Addison and Steele.
+It may be asked, in the language of Homer, what power or what cause
+should set them at variance. The subject of their dispute was of great
+importance. The Earl of Sunderland proposed an Act, called the "Peerage
+Bill;" by which the number of Peers should be fixed, and the King
+restrained from any new creation of nobility, unless when an old family
+should be extinct. To this the Lords would naturally agree; and the
+King, who was yet little acquainted with his own prerogative, and, as is
+now well known, almost indifferent to the possessions of the Crown,
+had been persuaded to consent. The only difficulty was found among
+the Commons, who were not likely to approve the perpetual exclusion
+of themselves and their posterity. The Bill, therefore, was eagerly
+opposed, and, among others, by Sir Robert Walpole, whose speech was
+published.
+
+The Lords might think their dignity diminished by improper advancements,
+and particularly by the introduction of twelve new Peers at once, to
+produce a majority of Tories in the last reign: an act of authority
+violent enough, yet certainly legal, and by no means to be compared with
+that contempt of national right with which some time afterwards, by the
+instigation of Whiggism, the Commons, chosen by the people for
+three years, chose themselves for seven. But, whatever might be the
+disposition of the Lords, the people had no wish to increase their
+power. The tendency of the Bill, as Steele observed in a letter to the
+Earl of Oxford, was to introduce an aristocracy: for a majority in the
+House of Lords, so limited, would have been despotic and irresistible.
+
+To prevent this subversion of the ancient establishment, Steele, whose
+pen readily seconded his political passions, endeavoured to alarm
+the nation by a pamphlet called "The Plebeian." To this an answer was
+published by Addison, under the title of "The Old Whig," in which it
+is not discovered that Steele was then known to be the advocate for
+the Commons. Steele replied by a second "Plebeian;" and, whether by
+ignorance or by courtesy, confined himself to his question, without any
+personal notice of his opponent. Nothing hitherto was committed against
+the laws of friendship or proprieties of decency; but controvertists
+cannot long retain their kindness for each other. The "Old Whig"
+answered "The Plebeian," and could not forbear some contempt of "little
+DICKY, whose trade it was to write pamphlets." Dicky, however, did not
+lose his settled veneration for his friend, but contented himself with
+quoting some lines of Cato, which were at once detection and reproof.
+The Bill was laid aside during that session, and Addison died before the
+next, in which its commitment was rejected by two hundred and sixty-five
+to one hundred and seventy-seven.
+
+Every reader surely must regret that these two illustrious friends,
+after so many years passed in confidence and endearment, in unity of
+interest, conformity of opinion, and fellowship of study, should finally
+part in acrimonious opposition. Such a controversy was "bellum plusquam
+CIVILE," as Lucan expresses it. Why could not faction find other
+advocates? But among the uncertainties of the human state, we are doomed
+to number the instability of friendship. Of this dispute I have little
+knowledge but from the "Biographia Britannica." "The Old Whig" is not
+inserted in Addison's works: nor is it mentioned by Tickell in his Life;
+why it was omitted, the biographers doubtless give the true reason--the
+fact was too recent, and those who had been heated in the contention
+were not yet cool.
+
+The necessity of complying with times, and of sparing persons, is the
+great impediment of biography. History may be formed from permanent
+monuments and records: but lives can only be written from personal
+knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost
+for ever. What is known can seldom be immediately told; and when it
+might be told, it is no longer known. The delicate features of the mind,
+the nice discriminations of character, and the minute peculiarities of
+conduct, are soon obliterated; and it is surely better that caprice,
+obstinacy, frolic, and folly, however they might delight in the
+description, should be silently forgotten, than that, by wanton
+merriment and unseasonable detection, a pang should be given to a widow,
+a daughter, a brother, or a friend. As the process of these narratives
+is now bringing me among my contemporaries, I begin to feel myself
+"walking upon ashes under which the fire is not extinguished," and
+coming to the time of which it will be proper rather to say "nothing
+that is false, than all that is true."
+
+The end of this useful life was now approaching. Addison had for some
+time been oppressed by shortness of breath, which was now aggravated
+by a dropsy; and, finding his danger pressing, he prepared to die
+conformably to his own precepts and professions. During this lingering
+decay, he sent, as Pope relates, a message by the Earl of Warwick to
+Mr. Gay, desiring to see him. Gay, who had not visited him for some
+time before, obeyed the summons, and found himself received with great
+kindness. The purpose for which the interview had been solicited was
+then discovered. Addison told him that he had injured him; but that, if
+he recovered, he would recompense him. What the injury was he did
+not explain, nor did Gay ever know; but supposed that some preferment
+designed for him had, by Addison's intervention, been withheld.
+
+Lord Warwick was a young man, of very irregular life, and perhaps of
+loose opinions. Addison, for whom he did not want respect, had
+very diligently endeavoured to reclaim him, but his arguments and
+expostulations had no effect. One experiment, however, remained to be
+tried; when he found his life near its end, he directed the young lord
+to be called, and when he desired with great tenderness to hear his
+last injunctions, told him, "I have sent for you that you may see how a
+Christian can die." What effect this awful scene had on the earl, I know
+not; he likewise died himself in a short time.
+
+In Tickell's excellent Elegy on his friend are these lines:--
+
+     "He taught us how to live; and, oh! too high
+      The price of knowledge, taught us how to die"--
+
+in which he alludes, as he told Dr. Young, to this moving interview.
+
+Having given directions to Mr. Tickell for the publication of his works,
+and dedicated them on his death-bed to his friend Mr. Craggs, he died
+June 17, 1719, at Holland House, leaving no child but a daughter.
+
+Of his virtue it is a sufficient testimony that the resentment of party
+has transmitted no charge of any crime. He was not one of those who are
+praised only after death; for his merit was so generally acknowledged
+that Swift, having observed that his election passed without a contest,
+adds that if he proposed himself for King he would hardly have been
+refused. His zeal for his party did not extinguish his kindness for the
+merit of his opponents; when he was Secretary in Ireland, he refused to
+intermit his acquaintance with Swift. Of his habits or external manners,
+nothing is so often mentioned as that timorous or sullen taciturnity,
+which his friends called modesty by too mild a name. Steele mentions
+with great tenderness "that remarkable bashfulness which is a cloak that
+hides and muffles merit;" and tells us "that his abilities were covered
+only by modesty, which doubles the beauties which are seen, and gives
+credit and esteem to all that are concealed." Chesterfield affirms that
+"Addison was the most timorous and awkward man that he ever saw." And
+Addison, speaking of his own deficiency in conversation, used to say of
+himself that, with respect to intellectual wealth, "he could draw bills
+for a thousand pounds, though he had not a guinea in his pocket." That
+he wanted current coin for ready payment, and by that want was often
+obstructed and distressed; and that he was often oppressed by an
+improper and ungraceful timidity, every testimony concurs to prove; but
+Chesterfield's representation is doubtless hyperbolical. That man cannot
+be supposed very unexpert in the arts of conversation and practice of
+life who, without fortune or alliance, by his usefulness and dexterity
+became Secretary of State, and who died at forty-seven, after having not
+only stood long in the highest rank of wit and literature, but filled
+one of the most important offices of State.
+
+The time in which he lived had reason to lament his obstinacy of
+silence; "for he was," says Steele, "above all men in that talent called
+humour, and enjoyed it in such perfection that I have often reflected,
+after a night spent with him apart from all the world, that I had had
+the pleasure of conversing with an intimate acquaintance of Terence and
+Catullus, who had all their wit and nature, heightened with humour more
+exquisite and delightful than any other man ever possessed." This is the
+fondness of a friend; let us hear what is told us by a rival. "Addison's
+conversation," says Pope, "had something in it more charming than I
+have found in any other man. But this was only when familiar: before
+strangers, or perhaps a single stranger, he preserved his dignity by a
+stiff silence." This modesty was by no means inconsistent with a very
+high opinion of his own merit. He demanded to be the first name in
+modern wit; and, with Steele to echo him, used to depreciate Dryden,
+whom Pope and Congreve defended against them. There is no reason to
+doubt that he suffered too much pain from the prevalence of Pope's
+poetical reputation; nor is it without strong reason suspected that by
+some disingenuous acts he endeavoured to obstruct it; Pope was not the
+only man whom he insidiously injured, though the only man of whom he
+could be afraid. His own powers were such as might have satisfied him
+with conscious excellence. Of very extensive learning he has indeed
+given no proofs. He seems to have had small acquaintance with the
+sciences, and to have read little except Latin and French; but of the
+Latin poets his "Dialogues on Medals" show that he had perused the works
+with great diligence and skill. The abundance of his own mind left him
+little indeed of adventitious sentiments; his wit always could suggest
+what the occasion demanded. He had read with critical eyes the important
+volume of human life, and knew the heart of man, from the depths of
+stratagem to the surface of affectation. What he knew he could easily
+communicate. "This," says Steele, "was particular in this writer--that
+when he had taken his resolution, or made his plan for what he designed
+to write, he would walk about a room and dictate it into language with
+as much freedom and ease as any one could write it down, and attend to
+the coherence and grammar of what he dictated."
+
+Pope, who can be less suspected of favouring his memory, declares that
+he wrote very fluently, but was slow and scrupulous in correcting; that
+many of his Spectators were written very fast, and sent immediately to
+the press; and that it seemed to be for his advantage not to have time
+for much revisal. "He would alter," says Pope, "anything to please
+his friends before publication, but would not re-touch his pieces
+afterwards; and I believe not one word of Cato to which I made an
+objection was suffered to stand."
+
+The last line of Cato is Pope's, having been originally written--
+
+     "And oh! 'twas this that ended Cato's life."
+
+Pope might have made more objections to the six concluding lines. In the
+first couplet the words "from hence" are improper; and the second line
+is taken from Dryden's Virgil. Of the next couplet, the first verse,
+being included in the second, is therefore useless; and in the third
+Discord is made to produce Strife.
+
+Of the course of Addison's familiar day, before his marriage, Pope
+has given a detail. He had in the house with him Budgell, and perhaps
+Philips. His chief companions were Steele, Budgell, Philips [Ambrose],
+Carey, Davenant, and Colonel Brett. With one or other of these he always
+breakfasted. He studied all morning; then dined at a tavern; and went
+afterwards to Button's. Button had been a servant in the Countess
+of Warwick's family, who, under the patronage of Addison, kept a
+coffee-house on the south side of Russell Street, about two doors from
+Covent Garden. Here it was that the wits of that time used to assemble.
+It is said when Addison had suffered any vexation from the countess, he
+withdrew the company from Button's house. From the coffee-house he went
+again to a tavern, where he often sat late, and drank too much wine.
+In the bottle discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and
+bashfulness for confidence. It is not unlikely that Addison was first
+seduced to excess by the manumission which he obtained from the servile
+timidity of his sober hours. He that feels oppression from the presence
+of those to whom he knows himself superior will desire to set loose his
+powers of conversation; and who that ever asked succours from Bacchus
+was able to preserve himself from being enslaved by his auxiliary?
+
+Among those friends it was that Addison displayed the elegance of his
+colloquial accomplishments, which may easily be supposed such as Pope
+represents them. The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had passed an
+evening in his company, declared that he was a parson in a tie-wig, can
+detract little from his character; he was always reserved to strangers,
+and was not incited to uncommon freedom by a character like that of
+Mandeville.
+
+From any minute knowledge of his familiar manners the intervention of
+sixty years has now debarred us. Steele once promised Congreve and the
+public a complete description of his character; but the promises of
+authors are like the vows of lovers. Steele thought no more on his
+design, or thought on it with anxiety that at last disgusted him, and
+left his friend in the hands of Tickell.
+
+One slight lineament of his character Swift has preserved. It was
+his practice, when he found any man invincibly wrong, to flatter his
+opinions by acquiescence, and sink him yet deeper in absurdity. This
+artifice of mischief was admired by Stella; and Swift seems to approve
+her admiration. His works will supply some information. It appears, from
+the various pictures of the world, that, with all his bashfulness, he
+had conversed with many distinct classes of men, had surveyed their
+ways with very diligent observation, and marked with great acuteness
+the effects of different modes of life. He was a man in whose presence
+nothing reprehensible was out of danger; quick in discerning whatever
+was wrong or ridiculous, and not unwilling to expose it. "There are,"
+says Steele, "in his writings many oblique strokes upon some of the
+wittiest men of the age." His delight was more to excite merriment than
+detestation; and he detects follies rather than crimes. If any judgment
+be made from his books of his moral character, nothing will be found but
+purity and excellence. Knowledge of mankind, indeed, less extensive
+than that of Addison, will show that to write, and to live, are very
+different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it. Yet it is
+reasonable to believe that Addison's professions and practice were at no
+great variance, since amidst that storm of faction in which most of
+his life was passed, though his station made him conspicuous, and his
+activity made him formidable, the character given him by his friends
+was never contradicted by his enemies. Of those with whom interest or
+opinion united him he had not only the esteem, but the kindness; and
+of others whom the violence of opposition drove against him, though he
+might lose the love, he retained the reverence.
+
+It is justly observed by Tickell that he employed wit on the side of
+virtue and religion. He not only made the proper use of wit himself, but
+taught it to others; and from his time it has been generally subservient
+to the cause of reason and of truth. He has dissipated the prejudice
+that had long connected gaiety with vice, and easiness of manners with
+laxity of principles. He has restored virtue to its dignity, and taught
+innocence not to be ashamed. This is an elevation of literary character
+"above all Greek, above all Roman fame." No greater felicity can genius
+attain than that of having purified intellectual pleasure, separated
+mirth from indecency, and wit from licentiousness; of having taught
+a succession of writers to bring elegance and gaiety to the aid of
+goodness; and, if I may use expressions yet more awful, of having
+"turned many to righteousness."
+
+Addison, in his life and for some time afterwards, was considered by
+a greater part of readers as supremely excelling both in poetry and
+criticism. Part of his reputation may be probably ascribed to the
+advancement of his fortune; when, as Swift observes, he became a
+statesman, and saw poets waiting at his levee, it was no wonder that
+praise was accumulated upon him. Much likewise may be more honourably
+ascribed to his personal character: he who, if he had claimed it, might
+have obtained the diadem, was not likely to be denied the laurel. But
+time quickly puts an end to artificial and accidental fame; and Addison
+is to pass through futurity protected only by his genius. Every name
+which kindness or interest once raised too high is in danger, lest the
+next age should, by the vengeance of criticism, sink it in the same
+proportion. A great writer has lately styled him "an indifferent poet,
+and a worse critic." His poetry is first to be considered; of which
+it must be confessed that it has not often those felicities of diction
+which give lustre to sentiments, or that vigour of sentiment that
+animates diction: there is little of ardour, vehemence, or transport;
+there is very rarely the awfulness of grandeur, and not very often the
+splendour of elegance. He thinks justly, but he thinks faintly. This is
+his general character; to which, doubtless, many single passages will
+furnish exception. Yet, if he seldom reaches supreme excellence,
+he rarely sinks into dulness, and is still more rarely entangled in
+absurdity. He did not trust his powers enough to be negligent. There is
+in most of his compositions a calmness and equability, deliberate and
+cautious, sometimes with little that delights, but seldom with anything
+that offends. Of this kind seem to be his poems to Dryden, to Somers,
+and to the King. His ode on St. Cecilia has been imitated by Pope, and
+has something in it of Dryden's vigour. Of his Account of the English
+Poets he used to speak as a "poor thing;" but it is not worse than his
+usual strain. He has said, not very judiciously, in his character of
+Waller--
+
+     "Thy verse could show even Cromwell's innocence,
+      And compliment the storms that bore him hence.
+      Oh! had thy Muse not come an age too soon,
+      But seen great Nassau on the British throne,
+      How had his triumph glittered in thy page!"
+
+What is this but to say that he who could compliment Cromwell had been
+the proper poet for King William? Addison, however, printed the piece.
+
+The Letter from Italy has been always praised, but has never been
+praised beyond its merit. It is more correct, with less appearance of
+labour, and more elegant, with less ambition of ornament, than any other
+of his poems. There is, however, one broken metaphor, of which notice
+may properly be taken:--
+
+                         "Fired with that name--
+      I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain,
+      That longs to launch into a nobler strain."
+
+To BRIDLE A GODDESS is no very delicate idea; but why must she be
+BRIDLED? because she LONGS TO LAUNCH; an act which was never hindered by
+a BRIDLE: and whither will she LAUNCH? into a NOBLER STRAIN. She is in
+the first line a HORSE, in the second a BOAT; and the care of the poet
+is to keep his HORSE or his BOAT from SINGING.
+
+The next composition is the far-famed "Campaign," which Dr. Warton
+has termed a "Gazette in Rhyme," with harshness not often used by the
+good-nature of his criticism. Before a censure so severe is admitted,
+let us consider that war is a frequent subject of poetry, and then
+inquire who has described it with more justice and force. Many of our
+own writers tried their powers upon this year of victory: yet Addison's
+is confessedly the best performance; his poem is the work of a man not
+blinded by the dust of learning; his images are not borrowed merely from
+books. The superiority which he confers upon his hero is not personal
+prowess and "mighty bone," but deliberate intrepidity, a calm command of
+his passions, and the power of consulting his own mind in the midst of
+danger. The rejection and contempt of fiction is rational and manly. It
+may be observed that the last line is imitated by Pope:--
+
+     "Marlb'rough's exploits appear divinely bright--
+      Raised of themselves their genuine charms they boast,
+      And those that paint them truest, praise them most."
+
+This Pope had in his thoughts, but, not knowing how to use what was not
+his own, he spoiled the thought when he had borrowed it:--
+
+     "The well-sung woes shall soothe my pensive ghost;
+      He best can paint them who shall feel them most."
+
+Martial exploits may be PAINTED; perhaps WOES may be PAINTED; but they
+are surely not PAINTED by being WELL SUNG: it is not easy to paint in
+song, or to sing in colours.
+
+No passage in the "Campaign" has been more often mentioned than the
+simile of the angel, which is said in the Tatler to be "one of the
+noblest thoughts that ever entered into the heart of man," and is
+therefore worthy of attentive consideration. Let it be first inquired
+whether it be a simile. A poetical simile is the discovery of likeness
+between two actions in their general nature dissimilar, or of causes
+terminating by different operations in some resemblance of effect. But
+the mention of another like consequence from a like cause, or of a like
+performance by a like agency, is not a simile, but an exemplification.
+It is not a simile to say that the Thames waters fields, as the Po
+waters fields; or that as Hecla vomits flames in Iceland, so AEtna
+vomits flames in Sicily. When Horace says of Pindar that he pours his
+violence and rapidity of verse, as a river swollen with rain rushes
+from the mountain; or of himself, that his genius wanders in quest of
+poetical decorations, as the bee wanders to collect honey; he, in either
+case, produces a simile: the mind is impressed with the resemblance of
+things generally unlike, as unlike as intellect and body. But if Pindar
+had been described as writing with the copiousness and grandeur of
+Homer, or Horace had told that he reviewed and finished his own poetry
+with the same care as Isocrates polished his orations, instead of
+similitude, he would have exhibited almost identity; he would have given
+the same portraits with different names. In the poem now examined, when
+the English are represented as gaining a fortified pass by repetition
+of attack and perseverance of resolution, their obstinacy of courage
+and vigour of onset are well illustrated by the sea that breaks, with
+incessant battery, the dykes of Holland. This is a simile. But when
+Addison, having celebrated the beauty of Marlborough's person, tells us
+that "Achilles thus was formed of every grace," here is no simile, but a
+mere exemplification. A simile may be compared to lines converging at
+a point, and is more excellent as the lines approach from greater
+distance: an exemplification may be considered as two parallel lines,
+which run on together without approximation, never far separated, and
+never joined.
+
+Marlborough is so like the angel in the poem that the action of both is
+almost the same, and performed by both in the same manner. Marlborough
+"teaches the battle to rage;" the angel "directs the storm:" Marlborough
+is "unmoved in peaceful thought;" the angel is "calm and serene:"
+Marlborough stands "unmoved amidst the shock of hosts;" the angel rides
+"calm in the whirlwind." The lines on Marlborough are just and noble,
+but the simile gives almost the same images a second time. But
+perhaps this thought, though hardly a simile, was remote from vulgar
+conceptions, and required great labour and research, or dexterity of
+application. Of this Dr. Madden, a name which Ireland ought to honour,
+once gave me his opinion. "If I had set," said he, "ten schoolboys to
+write on the battle of Blenheim, and eight had brought me the angel, I
+should not have been surprised."
+
+The opera of Rosamond, though it is seldom mentioned, is one of the
+first of Addison's compositions. The subject is well chosen, the fiction
+is pleasing, and the praise of Marlborough, for which the scene gives
+an opportunity, is, what perhaps every human excellence must be, the
+product of good luck improved by genius. The thoughts are sometimes
+great, and sometimes tender; the versification is easy and gay. There is
+doubtless some advantage in the shortness of the lines, which there is
+little temptation to load with expletive epithets. The dialogue seems
+commonly better than the songs. The two comic characters of Sir Trusty
+and Grideline, though of no great value, are yet such as the poet
+intended. Sir Trusty's account of the death of Rosamond is, I think,
+too grossly absurd. The whole drama is airy and elegant; engaging in its
+process, and pleasing in its conclusion. If Addison had cultivated the
+lighter parts of poetry, he would probably have excelled.
+
+The tragedy of Cato, which, contrary to the rule observed in selecting
+the works of other poets, has by the weight of its character forced its
+way into the late collection, is unquestionably the noblest production
+of Addison's genius. Of a work so much read, it is difficult to say
+anything new. About things on which the public thinks long, it commonly
+attains to think right; and of Cato it has been not unjustly determined
+that it is rather a poem in dialogue than a drama, rather a succession
+of just sentiments in elegant language than a representation of natural
+affections, or of any state probable or possible in human life. Nothing
+here "excites or assuages emotion:" here is "no magical power of raising
+phantastic terror or wild anxiety." The events are expected without
+solicitude, and are remembered without joy or sorrow. Of the agents
+we have no care; we consider not what they are doing, or what they are
+suffering; we wish only to know what they have to say. Cato is a being
+above our solicitude; a man of whom the gods take care, and whom we
+leave to their care with heedless confidence. To the rest neither gods
+nor men can have much attention; for there is not one amongst them that
+strongly attracts either affection or esteem. But they are made the
+vehicles of such sentiments and such expression that there is scarcely
+a scene in the play which the reader does not wish to impress upon his
+memory.
+
+When Cato was shown to Pope, he advised the author to print it,
+without any theatrical exhibition, supposing that it would be read more
+favourably than heard. Addison declared himself of the same opinion, but
+urged the importunity of his friends for its appearance on the stage.
+The emulation of parties made it successful beyond expectation; and its
+success has introduced or confirmed among us the use of dialogue
+too declamatory, of unaffecting elegance, and chill philosophy. The
+universality of applause, however it might quell the censure of common
+mortals, had no other effect than to harden Dennis in fixed dislike; but
+his dislike was not merely capricious. He found and showed many
+faults; he showed them indeed with anger, but he found them indeed with
+acuteness, such as ought to rescue his criticism from oblivion; though,
+at last, it will have no other life than it derives from the work which
+it endeavours to oppress. Why he pays no regard to the opinion of the
+audience, he gives his reason by remarking that--
+
+"A deference is to be paid to a general applause when it appears that
+the applause is natural and spontaneous; but that little regard is to be
+had to it when it is affected or artificial. Of all the tragedies
+which in his memory have had vast and violent runs, not one has been
+excellent, few have been tolerable, most have been scandalous. When a
+poet writes a tragedy who knows he has judgment, and who feels he has
+genius, that poet presumes upon his own merit, and scorns to make a
+cabal. That people come coolly to the representation of such a tragedy,
+without any violent expectation, or delusive imagination, or invincible
+prepossession; that such an audience is liable to receive the
+impressions which the poem shall naturally make on them, and to judge by
+their own reason, and their own judgments; and that reason and judgment
+are calm and serene, not formed by nature to make proselytes, and to
+control and lord it over the imagination of others. But that when an
+author writes a tragedy who knows he has neither genius nor judgment,
+he has recourse to the making a party, and he endeavours to make up in
+industry what is wanting in talent, and to supply by poetical craft
+the absence of poetical art: that such an author is humbly contented to
+raise men's passions by a plot without doors, since he despairs of doing
+it by that which he brings upon the stage. That party and passion, and
+prepossession, are clamorous and tumultuous things, and so much the
+more clamorous and tumultuous by how much the more erroneous: that
+they domineer and tyrannise over the imaginations of persons who want
+judgment, and sometimes too of those who have it, and, like a fierce and
+outrageous torrent, bear down all opposition before them."
+
+He then condemns the neglect of poetical justice, which is one of his
+favourite principles:--
+
+"'Tis certainly the duty of every tragic poet, by the exact distribution
+of poetical justice, to imitate the Divine Dispensation, and to
+inculcate a particular Providence. 'Tis true, indeed, upon the stage of
+the world, the wicked sometimes prosper and the guiltless suffer;
+but that is permitted by the Governor of the World, to show, from the
+attribute of His infinite justice, that there is a compensation in
+futurity, to prove the immortality of the human soul, and the certainty
+of future rewards and punishments. But the poetical persons in tragedy
+exist no longer than the reading or the representation; the whole extent
+of their enmity is circumscribed by those; and therefore, during that
+reading or representation, according to their merits or demerits, they
+must be punished or rewarded. If this is not done, there is no impartial
+distribution of poetical justice, no instructive lecture of a particular
+Providence, and no imitation of the Divine Dispensation. And yet the
+author of this tragedy does not only run counter to this, in the fate
+of his principal character; but everywhere, throughout it, makes virtue
+suffer, and vice triumph: for not only Cato is vanquished by Caesar,
+but the treachery and perfidiousness of Syphax prevail over the
+honest simplicity and the credulity of Juba; and the sly subtlety
+and dissimulation of Portius over the generous frankness and
+open-heartedness of Marcus."
+
+Whatever pleasure there may be in seeing crimes punished and virtue
+rewarded, yet, since wickedness often prospers in real life, the poet is
+certainly at liberty to give it prosperity on the stage. For if poetry
+has an imitation of reality, how are its laws broken by exhibiting the
+world in its true form? The stage may sometimes gratify our wishes; but
+if it be truly the "MIRROR OF LIFE," it ought to show us sometimes what
+we are to expect.
+
+Dennis objects to the characters that they are not natural or
+reasonable; but as heroes and heroines are not beings that are seen
+every day, it is hard to find upon what principles their conduct shall
+be tried. It is, however, not useless to consider what he says of the
+manner in which Cato receives the account of his son's death:--
+
+"Nor is the grief of Cato, in the fourth act, one jot more in nature
+than that of his son and Lucia in the third. Cato receives the news
+of his son's death, not only with dry eyes, but with a sort of
+satisfaction; and in the same page sheds tears for the calamity of
+his country, and does the same thing in the next page upon the bare
+apprehension of the danger of his friends. Now, since the love of one's
+country is the love of one's countrymen, as I have shown upon another
+occasion, I desire to ask these questions:--Of all our countrymen, which
+do we love most, those whom we know, or those whom we know not? And
+of those whom we know, which do we cherish most, our friends or our
+enemies? And of our friends, which are the dearest to us, those who are
+related to us, or those who are not? And of all our relations, for which
+have we most tenderness, for those who are near to us, or for those
+who are remote? And of our near relations, which are the nearest, and
+consequently the dearest to us, our offspring, or others? Our offspring,
+most certainly; as Nature, or in other words Providence, has wisely
+contrived for the preservation of mankind. Now, does it not follow,
+from what has been said, that for a man to receive the news of his son's
+death with dry eyes, and to weep at the same time for the calamities of
+his country, is a wretched affectation and a miserable inconsistency?
+Is not that, in plain English, to receive with dry eyes the news of the
+deaths of those for whose sake our country is a name so dear to us, and
+at the same time to shed tears for those for whose sakes our country is
+not a name so dear to us?"
+
+But this formidable assailant is less resistible when he attacks the
+probability of the action and the reasonableness of the plan. Every
+critical reader must remark that Addison has, with a scrupulosity almost
+unexampled on the English stage, confined himself in time to a single
+day, and in place to rigorous unity. The scene never changes, and the
+whole action of the play passes in the great hall of Cato's house at
+Utica. Much, therefore, is done in the hall for which any other place
+had been more fit; and this impropriety affords Dennis many hints of
+merriment and opportunities of triumph. The passage is long; but as such
+disquisitions are not common, and the objections are skilfully formed
+and vigorously urged, those who delight in critical controversy will not
+think it tedious:--
+
+"Upon the departure of Portius, Sempronius makes but one soliloquy,
+and immediately in comes Syphax, and then the two politicians are at it
+immediately. They lay their heads together, with their snuff-boxes in
+their hands, as Mr. Bayes has it, and feague it away. But, in the
+midst of that wise scene, Syphax seems to give a seasonable caution to
+Sempronius:--
+
+     "'SYPH.  But is it true, Sempronius, that your senate
+   Is called together?  Gods! thou must be cautious;
+   Cato has piercing eyes.'
+
+"There is a great deal of caution shown, indeed, in meeting in a
+governor's own hall to carry on their plot against him. Whatever opinion
+they have of his eyes, I suppose they have none of his ears, or they
+would never have talked at this foolish rate so near:--
+
+     "'Gods! thou must be cautious.'
+
+Oh! yes, very cautious: for if Cato should overhear you, and turn you
+off for politicians, Caesar would never take you.
+
+"When Cato, Act II., turns the senators out of the hall upon pretence of
+acquainting Juba with the result of their debates, he appears to me to
+do a thing which is neither reasonable nor civil. Juba might certainly
+have better been made acquainted with the result of that debate in
+some private apartment of the palace. But the poet was driven upon
+this absurdity to make way for another, and that is to give Juba an
+opportunity to demand Marcia of her father. But the quarrel and rage of
+Juba and Syphax, in the same act; the invectives of Syphax against the
+Romans and Cato; the advice that he gives Juba in her father's hall to
+bear away Marcia by force; and his brutal and clamorous rage upon his
+refusal, and at a time when Cato was scarcely out of sight, and perhaps
+not out of hearing, at least some of his guards or domestics must
+necessarily be supposed to be within hearing; is a thing that is so far
+from being probable, that it is hardly possible.
+
+"Sempronius, in the second act, comes back once more in the same morning
+to the governor's hall to carry on the conspiracy with Syphax against
+the governor, his country, and his family: which is so stupid that it is
+below the wisdom of the O---s, the Macs, and the Teagues; even Eustace
+Commins himself would never have gone to Justice-hall to have conspired
+against the Government. If officers at Portsmouth should lay their heads
+together in order to the carrying off J--- G---'s niece or daughter,
+would they meet in J---G---'s hall to carry on that conspiracy? There
+would be no necessity for their meeting there--at least, till they came
+to the execution of their plot--because there would be other places
+to meet in. There would be no probability that they should meet there,
+because there would be places more private and more commodious. Now
+there ought to be nothing in a tragical action but what is necessary or
+probable.
+
+"But treason is not the only thing that is carried on in this hall;
+that, and love and philosophy take their turns in it, without any manner
+of necessity or probability occasioned by the action, as duly and as
+regularly, without interrupting one another, as if there were a triple
+league between them, and a mutual agreement that each should give place
+to and make way for the other in a due and orderly succession.
+
+"We now come to the third act. Sempronius, in this act, comes into the
+governor's hall with the leaders of the mutiny; but as soon as Cato is
+gone, Sempronius, who but just before had acted like an unparalleled
+knave, discovers himself, like an egregious fool, to be an accomplice in
+the conspiracy.
+
+     "'SEMP.  Know, villains, when such paltry slaves presume
+   To mix in treason, if the plot succeeds,
+   They're thrown neglected by; but, if it fails,
+   They're sure to die like dogs, as you shall do.
+   Here, take these factious monsters, drag them forth
+   To sudden death.'
+
+"'Tis true, indeed, the second leader says there are none there but
+friends; but is that possible at such a juncture? Can a parcel of rogues
+attempt to assassinate the governor of a town of war, in his own house,
+in midday, and, after they are discovered and defeated, can there
+be none near them but friends? Is it not plain, from these words of
+Sempronius--
+
+     "'Here, take these factious monsters, drag them forth
+       To sudden death--'
+
+and from the entrance of the guards upon the word of command, that
+those guards were within ear-shot? Behold Sempronius, then, palpably
+discovered. How comes it to pass, then, that instead of being hanged
+up with the rest, he remains secure in the governor's hall, and there
+carries on his conspiracy against the Government, the third time in the
+same day, with his old comrade Syphax, who enters at the same time
+that the guards are carrying away the leaders, big with the news of the
+defeat of Sempronius?--though where he had his intelligence so soon is
+difficult to imagine. And now the reader may expect a very extraordinary
+scene. There is not abundance of spirit, indeed, nor a great deal of
+passion, but there is wisdom more than enough to supply all defects.
+
+     "'SYPH.  Our first design, my friend, has proved abortive;
+   Still there remains an after-game to play:
+   My troops are mounted; their Numidian steeds
+   Snuff up the winds, and long to scour the desert.
+   Let but Sempronius lead us in our flight,
+   We'll force the gate where Marcus keeps his guard,
+   And hew down all that would oppose our passage;
+   A day will bring us into Caesar's camp.
+       SEMP. Confusion! I have failed of half my purpose;
+   Marcia, the charming Marcia's left behind.'
+
+Well, but though he tells us the half-purpose he has failed of, he does
+not tell us the half that he has carried. But what does he mean by
+
+     "'Marcia, the charming Marcia's left behind'?
+
+He is now in her own house! and we have neither seen her nor heard of
+her anywhere else since the play began. But now let us hear Syphax:--
+
+     "'What hinders, then, but that you find her out,
+       And hurry her away by manly force?'
+
+But what does old Syphax mean by finding her out? They talk as if she
+were as hard to be found as a hare in a frosty morning.
+
+     "'SEMP.  But how to gain admission?'
+
+Oh! she is found out then, it seems.
+
+     "'But how to gain admission? for access
+       Is giv'n to none but Juba and her brothers.'
+
+But, raillery apart, why access to Juba? For he was owned and received
+as a lover neither by the father nor by the daughter. Well, but let
+that pass. Syphax puts Sempronius out of pain immediately; and, being
+a Numidian, abounding in wiles, supplies him with a stratagem for
+admission that, I believe, is a nonpareil.
+
+     "'SYPH.  Thou shalt have Juba's dress, and Juba's guards;
+   The doors will open when Numidia's prince
+   Seems to appear before them.'
+
+"Sempronius is, it seems, to pass for Juba in full day at Cato's house,
+where they were both so very well known, by having Juba's dress and his
+guards; as if one of the Marshals of France could pass for the Duke of
+Bavaria at noonday, at Versailles, by having his dress and liveries. But
+how does Syphax pretend to help Sempronius to young Juba's dress?
+Does he serve him in a double capacity, as general and master of his
+wardrobe? But why Juba's guards? For the devil of any guards has Juba
+appeared with yet. Well, though this is a mighty politic invention, yet,
+methinks, they might have done without it: for, since the advice that
+Syphax gave to Sempronius was
+
+     "'To hurry her away by manly force,'
+
+in my opinion the shortest and likeliest way of coming at the lady
+was by demolishing, instead of putting on an impertinent disguise to
+circumvent two or three slaves. But Sempronius, it seems, is of another
+opinion. He extols to the skies the invention of old Syphax:--
+
+     "'SEMP.  Heavens! what a thought was there!'
+
+"Now, I appeal to the reader if I have not been as good as my word. Did
+I not tell him that I would lay before him a very wise scene?
+
+"But now let us lay before the reader that part of the scenery of the
+fourth act which may show the absurdities which the author has run
+into, through the indiscreet observance of the unity of place. I do not
+remember that Aristotle has said anything expressly concerning the unity
+of place. 'Tis true, implicitly he has said enough in the rules which he
+has laid down for the chorus. For by making the chorus an essential
+part of tragedy, and by bringing it on the stage immediately after the
+opening of the scene, and retaining it there till the very catastrophe,
+he has so determined and fixed the place of action that it was
+impossible for an author on the Grecian stage to break through that
+unity. I am of opinion that if a modern tragic poet can preserve the
+amity of place, without destroying the probability of the incidents,
+'tis always best for him to do it; because by the preservation of that
+unity, as we have taken notice above, he adds grace and clearness and
+comeliness to the representation. But since there are no express rules
+about it, and we are under no compulsion to keep it, since we have
+no chorus as the Grecian poet had; if it cannot be preserved without
+rendering the greater part of the incidents unreasonable and absurd, and
+perhaps sometimes monstrous, 'tis certainly better to break it.
+
+"Now comes bully Sempronius, comically accoutred and equipped with his
+Numidian dress and his Numidian guards. Let the reader attend to him
+with all his ears, for the words of the wise are precious:--
+
+     "'SEMP.  The deer is lodged; I've tracked her to her covert.'
+
+"Now I would fain know why this deer is said to be lodged, since we
+have not heard one word since the play began of her being at all out of
+harbour: and if we consider the discourse with which she and Lucia begin
+the act, we have reason to believe that they had hardly been talking
+of such matters in the street. However, to pleasure Sempronius, let us
+suppose, for once, that the deer is lodged:--
+
+     "'The deer is lodged; I've tracked her to her covert.'
+
+"If he had seen her in the open field, what occasion had he to track her
+when he had so many Numidian dogs at his heels, which, with one halloo,
+he might have set upon her haunches? If he did not see her in the
+open field, how could he possibly track her? If he had seen her in the
+street, why did he not set upon her in the street, since through the
+street she must be carried at last? Now here, instead of having his
+thoughts upon his business, and upon the present danger; instead of
+meditating and contriving how he shall pass with his mistress through
+the southern gate, where her brother Marcus is upon the guard, and where
+he would certainly prove an impediment to him (which is the Roman word
+for the BAGGAGE); instead of doing this, Sempronius is entertaining
+himself with whimsies:--
+
+        "'Semp.  How will the young Numidian rave to see
+     His mistress lost!  If aught could glad my soul
+     Beyond th' enjoyment of so bright a prize,
+     'Twould be to torture that young, gay barbarian.
+     But hark! what noise?  Death to my hopes! 'tis he,
+     'Tis Juba's self!  There is but one way left!
+     He must be murdered, and a passage cut
+     Through those his guards.'
+
+"Pray, what are 'those guards'? I thought at present that Juba's guards
+had been Sempronius's tools, and had been dangling after his heels.
+
+"But now let us sum up all these absurdities together. Sempronius goes
+at noon-day, in Juba's clothes and with Juba's guards, to Cato's palace,
+in order to pass for Juba, in a place where they were both so very well
+known: he meets Juba there, and resolves to murder him with his own
+guards. Upon the guards appearing a little bashful, he threatens them:--
+
+     "'Hah! dastards, do you tremble?
+      Or act like men; or, by yon azure heav'n!'--
+
+"But the guards still remaining restive, Sempronius himself attacks
+Juba, while each of the guards is representing Mr. Spectator's sign of
+the Gaper, awed, it seems, and terrified by Sempronius's threats. Juba
+kills Sempronius, and takes his own army prisoners, and carries them in
+triumph away to Cato. Now I would fain know if any part of Mr. Bayes's
+tragedy is so full of absurdity as this?
+
+"Upon hearing the clash of swords, Lucia and Marcia come in. The
+question is, why no men come in upon hearing the noise of swords in the
+governor's hall? Where was the governor himself? Where were his guards?
+Where were his servants? Such an attempt as this, so near the governor
+of a place of war, was enough to alarm the whole garrison: and yet, for
+almost half an hour after Sempronius was killed, we find none of those
+appear who were the likeliest in the world to be alarmed; and the noise
+of swords is made to draw only two poor women thither, who were most
+certain to run away from it. Upon Lucia and Marcia's coming in, Lucia
+appears in all the symptoms of an hysterical gentlewoman:--
+
+        "'Luc.  Sure 'twas the clash of swords! my troubled heart
+      Is so cast down, and sunk amidst its sorrows,
+      It throbs with fear, and aches at every sound!'
+
+And immediately her old whimsy returns upon her:--
+
+     "O Marcia, should thy brothers, for my sake--
+      I die away with horror at the thought.'
+
+"She fancies that there can be no cutting of throats but it must be for
+her. If this is tragical, I would fain know what is comical. Well, upon
+this they spy the body of Sempronius; and Marcia, deluded by the habit,
+it seems, takes him for Juba; for, says she,
+
+     "'The face is muffled up within the garment.'
+
+"Now, how a man could fight, and fall, with his face muffled up in his
+garment, is, I think, a little hard to conceive! Besides, Juba, before
+he killed him, knew him to be Sempronius. It was not by his garment
+that he knew this; it was by his face, then: his face therefore was
+not muffled. Upon seeing this man with his muffled face, Marcia falls
+a-raving; and, owning her passion for the supposed defunct, begins to
+make his funeral oration. Upon which Juba enters listening, I suppose
+on tip-toe; for I cannot imagine how any one can enter listening in any
+other posture. I would fain know how it came to pass that, during all
+this time, he had sent nobody--no, not so much as a candle-snuffer--to
+take away the dead body of Sempronius. Well, but let us regard him
+listening. Having left his apprehension behind him, he, at first,
+applies what Marcia says to Sempronius; but finding at last, with much
+ado, that he himself is the happy man, he quits his eaves-dropping, and
+discovers himself just time enough to prevent his being cuckolded by
+a dead man, of whom the moment before he had appeared so jealous, and
+greedily intercepts the bliss which was fondly designed for one who
+could not be the better for it. But here I must ask a question: how
+comes Juba to listen here, who had not listened before throughout the
+play? Or how comes he to be the only person of this tragedy who listens,
+when love and treason were so often talked in so public a place as a
+hall? I am afraid the author was driven upon all these absurdities only
+to introduce this miserable mistake of Marcia, which, after all, is
+much below the dignity of tragedy; as anything is which is the effect or
+result of trick.
+
+"But let us come to the scenery of the fifth act. Cato appears first
+upon the scene, sitting in a thoughtful posture; in his hand Plato's
+Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul; a drawn sword on the table by
+him. Now let us consider the place in which this sight is presented to
+us. The place, forsooth, is a long hall. Let us suppose that any one
+should place himself in this posture, in the midst of one of our halls
+in London; that he should appear solus, in a sullen posture, a
+drawn sword on the table by him; in his hand Plato's Treatise on the
+Immortality of the Soul, translated lately by Bernard Lintot: I desire
+the reader to consider whether such a person as this would pass with
+them who beheld him for a great patriot, a great philosopher, or a
+general, or some whimsical person who fancied himself all these? and
+whether the people who belonged to the family would think that such a
+person had a design upon their midriffs or his own?
+
+"In short, that Cato should sit long enough in the aforesaid posture,
+in the midst of this large hall, to read over Plato's Treatise on the
+Immortality of the Soul, which is a lecture of two long hours; that he
+should propose to himself to be private there upon that occasion; that
+he should be angry with his son for intruding there; then that he should
+leave this hall upon the pretence of sleep, give himself the mortal
+wound in his bedchamber, and then be brought back into that hall to
+expire, purely to show his good breeding, and save his friends the
+trouble of coming up to his bedchamber; all this appears to me to be
+improbable, incredible, impossible."
+
+Such is the censure of Dennis. There is, as Dryden expresses it, perhaps
+"too much horse-play in his railleries;" but if his jests are coarse,
+his arguments are strong. Yet, as we love better to be pleased than
+to be taught, Cato is read, and the critic is neglected. Flushed with
+consciousness of these detections of absurdity in the conduct, he
+afterwards attacked the sentiments of Cato; but he then amused himself
+with petty cavils and minute objections.
+
+Of Addison's smaller poems no particular mention is necessary; they have
+little that can employ or require a critic. The parallel of the princes
+and gods in his verses to Kneller is often happy, but is too well known
+to be quoted. His translations, so far as I compared them, want the
+exactness of a scholar. That he understood his authors, cannot be
+doubted; but his versions will not teach others to understand them,
+being too licentiously paraphrastical. They are, however, for the
+most part, smooth and easy; and, what is the first excellence of a
+translator, such as may be read with pleasure by those who do not know
+the originals. His poetry is polished and pure; the product of a mind
+too judicious to commit faults, but not sufficiently vigorous to attain
+excellence. He has sometimes a striking line, or a shining paragraph;
+but in the whole he is warm rather than fervid, and shows more dexterity
+than strength. He was, however, one of our earliest examples of
+correctness. The versification which he had learned from Dryden he
+debased rather than refined. His rhymes are often dissonant; in his
+Georgic he admits broken lines. He uses both triplets and Alexandrines,
+but triplets more frequently in his translation than his other works.
+The mere structure of verses seems never to have engaged much of his
+care. But his lines are very smooth in Rosamond, and too smooth in Cato.
+
+Addison is now to be considered as a critic: a name which the present
+generation is scarcely willing to allow him. His criticism is condemned
+as tentative or experimental rather than scientific; and he is
+considered as deciding by taste rather than by principles.
+
+It is not uncommon for those who have grown wise by the labour of others
+to add a little of their own, and overlook their masters. Addison is now
+despised by some who perhaps would never have seen his defects but by
+the lights which he afforded them. That he always wrote as he would
+think it necessary to write now, cannot be affirmed; his instructions
+were such as the characters of his readers made proper. That general
+knowledge which now circulates in common talk was in his time rarely
+to be found. Men not professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance;
+and, in the female world, any acquaintance with books was distinguished
+only to be censured. His purpose was to infuse literary curiosity,
+by gentle and unsuspected conveyance, into the gay, the idle, and the
+wealthy; he therefore presented knowledge in the most alluring form,
+not lofty and austere, but accessible and familiar. When he showed
+them their defects, he showed them likewise that they might be easily
+supplied. His attempt succeeded; inquiry was awakened, and comprehension
+expanded. An emulation of intellectual elegance was excited, and from
+this time to our own life has been gradually exalted, and conversation
+purified and enlarged.
+
+Dryden had, not many years before, scattered criticism over his prefaces
+with very little parsimony; but though he sometimes condescended to be
+somewhat familiar, his manner was in general too scholastic for
+those who had yet their rudiments to learn, and found it not easy to
+understand their master. His observations were framed rather for those
+that were learning to write than for those that read only to talk.
+
+An instructor like Addison was now wanting, whose remarks, being
+superficial, might be easily understood, and being just, might prepare
+the mind for more attainments. Had he presented "Paradise Lost" to
+the public with all the pomp of system and severity of science, the
+criticism would perhaps have been admired, and the poem still have been
+neglected; but by the blandishments of gentleness and facility he has
+made Milton an universal favourite, with whom readers of every class
+think it necessary to be pleased. He descended now and then to lower
+disquisitions: and by a serious display of the beauties of "Chevy Chase"
+exposed himself to the ridicule of Wagstaff, who bestowed a like pompous
+character on Tom Thumb; and to the contempt of Dennis, who, considering
+the fundamental position of his criticism, that "Chevy Chase" pleases,
+and ought to please, because it is natural, observes; "that there is a
+way of deviating from nature, by bombast or tumour, which soars above
+nature, and enlarges images beyond their real bulk; by affectation,
+which forsakes nature in quest of something unsuitable; and by
+imbecility, which degrades nature by faintness and diminution, by
+obscuring its appearances, and weakening its effects." In "Chevy Chase"
+there is not much of either bombast or affectation; but there is chill
+and lifeless imbecility. The story cannot possibly be told in a manner
+that shall make less impression on the mind.
+
+Before the profound observers of the present race repose too securely on
+the consciousness of their superiority to Addison, let them consider
+his Remarks on Ovid, in which may be found specimens of criticism
+sufficiently subtle and refined: let them peruse likewise his Essays on
+Wit, and on the Pleasures of Imagination, in which he founds art on the
+base of nature, and draws the principles of invention from dispositions
+inherent in the mind of man with skill and elegance, such as his
+contemners will not easily attain.
+
+As a describer of life and manners, he must be allowed to stand perhaps
+the first of the first rank. His humour, which, as Steele observes,
+is peculiar to himself, is so happily diffused as to give the grace of
+novelty to domestic scenes and daily occurrences. He never "o'ersteps
+the modesty of nature," nor raises merriment or wonder by the violation
+of truth. His figures neither divert by distortion nor amaze by
+aggravation. He copies life with so much fidelity that he can be hardly
+said to invent; yet his exhibitions have an air so much original, that
+it is difficult to suppose them not merely the product of imagination.
+
+As a teacher of wisdom, he may be confidently followed. His religion has
+nothing in it enthusiastic or superstitious: he appears neither weakly
+credulous nor wantonly sceptical; his morality is neither dangerously
+lax nor impracticably rigid. All the enchantment of fancy, and all the
+cogency of argument, are employed to recommend to the reader his real
+interest, the care of pleasing the Author of his being. Truth is shown
+sometimes as the phantom of a vision; sometimes appears half-veiled
+in an allegory; sometimes attracts regard in the robes of fancy; and
+sometimes steps forth in the confidence of reason. She wears a thousand
+dresses, and in all is pleasing.
+
+     "Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet."
+
+His prose is the model of the middle style; on grave subjects not
+formal, on light occasions not grovelling; pure without scrupulosity,
+and exact without apparent elaboration; always equable, and always easy,
+without glowing words or pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from
+his track to snatch a grace; he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries
+no hazardous innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes
+in unexpected splendour.
+
+It was apparently his principal endeavour to avoid all harshness
+and severity of diction; he is therefore sometimes verbose in his
+transitions and connections, and sometimes descends too much to the
+language of conversation; yet if his language had been less idiomatical
+it might have lost somewhat of its genuine Anglicism. What he attempted,
+he performed; he is never feeble and he did not wish to be energetic;
+he is never rapid and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither
+studied amplitude nor affected brevity; his periods, though not
+diligently rounded, are voluble and easy. Whoever wishes to attain
+an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not
+ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
+
+
+
+
+SAVAGE.
+
+
+It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of
+fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness:
+and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their
+capacity, has placed upon the summit of human life, have not often given
+any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower
+station; whether it be that apparent superiority incites great designs,
+and great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that
+the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose
+eminence drew upon them universal attention have been more carefully
+recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality
+been only more conspicuous than those of others, not more frequent, or
+more severe.
+
+That affluence and power, advantages extrinsic and adventitious, and
+therefore easily separable from those by whom they are possessed, should
+very often flatter the mind with expectations of felicity which they
+cannot give, raises no astonishment: but it seems rational to hope
+that intellectual greatness should produce better effects; that minds
+qualified for great attainments should first endeavour their own
+benefit, and that they who are most able to teach others the way to
+happiness, should with most certainty follow it themselves. But this
+expectation, however plausible, has been very frequently disappointed.
+The heroes of literary as well as civil history have been very often
+no less remarkable for what they have suffered than for what they have
+achieved; and volumes have been written only to enumerate the miseries
+of the learned, and relate their unhappy lives and untimely deaths.
+
+To these mournful narratives I am about to add the Life of RICHARD
+SAVAGE, a man whose writings entitle him to an eminent rank in the
+classes of learning, and whose misfortunes claim a degree of compassion
+not always due to the unhappy, as they were often the consequences of
+the crimes of others rather than his own.
+
+In the year 1697, Anne, Countess of Macclesfield, having lived some time
+upon very uneasy terms with her husband, thought a public confession
+of adultery the most obvious and expeditious method of obtaining her
+liberty; and therefore declared that the child with which she was then
+great, was begotten by the Earl Rivers. This, as may be imagined,
+made her husband no less desirous of a separation than herself, and he
+prosecuted his design in the most effectual manner: for he applied, not
+to the ecclesiastical courts for a divorce, but to the Parliament for
+an Act by which his marriage might be dissolved, the nuptial contract
+annulled, and the children of his wife illegitimated. This Act, after
+the usual deliberation, he obtained, though without the approbation
+of some, who considered marriage as an affair only cognisable by
+ecclesiastical judges; and on March 3rd was separated from his wife,
+whose fortune, which was very great, was repaid her, and who having,
+as well as her husband, the liberty of making another choice, she in a
+short time married Colonel Brett.
+
+While the Earl of Macclesfield was prosecuting this affair, his wife
+was, on the 10th of January, 1607-8,[sic] delivered of a son: and the
+Earl Rivers, by appearing to consider him as his own, left none any
+reason to doubt of the sincerity of her declaration; for he was his
+godfather and gave him his own name, which was by his direction inserted
+in the register of St. Andrew's parish in Holborn, but unfortunately
+left him to the care of his mother, whom, as she was now set free from
+her husband, he probably imagined likely to treat with great tenderness
+the child that had contributed to so pleasing an event. It is not indeed
+easy to discover what motives could be found to overbalance that natural
+affection of a parent, or what interest could be promoted by neglect or
+cruelty. The dread of shame or of poverty, by which some wretches have
+been incited to abandon or murder their children, cannot be supposed
+to have affected a woman who had proclaimed her crimes and solicited
+reproach, and on whom the clemency of the Legislature had undeservedly
+bestowed a fortune, which would have been very little diminished by the
+expenses which the care of her child could have brought upon her. It was
+therefore not likely that she would be wicked without temptation; that
+she would look upon her son from his birth with a kind of resentment and
+abhorrence; and, instead of supporting, assisting, and defending him,
+delight to see him struggling with misery, or that she would take
+every opportunity of aggravating his misfortunes, and obstructing his
+resources, and with an implacable and restless cruelty continue her
+persecution from the first hour of his life to the last. But whatever
+were her motives, no sooner was her son born than she discovered a
+resolution of disowning him; and in a very short time removed him from
+her sight, by committing him to the care of a poor woman, whom she
+directed to educate him as her own, and enjoined never to inform him of
+his true parents.
+
+Such was the beginning of the life of Richard Savage. Born with a legal
+claim to honour and to affluence, he was in two months illegitimated
+by the Parliament, and disowned by his mother, doomed to poverty and
+obscurity, and launched upon the ocean of life only that he might be
+swallowed by its quicksands, or dashed upon its rocks. His mother could
+not indeed infect others with the same cruelty. As it was impossible to
+avoid the inquiries which the curiosity or tenderness of her relations
+made after her child, she was obliged to give some account of the
+measures she had taken; and her mother, the Lady Mason, whether in
+approbation of her design, or to prevent more criminal contrivances,
+engaged to transact with the nurse, to pay her for her care, and to
+superintend the education of the child.
+
+In this charitable office she was assisted by his godmother, Mrs. Lloyd,
+who, while she lived, always looked upon him with that tenderness which
+the barbarity of his mother made peculiarly necessary; but her death,
+which happened in his tenth year, was another of the misfortunes of his
+childhood, for though she kindly endeavoured to alleviate his loss by
+a legacy of three hundred pounds, yet as he had none to prosecute his
+claim, to shelter him from oppression, or call in law to the assistance
+of justice, her will was eluded by the executors, and no part of the
+money was ever paid. He was, however, not yet wholly abandoned. The Lady
+Mason still continued her care, and directed him to be placed at a small
+grammar school near St. Albans, where he was called by the name of his
+nurse, without the least intimation that he had a claim to any other.
+Here he was initiated in literature, and passed through several of the
+classes, with what rapidity or with what applause cannot now be known.
+As he always spoke with respect of his master, it is probable that the
+mean rank in which he then appeared did not hinder his genius from being
+distinguished, or his industry from being rewarded; and if in so low a
+state he obtained distinctions and rewards, it is not likely that they
+were gained but by genius and industry.
+
+It is very reasonable to conjecture that his application was equal to
+his abilities, because his improvement was more than proportioned to
+the opportunities which he enjoyed; nor can it be doubted that if his
+earliest productions had been preserved, like those of happier students,
+we might in some have found vigorous sallies of that sprightly humour
+which distinguishes "The Author to be Let," and in others strong touches
+of that imagination which painted the solemn scenes of "The Wanderer."
+
+While he was thus cultivating his genius, his father, the Earl Rivers,
+was seized with a distemper, which in a short time put an end to his
+life. He had frequently inquired after his son, and had always been
+amused with fallacious and evasive answers; but being now in his own
+opinion on his death-bed, he thought it his duty to provide for him
+among his other natural children, and therefore demanded a positive
+account of him, with an importunity not to be diverted or denied. His
+mother, who could no longer refuse an answer, determined at least to
+give such as should cut him off for ever from that happiness which
+competence affords, and therefore declared that he was dead; which is
+perhaps the first instance of a lie invented by a mother to deprive
+her son of a provision which was designed him by another, and which she
+could not expect herself, though he should lose it. This was therefore
+an act of wickedness which could not be defeated, because it could not
+be suspected; the earl did not imagine that there could exist in a human
+form a mother that would ruin her son without enriching herself, and
+therefore bestowed upon some other person six thousand pounds which he
+had in his will bequeathed to Savage.
+
+The same cruelty which incited his mother to intercept this provision
+which had been intended him, prompted her in a short time to another
+project, a project worthy of such a disposition. She endeavoured to
+rid herself from the danger of being at any time made known to him, by
+sending him secretly to the American Plantations. By whose kindness this
+scheme was counteracted, or by whose interposition she was induced to
+lay aside her design, I know not; it is not improbable that the Lady
+Mason might persuade or compel her to desist, or perhaps she could not
+easily find accomplices wicked enough to concur in so cruel an action;
+for it may be conceived that those who had by a long gradation of guilt
+hardened their hearts against the sense of common wickedness, would yet
+be shocked at the design of a mother to expose her son to slavery and
+want, to expose him without interest, and without provocation; and
+Savage might on this occasion find protectors and advocates among those
+who had long traded in crimes, and whom compassion had never touched
+before.
+
+Being hindered, by whatever means, from banishing him into another
+country, she formed soon after a scheme for burying him in poverty and
+obscurity in his own; and that his station of life, if not the place
+of his residence, might keep him for ever at a distance from her, she
+ordered him to be placed with a shoemaker in Holborn, that, after the
+usual time of trial, he might become his apprentice.
+
+It is generally reported that this project was for some time successful,
+and that Savage was employed at the awl longer than he was willing
+to confess: nor was it perhaps any great advantage to him, that an
+unexpected discovery determined him to quit his occupation.
+
+About this time his nurse, who had always treated him as her own son,
+died; and it was natural for him to take care of those effects which by
+her death were, as he imagined, become his own: he therefore went to her
+house, opened her boxes, and examined her papers, among which he found
+some letters written to her by the Lady Mason, which informed him of
+his birth, and the reasons for which it was concealed. He was no longer
+satisfied with the employment which had been allotted him, but thought
+he had a right to share the affluence of his mother; and therefore
+without scruple applied to her as her son, and made use of every art to
+awaken her tenderness and attract her regard. But neither his letters,
+nor the interposition of those friends which his merit or his distress
+procured him, made any impression on her mind. She still resolved to
+neglect, though she could no longer disown him. It was to no purpose
+that he frequently solicited her to admit him to see her; she avoided
+him with the most vigilant precaution, and ordered him to be excluded
+from her house, by whomsoever he might be introduced, and what reason
+soever he might give for entering it.
+
+Savage was at the same time so touched with the discovery of his real
+mother, that it was his frequent practice to walk in the dark evenings
+for several hours before her door, in hopes of seeing her as she might
+come by accident to the window, or cross her apartment with a candle in
+her hand. But all his assiduity and tenderness were without effect, for
+he could neither soften her heart nor open her hand, and was reduced
+to the utmost miseries of want, while he was endeavouring to awaken the
+affection of a mother. He was therefore obliged to seek some other means
+of support; and, having no profession, became by necessity an author.
+
+At this time the attention of the literary world was engrossed by the
+Bangorian controversy, which filled the press with pamphlets, and the
+coffee-houses with disputants. Of this subject, as most popular, he made
+choice for his first attempt, and, without any other knowledge of the
+question than he had casually collected from conversation, published
+a poem against the bishop. What was the success or merit of this
+performance I know not; it was probably lost among the innumerable
+pamphlets to which that dispute gave occasion. Mr. Savage was himself
+in a little time ashamed of it, and endeavoured to suppress it, by
+destroying all the copies that he could collect. He then attempted a
+more gainful kind of writing, and in his eighteenth year offered to the
+stage a comedy borrowed from a Spanish plot, which was refused by the
+players, and was therefore given by him to Mr. Bullock, who, having more
+interest, made some slight alterations, and brought it upon the stage,
+under the title of Woman's a Riddle, but allowed the unhappy author no
+part of the profit.
+
+Not discouraged, however, at his repulse, he wrote two years afterwards
+Love in a Veil, another comedy, borrowed likewise from the Spanish, but
+with little better success than before; for though it was received and
+acted, yet it appeared so late in the year, that the author obtained no
+other advantage from it than the acquaintance of Sir Richard Steele and
+Mr. Wilks, by whom he was pitied, caressed, and relieved.
+
+Sir Richard Steele, having declared in his favour with all the ardour of
+benevolence which constituted his character, promoted his interest with
+the utmost zeal, related his misfortunes, applauded his merit, took all
+the opportunities of recommending him, and asserted that "the inhumanity
+of his mother had given him a right to find every good man his father."
+Nor was Mr. Savage admitted to his acquaintance only, but to his
+confidence, of which he sometimes related an instance too extraordinary
+to be omitted, as it affords a very just idea of his patron's
+character. He was once desired by Sir Richard, with an air of the utmost
+importance, to come very early to his house the next morning. Mr. Savage
+came as he had promised, found the chariot at the door, and Sir Richard
+waiting for him, and ready to go out. What was intended, and whither
+they were to go, Savage could not conjecture, and was not willing to
+inquire; but immediately seated himself with Sir Richard. The coachman
+was ordered to drive, and they hurried with the utmost expedition to
+Hyde Park Corner, where they stopped at a petty tavern, and retired to a
+private room. Sir Richard then informed him that he intended to publish
+a pamphlet, and that he had desired him to come thither that he might
+write for him. He soon sat down to the work. Sir Richard dictated, and
+Savage wrote, till the dinner that had been ordered was put upon the
+table. Savage was surprised at the meanness of the entertainment, and
+after some hesitation ventured to ask for wine, which Sir Richard, not
+without reluctance, ordered to be brought. They then finished their
+dinner, and proceeded in their pamphlet, which they concluded in the
+afternoon.
+
+Mr. Savage then imagined his task over, and expected that Sir Richard
+would call for the reckoning, and return home; but his expectations
+deceived him, for Sir Richard told him that he was without money, and
+that the pamphlet must be sold before the dinner could be paid for; and
+Savage was therefore obliged to go and offer their new production
+to sale for two guineas, which with some difficulty he obtained. Sir
+Richard then returned home, having retired that day only to avoid his
+creditors, and composed the pamphlet only to discharge his reckoning.
+
+Mr. Savage related another fact equally uncommon, which, though it
+has no relation to his life, ought to be preserved. Sir Richard Steele
+having one day invited to his house a great number of persons of the
+first quality, they were surprised at the number of liveries which
+surrounded the table; and after dinner, when wine and mirth had set them
+free from the observation of a rigid ceremony, one of them inquired of
+Sir Richard how such an expensive train of domestics could be consistent
+with his fortune. Sir Richard very frankly confessed that they were
+fellows of whom he would very willingly be rid. And being then asked
+why he did not discharge them, declared that they were bailiffs, who had
+introduced themselves with an execution, and whom, since he could not
+send them away, he had thought it convenient to embellish with liveries,
+that they might do him credit while they stayed. His friends were
+diverted with the expedient, and by paying the debt, discharged their
+attendance, having obliged Sir Richard to promise that they should never
+again find him graced with a retinue of the same kind.
+
+Under such a tutor, Mr. Savage was not likely to learn prudence or
+frugality; and perhaps many of the misfortunes which the want of those
+virtues brought upon him in the following parts of his life, might be
+justly imputed to so unimproving an example. Nor did the kindness of Sir
+Richard end in common favours. He proposed to have established him in
+some settled scheme of life, and to have contracted a kind of alliance
+with him, by marrying him to a natural daughter, on whom he intended
+to bestow a thousand pounds. But though he was always lavish of future
+bounties, he conducted his affairs in such a manner that he was very
+seldom able to keep his promises, or execute his own intentions; and,
+as he was never able to raise the sum which he had offered, the marriage
+was delayed. In the meantime he was officiously informed that Mr. Savage
+had ridiculed him; by which he was so much exasperated that he withdrew
+the allowance which he had paid him, and never afterwards admitted him
+to his house.
+
+It is not, indeed, unlikely that Savage might by his imprudence expose
+himself to the malice of a talebearer; for his patron had many follies,
+which, as his discernment easily discovered, his imagination might
+sometimes incite him to mention too ludicrously. A little knowledge of
+the world is sufficient to discover that such weakness is very common,
+and that there are few who do not sometimes, in the wantonness of
+thoughtless mirth, or the heat of transient resentment, speak of their
+friends and benefactors with levity and contempt, though in their cooler
+moments they want neither sense of their kindness nor reverence for
+their virtue; the fault, therefore, of Mr. Savage was rather negligence
+than ingratitude. But Sir Richard must likewise be acquitted of
+severity, for who is there that can patiently bear contempt from one
+whom he has relieved and supported, whose establishment he has laboured,
+and whose interest he has promoted?
+
+He was now again abandoned to fortune without any other friend than
+Mr. Wilks; a man who, whatever were his abilities or skill as an actor,
+deserves at least to be remembered for his virtues, which are not often
+to be found in the world, and perhaps less often in his profession than
+in others. To be humane, generous, and candid is a very high degree of
+merit in any case; but those qualifications deserve still greater praise
+when they are found in that condition which makes almost every other
+man, for whatever reason, contemptuous, insolent, petulant, selfish, and
+brutal.
+
+As Mr. Wilks was one of those to whom calamity seldom complained without
+relief, he naturally took an unfortunate wit into his protection, and
+not only assisted him in any casual distresses, but continued an equal
+and steady kindness to the time of his death. By this interposition Mr.
+Savage once obtained from his mother fifty pounds, and a promise of one
+hundred and fifty more; but it was the fate of this unhappy man that
+few promises of any advantage to him were performed. His mother was
+infected, among others, with the general madness of the South Sea
+traffic; and having been disappointed in her expectations, refused to
+pay what perhaps nothing but the prospect of sudden affluence prompted
+her to promise.
+
+Being thus obliged to depend upon the friendship of Mr. Wilks, he was
+consequently an assiduous frequenter of the theatres: and in a short
+time the amusements of the stage took such possession of his mind
+that he never was absent from a play in several years. This constant
+attendance naturally procured him the acquaintance of the players,
+and, among others, of Mrs. Oldfield, who was so much pleased with his
+conversation, and touched with his misfortunes, that she allowed him
+a settled pension of fifty pounds a year, which was during her life
+regularly paid. That this act of generosity may receive its due praise,
+and that the good actions of Mrs. Oldfield may not be sullied by
+her general character, it is proper to mention that Mr. Savage often
+declared, in the strongest terms, that he never saw her alone, or in any
+other place than behind the scenes.
+
+At her death he endeavoured to show his gratitude in the most decent
+manner, by wearing mourning as for a mother; but did not celebrate her
+in elegies, because he knew that too great a profusion of praise would
+only have revived those faults which his natural equity did not allow
+him to think less because they were committed by one who favoured him;
+but of which, though his virtue would not endeavour to palliate them,
+his gratitude would not suffer him to prolong the memory or diffuse the
+censure.
+
+In his "Wanderer" he has indeed taken an opportunity of mentioning her;
+but celebrates her not for her virtue, but her beauty, an excellence
+which none ever denied her: this is the only encomium with which he has
+rewarded her liberality, and perhaps he has even in this been too
+lavish of his praise. He seems to have thought that never to mention
+his benefactress would have an appearance of ingratitude, though to
+have dedicated any particular performance to her memory would have
+only betrayed an officious partiality, and that without exalting
+her character would have depressed his own. He had sometimes, by the
+kindness of Mr. Wilks, the advantage of a benefit, on which occasions
+he often received uncommon marks of regard and compassion; and was
+once told by the Duke of Dorset that it was just to consider him as an
+injured nobleman, and that in his opinion the nobility ought to think
+themselves obliged, without solicitation, to take every opportunity of
+supporting him by their countenance and patronage. But he had generally
+the mortification to hear that the whole interest of his mother was
+employed to frustrate his applications, and that she never left any
+expedient untried by which he might be cut off from the possibility of
+supporting life. The same disposition she endeavoured to diffuse among
+all those over whom nature or fortune gave her any influence, and indeed
+succeeded too well in her design; but could not always propagate her
+effrontery with her cruelty; for some of those whom she incited against
+him were ashamed of their own conduct, and boasted of that relief which
+they never gave him. In this censure I do not indiscriminately involve
+all his relations; for he has mentioned with gratitude the humanity
+of one lady, whose name I am now unable to recollect, and to whom,
+therefore, I cannot pay the praises which she deserves for having acted
+well in opposition to influence, precept, and example.
+
+The punishment which our laws inflict upon those parents who murder
+their infants is well known, nor has its justice ever been contested;
+but, if they deserve death who destroy a child in its birth, what pain
+can be severe enough for her who forbears to destroy him only to inflict
+sharper miseries upon him; who prolongs his life only to make him
+miserable; and who exposes him, without care and without pity, to the
+malice of oppression, the caprices of chance, and the temptations of
+poverty; who rejoices to see him overwhelmed with calamities; and, when
+his own industry, or the charity of others, has enabled him to rise
+for a short time above his miseries, plunges him again into his former
+distress?
+
+The kindness of his friends not affording him any constant supply, and
+the prospect of improving his fortune by enlarging his acquaintance
+necessarily leading him to places of expense, he found it necessary
+to endeavour once more at dramatic poetry; for which he was now better
+qualified by a more extensive knowledge and longer observation.
+But having been unsuccessful in comedy, though rather for want of
+opportunities than genius, he resolved to try whether he should not be
+more fortunate in exhibiting a tragedy. The story which he chose for
+the subject was that of Sir Thomas Overbury, a story well adapted to
+the stage, though perhaps not far enough removed from the present age
+to admit properly the fictions necessary to complete the plan; for the
+mind, which naturally loves truth, is always most offended with the
+violation of those truths of which we are most certain; and we of course
+conceive those facts most certain which approach nearer to our own time.
+Out of this story he formed a tragedy, which, if the circumstances in
+which he wrote it be considered, will afford at once an uncommon proof
+of strength of genius and evenness of mind, of a serenity not to be
+ruffled and an imagination not to be suppressed.
+
+During a considerable part of the time in which he was employed upon
+this performance, he was without lodging, and often without meat; nor
+had he any other conveniences for study than the fields or the streets
+allowed him; there he used to walk and form his speeches, and afterwards
+step into a shop, beg for a few moments the use of the pen and ink, and
+write down what he had composed upon paper which he had picked up by
+accident.
+
+If the performance of a writer thus distressed is not perfect, its
+faults ought surely to be imputed to a cause very different from want
+of genius, and must rather excite pity than provoke censure. But
+when, under these discouragements, the tragedy was finished, there
+yet remained the labour of introducing it on the stage, an undertaking
+which, to an ingenuous mind, was in a very high degree vexatious and
+disgusting; for, having little interest or reputation, he was obliged
+to submit himself wholly to the players, and admit, with whatever
+reluctance, the emendations of Mr. Cibber, which he always considered
+as the disgrace of his performance. He had, indeed, in Mr. Hill another
+critic of a very different class, from whose friendship he received
+great assistance on many occasions, and whom he never mentioned but
+with the utmost tenderness and regard. He had been for some time
+distinguished by him with very particular kindness, and on this occasion
+it was natural to apply to him as an author of an established character.
+He therefore sent this tragedy to him, with a short copy of verses, in
+which he desired his correction. Mr. Hill, whose humanity and politeness
+are generally known, readily complied with his request; but as he
+is remarkable for singularity of sentiment, and bold experiments in
+language, Mr. Savage did not think this play much improved by his
+innovation, and had even at that time the courage to reject several
+passages which he could not approve; and, what is still more
+laudable, Mr. Hill had the generosity not to resent the neglect of his
+alterations, but wrote the prologue and epilogue, in which he touches on
+the circumstances of the author with great tenderness.
+
+After all these obstructions and compliances, he was only able to
+bring his play upon the stage in the summer, when the chief actors had
+retired, and the rest were in possession of the house for their own
+advantage. Among these, Mr. Savage was admitted to play the part of Sir
+Thomas Overbury, by which he gained no great reputation, the theatre
+being a province for which nature seems not to have designed him; for
+neither his voice, look, nor gesture were such as were expected on the
+stage, and he was so much ashamed of having been reduced to appear as a
+player, that he always blotted out his name from the list when a copy of
+his tragedy was to be shown to his friends.
+
+In the publication of his performance he was more successful, for the
+rays of genius that glimmered in it, that glimmered through all the
+mists which poverty and Cibber had been able to spread over it, procured
+him the notice and esteem of many persons eminent for their rank, their
+virtue, and their wit. Of this play, acted, printed, and dedicated, the
+accumulated profits arose to a hundred pounds, which he thought at that
+time a very large sum, having been never master of so much before.
+
+In the dedication, for which he received ten guineas, there is nothing
+remarkable. The preface contains a very liberal encomium on the blooming
+excellence of Mr. Theophilus Cibber, which Mr. Savage could not in the
+latter part of his life see his friends about to read without snatching
+the play out of their hands. The generosity of Mr. Hill did not end on
+this occasion; for afterwards, when Mr. Savage's necessities returned,
+he encouraged a subscription to a Miscellany of Poems in a very
+extraordinary manner, by publishing his story in the Plain Dealer,
+with some affecting lines, which he asserts to have been written by Mr.
+Savage upon the treatment received by him from his mother, but of which
+he was himself the author, as Mr. Savage afterwards declared. These
+lines, and the paper in which they were inserted, had a very powerful
+effect upon all but his mother, whom, by making her cruelty more public,
+they only hardened in her aversion.
+
+Mr. Hill not only promoted the subscription to the Miscellany, but
+furnished likewise the greatest part of the poems of which it is
+composed, and particularly "The Happy Man," which he published as a
+specimen.
+
+The subscriptions of those whom these papers should influence to
+patronise merit in distress, without any other solicitation, were
+directed to be left at Button's Coffee-house; and Mr. Savage going
+thither a few days afterwards, without expectation of any effect from
+his proposal, found, to his surprise, seventy guineas, which had been
+sent him in consequence of the compassion excited by Mr. Hill's pathetic
+representation.
+
+To this Miscellany he wrote a preface, in which he gives an account of
+his mother's cruelty in a very uncommon strain of humour, and with a
+gaiety of imagination which the success of his subscription probably
+produced. The dedication is addressed to the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,
+whom he flatters without reserve, and, to confess the truth, with very
+little art. The same observation may be extended to all his dedications:
+his compliments are constrained and violent, heaped together without the
+grace of order, or the decency of introduction. He seems to have written
+his panegyrics for the perusal only of his patrons, and to imagine that
+he had no other task than to pamper them with praises, however
+gross, and that flattery would make its way to the heart, without the
+assistance of elegance or invention.
+
+Soon afterwards the death of the king furnished a general subject for
+a poetical contest, in which Mr. Savage engaged, and is allowed to have
+carried the prize of honour from his competitors: but I know not whether
+he gained by his performance any other advantage than the increase of
+his reputation, though it must certainly have been with farther views
+that he prevailed upon himself to attempt a species of writing, of which
+all the topics had been long before exhausted, and which was made at
+once difficult by the multitudes that had failed in it, and those that
+had succeeded.
+
+He was now advancing in reputation, and though frequently involved in
+very distressful perplexities, appeared, however, to be gaining upon
+mankind, when both his fame and his life were endangered by an event,
+of which it is not yet determined whether it ought to be mentioned as a
+crime or a calamity.
+
+On the 20th of November, 1727, Mr. Savage came from Richmond, where he
+then lodged that he might pursue his studies with less interruption,
+with an intent to discharge another lodging which he had in Westminster;
+and accidentally meeting two gentlemen, his acquaintances, whose names
+were Merchant and Gregory, he went in with them to a neighbouring
+coffee-house, and sat drinking till it was late, it being in no time
+of Mr. Savage's life any part of his character to be the first of the
+company that desired to separate. He would willingly have gone to bed
+in the same house, but there was not room for the whole company, and
+therefore they agreed to ramble about the streets, and divert themselves
+with such amusements as should offer themselves till morning. In
+this walk they happened unluckily to discover a light in Robinson's
+Coffee-house, near Charing Cross, and therefore went in. Merchant with
+some rudeness demanded a room, and was told that there was a good fire
+in the next parlour, which the company were about to leave, being then
+paying their reckoning. Merchant, not satisfied with this answer, rushed
+into the room, and was followed by his companions. He then petulantly
+placed himself between the company and the fire, and soon after kicked
+down the table. This produced a quarrel, swords were drawn on both
+sides, and one Mr. James Sinclair was killed. Savage, having likewise
+wounded a maid that held him, forced his way, with Merchant, out of the
+house; but being intimidated and confused, without resolution either to
+fly or stay, they were taken in a back court by one of the company, and
+some soldiers, whom he had called to his assistance. Being secured
+and guarded that night, they were in the morning carried before three
+justices, who committed them to the Gatehouse, from whence, upon the
+death of Mr. Sinclair, which happened the same day, they were removed
+in the night to Newgate, where they were, however, treated with some
+distinction, exempted from the ignominy of chains, and confined, not
+among the common criminals, but in the Press yard.
+
+When the day of trial came, the court was crowded in a very unusual
+manner, and the public appeared to interest itself as in a cause of
+general concern. The witnesses against Mr. Savage and his friends were,
+the woman who kept the house, which was a house of ill-fame, and her
+maid, the men who were in the room with Mr. Sinclair, and a woman of
+the town, who had been drinking with them, and with whom one of them had
+been seen. They swore in general, that Merchant gave the provocation,
+which Savage and Gregory drew their swords to justify; that Savage drew
+first, and that he stabbed Sinclair when he was not in a posture of
+defence, or while Gregory commanded his sword; that after he had given
+the thrust he turned pale, and would have retired, but the maid clung
+round him, and one of the company endeavoured to detain him, from whom
+he broke by cutting the maid on the head, but was afterwards taken in a
+court. There was some difference in their depositions; one did not see
+Savage give the wound, another saw it given when Sinclair held his point
+towards the ground; and the woman of the town asserted that she did not
+see Sinclair's sword at all. This difference, however, was very far
+from amounting to inconsistency; but it was sufficient to show, that the
+hurry of the dispute was such that it was not easy to discover the
+truth with relation to particular circumstances, and that therefore some
+deductions were to be made from the credibility of the testimonies.
+
+Sinclair had declared several times before his death that he received
+his wound from Savage: nor did Savage at his trial deny the fact, but
+endeavoured partly to extenuate it, by urging the suddenness of the
+whole action, and the impossibility of any ill design or premeditated
+malice; and partly to justify it by the necessity of self-defence, and
+the hazard of his own life, if he had lost that opportunity of giving
+the thrust: he observed, that neither reason nor law obliged a man to
+wait for the blow which was threatened, and which, if he should suffer
+it, he might never be able to return; that it was allowable to prevent
+an assault, and to preserve life by taking away that of the adversary
+by whom it was endangered. With regard to the violence with which he
+endeavoured to escape, he declared that it was not his design to
+fly from justice, or decline a trial, but to avoid the expenses and
+severities of a prison; and that he intended to appear at the bar
+without compulsion.
+
+This defence, which took up more than an hour, was heard by the
+multitude that thronged the court with the most attentive and respectful
+silence. Those who thought he ought not to be acquitted owned that
+applause could not be refused him; and those who before pitied his
+misfortunes now reverenced his abilities. The witnesses which appeared
+against him were proved to be persons of characters which did not
+entitle them to much credit; a common strumpet, a woman by whom
+strumpets were entertained, a man by whom they were supported: and the
+character of Savage was by several persons of distinction asserted to
+be that of a modest, inoffensive man, not inclined to broils or
+to insolence, and who had, to that time, been only known for his
+misfortunes and his wit. Had his audience been his judges, he had
+undoubtedly been acquitted, but Mr. Page, who was then upon the bench,
+treated him with his usual insolence and severity, and when he had
+summed up the evidence, endeavoured to exasperate the jury, as Mr.
+Savage used to relate it, with this eloquent harangue:--
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury, you are to consider that Mr. Savage is a very
+great man, a much greater man than you or I, gentlemen of the jury; that
+he wears very fine clothes, much finer clothes than you or I, gentlemen
+of the jury; that he has abundance of money in his pockets, much more
+money than you or I, gentlemen of the jury; but, gentlemen of the jury,
+is it not a very hard case, gentlemen of the jury, that Mr. Savage
+should therefore kill you or me, gentlemen of the jury?"
+
+Mr. Savage, hearing his defence thus misrepresented, and the men who
+were to decide his fate incited against him by invidious comparisons,
+resolutely asserted that his cause was not candidly explained, and began
+to recapitulate what he had before said with regard to his condition,
+and the necessity of endeavouring to escape the expenses of
+imprisonment; but the judge having ordered him to be silent, and
+repeated his orders without effect, commanded that he should be taken
+from the bar by force.
+
+The jury then heard the opinion of the judge, that good characters were
+of no weight against positive evidence, though they might turn the scale
+where it was doubtful; and that though, when two men attack each
+other, the death of either is only manslaughter; but where one is the
+aggressor, as in the case before them, and, in pursuance of his first
+attack, kills the other, the law supposes the action, however sudden, to
+be malicious. They then deliberated upon their verdict, and determined
+that Mr. Savage and Mr. Gregory were guilty of murder, and Mr. Merchant,
+who had no sword, only of manslaughter.
+
+Thus ended this memorable trial, which lasted eight hours. Mr. Savage
+and Mr. Gregory were conducted back to prison, where they were more
+closely confined, and loaded with irons of fifty pounds' weight. Four
+days afterwards they were sent back to the court to receive sentence,
+on which occasion Mr. Savage made, as far as it could be retained in
+memory, the following speech:--
+
+"It is now, my lord, too late to offer anything by way of defence or
+vindication; nor can we expect from your lordships, in this court, but
+the sentence which the law requires you, as judges, to pronounce against
+men of our calamitous condition. But we are also persuaded that as mere
+men, and out of this seat of rigorous justice, you are susceptive of the
+tender passions, and too humane not to commiserate the unhappy situation
+of those whom the law sometimes perhaps exacts from you to pronounce
+upon. No doubt you distinguish between offences which arise out of
+premeditation, and a disposition habituated to vice or immorality, and
+transgressions which are the unhappy and unforeseen effects of casual
+absence of reason, and sudden impulse of passion. We therefore hope
+you will contribute all you can to an extension of that mercy which the
+gentlemen of the jury have been pleased to show to Mr. Merchant, who
+(allowing facts as sworn against us by the evidence) has led us into
+this our calamity. I hope this will not be construed as if we meant to
+reflect upon that gentleman, or remove anything from us upon him, or
+that we repine the more at our fate because he has no participation of
+it. No, my Lord! For my part, I declare nothing could more soften my
+grief than to be without any companion in so great a misfortune."
+
+Mr. Savage had now no hopes of life but from the mercy of the Crown,
+which was very earnestly solicited by his friends, and which, with
+whatever difficulty the story may obtain belief, was obstructed only by
+his mother.
+
+To prejudice the queen against him, she made use of an incident which
+was omitted in the order of time, that it might be mentioned together
+with the purpose which it was made to serve. Mr. Savage, when he had
+discovered his birth, had an incessant desire to speak to his mother,
+who always avoided him in public, and refused him admission into her
+house. One evening, walking, as was his custom, in the street that she
+inhabited, he saw the door of her house by accident open; he entered it,
+and finding no person in the passage to hinder him, went up-stairs to
+salute her. She discovered him before he entered the chamber, alarmed
+the family with the most distressful outcries, and when she had by her
+screams gathered them about her, ordered them to drive out of the house
+that villain, who had forced himself in upon her and endeavoured
+to murder her. Savage, who had attempted with the most submissive
+tenderness to soften her rage, hearing her utter so detestable an
+accusation, thought it prudent to retire, and, I believe, never
+attempted afterwards to speak to her.
+
+But shocked as he was with her falsehood and her cruelty, he imagined
+that she intended no other use of her lie than to set herself free from
+his embraces and solicitations, and was very far from suspecting
+that she would treasure it in her memory as an instrument of future
+wickedness, or that she would endeavour for this fictitious assault
+to deprive him of his life. But when the queen was solicited for his
+pardon, and informed of the severe treatment which he had suffered from
+his judge, she answered that, however unjustifiable might be the manner
+of his trial, or whatever extenuation the action for which he was
+condemned might admit, she could not think that man a proper object of
+the king's mercy who had been capable of entering his mother's house in
+the night with an intent to murder her.
+
+By whom this atrocious calumny had been transmitted to the queen,
+whether she that invented had the front to relate it, whether she found
+any one weak enough to credit it, or corrupt enough to concur with
+her in her hateful design, I know not, but methods had been taken to
+persuade the queen so strongly of the truth of it, that she for a long
+time refused to hear any one of those who petitioned for his life.
+
+Thus had Savage perished by the evidence of a bawd, a strumpet, and his
+mother, had not justice and compassion procured him an advocate of rank
+too great to be rejected unheard, and of virtue too eminent to be heard
+without being believed. His merit and his calamities happened to reach
+the ear of the Countess of Hertford, who engaged in his support with
+all the tenderness that is excited by pity, and all the zeal which is
+kindled by generosity, and, demanding an audience of the queen, laid
+before her the whole series of his mother's cruelty, exposed the
+improbability of an accusation by which he was charged with an intent to
+commit a murder that could produce no advantage, and soon convinced her
+how little his former conduct could deserve to be mentioned as a reason
+for extraordinary severity.
+
+The interposition of this lady was so successful, that he was soon after
+admitted to bail, and, on the 9th of March, 1728, pleaded the king's
+pardon.
+
+It is natural to inquire upon what motives his mother could persecute
+him in a manner so outrageous and implacable; for what reason she could
+employ all the arts of malice, and all the snares of calumny, to take
+away the life of her own son, of a son who never injured her, who was
+never supported by her expense, nor obstructed any prospect of pleasure
+or advantage. Why she would endeavour to destroy him by a lie--a lie
+which could not gain credit, but must vanish of itself at the first
+moment of examination, and of which only this can be said to make
+it probable, that it may be observed from her conduct that the most
+execrable crimes are sometimes committed without apparent temptation.
+
+This mother is still (1744) alive, and may perhaps even yet, though her
+malice was so often defeated, enjoy the pleasure of reflecting that the
+life which she often endeavoured to destroy was at last shortened by
+her maternal offices; that though she could not transport her son to the
+plantations, bury him in the shop of a mechanic, or hasten the hand of
+the public executioner, she has yet had the satisfaction of embittering
+all his hours, and forcing him into exigencies that hurried on his
+death. It is by no means necessary to aggravate the enormity of this
+woman's conduct by placing it in opposition to that of the Countess
+of Hertford. No one can fail to observe how much more amiable it is to
+relieve than to oppress, and to rescue innocence from destruction than
+to destroy without an injury.
+
+Mr. Savage, during his imprisonment, his trial, and the time in which he
+lay under sentence of death, behaved with great firmness and equality
+of mind, and confirmed by his fortitude the esteem of those who before
+admired him for his abilities. The peculiar circumstances of his
+life were made more generally known by a short account which was then
+published, and of which several thousands were in a few weeks dispersed
+over the nation; and the compassion of mankind operated so powerfully
+in his favour, that he was enabled, by frequent presents, not only to
+support himself, but to assist Mr. Gregory in prison; and when he was
+pardoned and released, he found the number of his friends not lessened.
+
+The nature of the act for which he had been tried was in itself
+doubtful; of the evidences which appeared against him, the character of
+the man was not unexceptionable, that of the woman notoriously
+infamous; she whose testimony chiefly influenced the jury to condemn him
+afterwards retracted her assertions. He always himself denied that
+he was drunk, as had been generally reported. Mr. Gregory, who is now
+(1744) collector of Antigua, is said to declare him far less criminal
+than he was imagined, even by some who favoured him; and Page himself
+afterwards confessed that he had treated him with uncommon rigour. When
+all these particulars are rated together, perhaps the memory of Savage
+may not be much sullied by his trial. Some time after he obtained his
+liberty, he met in the street the woman who had sworn with so much
+malignity against him. She informed him that she was in distress,
+and, with a degree of confidence not easily attainable, desired him to
+relieve her. He, instead of insulting her misery, and taking pleasure in
+the calamities of one who had brought his life into danger, reproved
+her gently for her perjury, and, changing the only guinea that he had,
+divided it equally between her and himself. This is an action which in
+some ages would have made a saint, and perhaps in others a hero, and
+which, without any hyperbolical encomiums, must be allowed to be an
+instance of uncommon generosity, an act of complicated virtue, by which
+he at once relieved the poor, corrected the vicious, and forgave an
+enemy; by which he at once remitted the strongest provocations,
+and exercised the most ardent charity. Compassion was indeed the
+distinguishing quality of Savage: he never appeared inclined to take
+advantage of weakness, to attack the defenceless, or to press upon the
+falling. Whoever was distressed was certain at least of his good wishes;
+and when he could give no assistance to extricate them from misfortunes,
+he endeavoured to soothe them by sympathy and tenderness. But when
+his heart was not softened by the sight of misery, he was sometimes
+obstinate in his resentment, and did not quickly lose the remembrance of
+an injury. He always continued to speak with anger of the insolence and
+partiality of Page, and a short time before his death revenged it by a
+satire.
+
+It is natural to inquire in what terms Mr. Savage spoke of this fatal
+action when the danger was over, and he was under no necessity of using
+any art to set his conduct in the fairest light. He was not willing to
+dwell upon it; and, if he transiently mentioned it, appeared neither to
+consider himself as a murderer, nor as a man wholly free from the guilt
+of blood. How much and how long he regretted it appeared in a poem which
+he published many years afterwards. On occasion of a copy of verses, in
+which the failings of good men are recounted, and in which the author
+had endeavoured to illustrate his position, that "the best may sometimes
+deviate from virtue," by an instance of murder committed by Savage
+in the heat of wine, Savage remarked that it was no very just
+representation of a good man, to suppose him liable to drunkenness, and
+disposed in his riots to cut throats.
+
+He was now indeed at liberty, but was, as before, without any other
+support than accidental favours and uncertain patronage afforded him;
+sources by which he was sometimes very liberally supplied, and which
+at other times were suddenly stopped; so that he spent his life
+between want and plenty, or, what was yet worse, between beggary and
+extravagance, for, as whatever he received was the gift of chance,
+which might as well favour him at one time as another, he was tempted to
+squander what he had because he always hoped to be immediately supplied.
+Another cause of his profusion was the absurd kindness of his friends,
+who at once rewarded and enjoyed his abilities by treating him at
+taverns, and habituating him to pleasures which he could not afford to
+enjoy, and which he was not able to deny himself, though he purchased
+the luxury of a single night by the anguish of cold and hunger for a
+week.
+
+The experience of these inconveniences determined him to endeavour after
+some settled income, which, having long found submission and entreaties
+fruitless, he attempted to extort from his mother by rougher methods.
+He had now, as he acknowledged, lost that tenderness for her which the
+whole series of her cruelty had not been able wholly to repress, till he
+found, by the efforts which she made for his destruction, that she
+was not content with refusing to assist him, and being neutral in his
+struggles with poverty, but was ready to snatch every opportunity of
+adding to his misfortunes; and that she was now to be considered as an
+enemy implacably malicious, whom nothing but his blood could satisfy.
+He therefore threatened to harass her with lampoons, and to publish a
+copious narrative of her conduct, unless she consented to purchase an
+exemption from infamy by allowing him a pension.
+
+This expedient proved successful. Whether shame still survived, though
+virtue was extinct, or whether her relations had more delicacy than
+herself, and imagined that some of the darts which satire might point at
+her would glance upon them, Lord Tyrconnel, whatever were his motives,
+upon his promise to lay aside his design of exposing the cruelty of
+his mother, received him into his family, treated him as his equal, and
+engaged to allow him a pension of two hundred pounds a year. This was
+the golden part of Mr. Savage's life; and for some time he had no reason
+to complain of fortune. His appearance was splendid, his expenses large,
+and his acquaintance extensive. He was courted by all who endeavoured to
+be thought men of genius, and caressed by all who valued themselves upon
+a refined taste. To admire Mr. Savage was a proof of discernment; and to
+be acquainted with him was a title to poetical reputation. His presence
+was sufficient to make any place of public entertainment popular, and
+his approbation and example constituted the fashion. So powerful is
+genius, when it is invested with the glitter of affluence! Men willingly
+pay to fortune that regard which they owe to merit, and are pleased
+when they have an opportunity at once of gratifying their vanity and
+practising their duty.
+
+This interval of prosperity furnished him with opportunities of
+enlarging his knowledge of human nature, by contemplating life from
+its highest gradations to its lowest; and, had he afterwards applied to
+dramatic poetry, he would perhaps not have had many superiors, for, as
+he never suffered any scene to pass before his eyes without notice, he
+had treasured in his mind all the different combinations of passions,
+and the innumerable mixtures of vice and virtue, which distinguished
+one character from another; and, as his conception was strong, his
+expressions were clear, he easily received impressions from objects, and
+very forcibly transmitted them to others. Of his exact observations on
+human life he has left a proof, which would do honour to the greatest
+names, in a small pamphlet, called "The Author to be Let," where he
+introduces Iscariot Hackney, a prostitute scribbler, giving an account
+of his birth, his education, his disposition and morals, habits of
+life, and maxims of conduct. In the introduction are related many secret
+histories of the petty writers of that time, but sometimes mixed with
+ungenerous reflections on their birth, their circumstances, or those
+of their relations; nor can it be denied that some passages are such as
+Iscariot Hackney might himself have produced. He was accused likewise of
+living in an appearance of friendship with some whom he satirised, and
+of making use of the confidence which he gained by a seeming kindness,
+to discover failings and expose them. It must be confessed that Mr.
+Savage's esteem was no very certain possession, and that he would
+lampoon at one time those whom he had praised at another.
+
+It may be alleged that the same man may change his principles, and that
+he who was once deservedly commended may be afterwards satirised with
+equal justice, or that the poet was dazzled with the appearance of
+virtue, and found the man whom he had celebrated, when he had an
+opportunity of examining him more narrowly, unworthy of the panegyric
+which he had too hastily bestowed; and that, as a false satire ought to
+be recanted, for the sake of him whose reputation may be injured, false
+praise ought likewise to be obviated, lest the distinction between vice
+and virtue should be lost, lest a bad man should be trusted upon the
+credit of his encomiast, or lest others should endeavour to obtain
+like praises by the same means. But though these excuses may be often
+plausible, and sometimes just, they are very seldom satisfactory to
+mankind; and the writer who is not constant to his subject, quickly
+sinks into contempt, his satire loses its force, and his panegyric
+its value; and he is only considered at one time as a flatterer, and a
+calumniator at another. To avoid these imputations, it is only necessary
+to follow the rules of virtue, and to preserve an unvaried regard
+to truth. For though it is undoubtedly possible that a man, however
+cautious, may be sometimes deceived by an artful appearance of virtue,
+or by false evidences of guilt, such errors will not be frequent; and
+it will be allowed that the name of an author would never have been
+made contemptible had no man ever said what he did not think, or misled
+others but when he was himself deceived.
+
+"The Author to be Let" was first published in a single pamphlet, and
+afterwards inserted in a collection of pieces relating to the "Dunciad,"
+which were addressed by Mr. Savage to the Earl of Middlesex, in a
+dedication which he was prevailed upon to sign, though he did not write
+it, and in which there are some positions that the true author would
+perhaps not have published under his own name, and on which Mr. Savage
+afterwards reflected with no great satisfaction. The enumeration of the
+bad effects of the uncontrolled freedom of the press, and the assertion
+that the "liberties taken by the writers of journals with their
+superiors were exorbitant and unjustifiable," very ill became men who
+have themselves not always shown the exactest regard to the laws of
+subordination in their writings, and who have often satirised those that
+at least thought themselves their superiors, as they were eminent
+for their hereditary rank, and employed in the highest offices of the
+kingdom. But this is only an instance of that partiality which almost
+every man indulges with regard to himself: the liberty of the press is
+a blessing when we are inclined to write against others, and a calamity
+when we find ourselves overborne by the multitude of our assailants; as
+the power of the Crown is always thought too great by those who suffer
+by its influence, and too little by those in whose favour it is exerted;
+and a standing army is generally accounted necessary by those who
+command, and dangerous and oppressive by those who support it.
+
+Mr. Savage was likewise very far from believing that the letters annexed
+to each species of bad poets in the Bathos were, as he was directed
+to assert, "set down at random;" for when he was charged by one of his
+friends with putting his name to such an improbability, he had no other
+answer to make than that "he did not think of it;" and his friend had
+too much tenderness to reply, that next to the crime of writing contrary
+to what he thought was that of writing without thinking.
+
+After having remarked what is false in this dedication, it is proper
+that I observe the impartiality which I recommend, by declaring what
+Savage asserted--that the account of the circumstances which attended
+the publication of the "Dunciad," however strange and improbable, was
+exactly true.
+
+The publication of this piece at this time raised Mr. Savage a great
+number of enemies among those that were attacked by Mr. Pope, with whom
+he was considered as a kind of confederate, and whom he was suspected
+of supplying with private intelligence and secret incidents; so that the
+ignominy of an informer was added to the terror of a satirist. That he
+was not altogether free from literary hypocrisy, and that he sometimes
+spoke one thing and wrote another, cannot be denied, because he himself
+confessed that, when he lived with great familiarity with Dennis, he
+wrote an epigram against him.
+
+Mr. Savage, however, set all the malice of all the pigmy writers at
+defiance, and thought the friendship of Mr. Pope cheaply purchased by
+being exposed to their censure and their hatred; nor had he any
+reason to repent of the preference, for he found Mr. Pope a steady and
+unalienable friend almost to the end of his life.
+
+About this time, notwithstanding his avowed neutrality with regard to
+party, he published a panegyric on Sir Robert Walpole, for which he was
+rewarded by him with twenty guineas, a sum not very large, if either
+the excellence of the performance or the affluence of the patron be
+considered; but greater than he afterwards obtained from a person of yet
+higher rank, and more desirous in appearance of being distinguished as a
+patron of literature.
+
+As he was very far from approving the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole,
+and in conversation mentioned him sometimes with acrimony, and generally
+with contempt, as he was one of those who were always zealous in their
+assertions of the justice of the late opposition, jealous of the rights
+of the people, and alarmed by the long-continued triumph of the Court,
+it was natural to ask him what could induce him to employ his poetry in
+praise of that man who was, in his opinion, an enemy to liberty, and an
+oppressor of his country? He alleged that he was then dependent upon the
+Lord Tyrconnel, who was an implicit follower of the ministry: and that,
+being enjoined by him, not without menaces, to write in praise of the
+leader, he had not resolution sufficient to sacrifice the pleasure of
+affluence to that of integrity.
+
+On this, and on many other occasions, he was ready to lament the misery
+of living at the tables of other men, which was his fate from the
+beginning to the end of his life; for I know not whether he ever had,
+for three months together, a settled habitation, in which he could claim
+a right of residence.
+
+To this unhappy state it is just to impute much of the inconsistency of
+his conduct, for though a readiness to comply with the inclinations
+of others was no part of his natural character, yet he was sometimes
+obliged to relax his obstinacy, and submit his own judgment, and even
+his virtue, to the government of those by whom he was supported. So that
+if his miseries were sometimes the consequences of his faults, he ought
+not yet to be wholly excluded from compassion, because his faults were
+very often the effects of his misfortunes.
+
+In this gay period of his life, while he was surrounded by affluence and
+pleasure, he published "The Wanderer," a moral poem, of which the design
+is comprised in these lines:--
+
+     "I fly all public care, all venal strife,
+      To try the still, compared with active, life;
+      To prove, by these, the sons of men may owe
+      The fruits of bliss to bursting clouds of woe;
+      That ev'n calamity, by thought refined,
+      Inspirits and adorns the thinking mind."
+
+And more distinctly in the following passage:--
+
+     "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."
+
+Whoever was acquainted with him was certain to be solicited for small
+sums, which the frequency of the request made in time considerable;
+and he was therefore quickly shunned by those who were become familiar
+enough to be trusted with his necessities; but his rambling manner
+of life, and constant appearance at houses of public resort, always
+procured him a new succession of friends whose kindness had not been
+exhausted by repeated requests; so that he was seldom absolutely without
+resources, but had in his utmost exigencies this comfort, that he always
+imagined himself sure of speedy relief. It was observed that he always
+asked favours of this kind without the least submission or apparent
+consciousness of dependence, and that he did not seem to look upon
+a compliance with his request as an obligation that deserved any
+extraordinary acknowledgments; but a refusal was resented by him as an
+affront, or complained of as an injury; nor did he readily reconcile
+himself to those who either denied to lend, or gave him afterwards any
+intimation that they expected to be repaid. He was sometimes so far
+compassionated by those who knew both his merit and distresses that they
+received him into their families, but they soon discovered him to be a
+very incommodious inmate; for, being always accustomed to an irregular
+manner of life, he could not confine himself to any stated hours, or pay
+any regard to the rules of a family, but would prolong his conversation
+till midnight, without considering that business might require his
+friend's application in the morning; and, when he had persuaded himself
+to retire to bed, was not, without equal difficulty, called up to
+dinner: it was therefore impossible to pay him any distinction without
+the entire subversion of all economy, a kind of establishment which,
+wherever he went, he always appeared ambitious to overthrow. It must
+therefore be acknowledged, in justification of mankind, that it was
+not always by the negligence or coldness of his friends that Savage was
+distressed, but because it was in reality very difficult to preserve
+him long in a state of ease. To supply him with money was a hopeless
+attempt; for no sooner did he see himself master of a sum sufficient to
+set him free from care for a day than he became profuse and luxurious.
+When once he had entered a tavern, or engaged in a scheme of pleasure,
+he never retired till want of money obliged him to some new expedient.
+If he was entertained in a family, nothing was any longer to be regarded
+there but amusement and jollity; wherever Savage entered, he immediately
+expected that order and business should fly before him, that all should
+thenceforward be left to hazard, and that no dull principle of domestic
+management should be opposed to his inclination or intrude upon his
+gaiety. His distresses, however afflictive, never dejected him; in his
+lowest state he wanted not spirit to assert the natural dignity of wit,
+and was always ready to repress that insolence which the superiority of
+fortune incited, and to trample on that reputation which rose upon
+any other basis than that of merit: he never admitted any gross
+familiarities, or submitted to be treated otherwise than as an equal.
+Once when he was without lodging, meat, or clothes, one of his friends,
+a man indeed not remarkable for moderation in his prosperity, left a
+message that he desired to see him about nine in the morning. Savage
+knew that his intention was to assist him, but was very much disgusted
+that he should presume to prescribe the hour of his attendance, and, I
+believe, refused to visit him, and rejected his kindness.
+
+The same invincible temper, whether firmness or obstinacy, appeared in
+his conduct to the Lord Tyrconnel, from whom he very frequently demanded
+that the allowance which was once paid him should be restored; but
+with whom he never appeared to entertain for a moment the thought of
+soliciting a reconciliation, and whom he treated at once with all the
+haughtiness of superiority and all the bitterness of resentment.
+He wrote to him, not in a style of supplication or respect, but of
+reproach, menace, and contempt; and appeared determined, if he ever
+regained his allowance, to hold it only by the right of conquest.
+
+As many more can discover that a man is richer than that he is wiser
+than themselves, superiority of understanding is not so readily
+acknowledged as that of fortune; nor is that haughtiness which the
+consciousness of great abilities incites, borne with the same submission
+as the tyranny of affluence; and therefore Savage, by asserting his
+claim to deference and regard, and by treating those with contempt whom
+better fortune animated to rebel against him, did not fail to raise a
+great number of enemies in the different classes of mankind. Those who
+thought themselves raised above him by the advantages of riches hated
+him because they found no protection from the petulance of his wit.
+Those who were esteemed for their writings feared him as a critic,
+and maligned him as a rival; and almost all the smaller wits were his
+professed enemies.
+
+Among these Mr. Miller so far indulged his resentment as to introduce
+him in a farce, and direct him to be personated on the stage in a dress
+like that which he then wore; a mean insult, which only insinuated that
+Savage had but one coat, and which was therefore despised by him rather
+than resented; for, though he wrote a lampoon against Miller, he never
+printed it: and as no other person ought to prosecute that revenge from
+which the person who was injured desisted, I shall not preserve what
+Mr. Savage suppressed; of which the publication would indeed have been a
+punishment too severe for so impotent an assault.
+
+The great hardships of poverty were to Savage not the want of lodging or
+food, but the neglect and contempt which it drew upon him. He complained
+that, as his affairs grew desperate, he found his reputation for
+capacity visibly decline; that his opinion in questions of criticism was
+no longer regarded when his coat was out of fashion; and that those who,
+in the interval of his prosperity, were always encouraging him to great
+undertakings by encomiums on his genius and assurances of success, now
+received any mention of his designs with coldness, thought that the
+subjects on which he proposed to write were very difficult, and were
+ready to inform him that the event of a poem was uncertain, that an
+author ought to employ much time in the consideration of his plan, and
+not presume to sit down to write in consequence of a few cursory ideas
+and a superficial knowledge; difficulties were started on all sides,
+and he was no longer qualified for any performance but "The Volunteer
+Laureate."
+
+Yet even this kind of contempt never depressed him: for he always
+preserved a steady confidence in his own capacity, and believed nothing
+above his reach which he should at any time earnestly endeavour to
+attain. He formed schemes of the same kind with regard to knowledge and
+to fortune, and flattered himself with advances to be made in science,
+as with riches, to be enjoyed in some distant period of his life. For
+the acquisition of knowledge he was indeed much better qualified than
+for that of riches; for he was naturally inquisitive, and desirous of
+the conversation of those from whom any information was to be obtained,
+but by no means solicitous to improve those opportunities that were
+sometimes offered of raising his fortune; and he was remarkably
+retentive of his ideas, which, when once he was in possession of them,
+rarely forsook him; a quality which could never be communicated to his
+money.
+
+While he was thus wearing out his life in expectation that the queen
+would some time recollect her promise, he had recourse to the usual
+practice of writers, and published proposals for printing his works by
+subscription, to which he was encouraged by the success of many who had
+not a better right to the favour of the public; but, whatever was the
+reason, he did not find the world equally inclined to favour him; and he
+observed with some discontent, that though he offered his works at half
+a guinea, he was able to procure but a small number in comparison
+with those who subscribed twice as much to Duck. Nor was it without
+indignation that he saw his proposals neglected by the queen, who
+patronised Mr. Duck's with uncommon ardour, and incited a competition
+among those who attended the court who should most promote his interest,
+and who should first offer a subscription. This was a distinction
+to which Mr. Savage made no scruple of asserting that his birth, his
+misfortunes, and his genius, gave a fairer title than could be pleaded
+by him on whom it was conferred.
+
+Savage's applications were, however, not universally unsuccessful; for
+some of the nobility countenanced his design, encouraged his proposals,
+and subscribed with great liberality. He related of the Duke of Chandos
+particularly, that upon receiving his proposals he sent him ten guineas.
+But the money which his subscriptions afforded him was not less
+volatile than that which he received from his other schemes; whenever
+a subscription was paid him, he went to a tavern; and as money so
+collected is necessarily received in small sums, he never was able
+to send his poems to the press, but for many years continued his
+solicitation, and squandered whatever he obtained.
+
+The project of printing his works was frequently revived; and as his
+proposals grew obsolete, new ones were printed with fresher dates. To
+form schemes for the publication was one of his favourite amusements;
+nor was he ever more at ease than when, with any friend who readily
+fell in with his schemes, he was adjusting the print, forming the
+advertisements, and regulating the dispersion of his new edition,
+which he really intended some time to publish, and which, as long
+as experience had shown him the impossibility of printing the volume
+together, he at last determined to divide into weekly or monthly
+numbers, that the profits of the first might supply the expenses of the
+next.
+
+Thus he spent his time in mean expedients and tormenting suspense,
+living for the greatest part in fear of prosecutions from his creditors,
+and consequently skulking in obscure parts of the town, of which he was
+no stranger to the remotest corners. But wherever he came, his address
+secured him friends, whom his necessities soon alienated; so that he had
+perhaps a more numerous acquaintance than any man ever before attained,
+there being scarcely any person eminent on any account to whom he
+was not known, or whose character he was not in some degree able to
+delineate. To the acquisition of this extensive acquaintance every
+circumstance of his life contributed. He excelled in the arts of
+conversation, and therefore willingly practised them. He had seldom any
+home, or even a lodging, in which he could be private, and therefore
+was driven into public-houses for the common conveniences of life and
+supports of nature. He was always ready to comply with every invitation,
+having no employment to withhold him, and often no money to provide for
+himself; and by dining with one company he never failed of obtaining an
+introduction into another.
+
+Thus dissipated was his life, and thus casual his subsistence; yet did
+not the distraction of his views hinder him from reflection, nor the
+uncertainty of his condition depress his gaiety. When he had wandered
+about without any fortunate adventure by which he was led into a tavern,
+he sometimes retired into the fields, and was able to employ his mind in
+study, to amuse it with pleasing imaginations; and seldom appeared to be
+melancholy but when some sudden misfortune had just fallen upon him;
+and even then in a few moments he would disentangle himself from his
+perplexity, adopt the subject of conversation, and apply his mind wholly
+to the objects that others presented to it. This life, unhappy as it may
+be already imagined, was yet embittered in 1738 with new calamities. The
+death of the queen deprived him of all the prospects of preferment with
+which he so long entertained his imagination; and as Sir Robert Walpole
+had before given him reason to believe that he never intended the
+performance of his promise, he was now abandoned again to fortune. He
+was, however, at that time supported by a friend; and as it was not his
+custom to look out for distant calamities, or to feel any other pain
+than that which forced itself upon his senses, he was not much afflicted
+at his loss, and perhaps comforted himself that his pension would be now
+continued without the annual tribute of a panegyric. Another expectation
+contributed likewise to support him; he had taken a resolution to write
+a second tragedy upon the story of Sir Thomas Overbury, in which he
+preserved a few lines of his former play, but made a total alteration of
+the plan, added new incidents, and introduced new characters; so that it
+was a new tragedy, not a revival of the former.
+
+Many of his friends blamed him for not making choice of another subject;
+but in vindication of himself he asserted that it was not easy to find a
+better; and that he thought it his interest to extinguish the memory of
+the first tragedy, which he could only do by writing one less defective
+upon the same story; by which he should entirely defeat the artifice of
+the booksellers, who, after the death of any author of reputation, are
+always industrious to swell his works by uniting his worst productions
+with his best. In the execution of this scheme, however, he proceeded
+but slowly, and probably only employed himself upon it when he could
+find no other amusement; but he pleased himself with counting the
+profits, and perhaps imagined that the theatrical reputation which he
+was about to acquire would be equivalent to all that he had lost by the
+death of his patroness. He did not, in confidence of his approaching
+riches, neglect the measures proper to secure the continuance of his
+pension, though some of his favourers thought him culpable for omitting
+to write on her death; but on her birthday next year he gave a proof of
+the solidity of his judgment and the power of his genius. He knew that
+the track of elegy had been so long beaten that it was impossible to
+travel in it without treading in the footsteps of those who had
+gone before him; and that therefore it was necessary, that he might
+distinguish himself from the herd of encomiasts, to find out some new
+walk of funeral panegyric. This difficult task he performed in such a
+manner that his poem may be justly ranked among the best pieces that the
+death of princes has produced. By transferring the mention of her death
+to her birthday, he has formed a happy combination of topics which any
+other man would have thought it very difficult to connect in one view,
+but which he has united in such a manner that the relation between them
+appears natural; and it may be justly said that what no other man would
+have thought on, it now appears scarcely possible for any man to miss.
+
+The beauty of this peculiar combination of images is so masterly that
+it is sufficient to set this poem above censure; and therefore it is not
+necessary to mention many other delicate touches which may be found in
+it, and which would deservedly be admired in any other performance. To
+these proofs of his genius may be added, from the same poem, an
+instance of his prudence, an excellence for which he was not so often
+distinguished; he does not forget to remind the king, in the most
+delicate and artful manner, of continuing his pension.
+
+With regard to the success of his address he was for some time in
+suspense, but was in no great degree solicitous about it; and continued
+his labour upon his new tragedy with great tranquillity, till the friend
+who had for a considerable time supported him, removing his family to
+another place, took occasion to dismiss him. It then became necessary to
+inquire more diligently what was determined in his affair, having reason
+to suspect that no great favour was intended him, because he had not
+received his pension at the usual time.
+
+It is said that he did not take those methods of retrieving his interest
+which were most likely to succeed; and some of those who were employed
+in the Exchequer cautioned him against too much violence in his
+proceedings; but Mr. Savage, who seldom regulated his conduct by the
+advice of others, gave way to his passion, and demanded of Sir Robert
+Walpole, at his levee, the reason of the distinction that was made
+between him and the other pensioners of the queen, with a degree of
+roughness which perhaps determined him to withdraw what had been only
+delayed.
+
+Whatever was the crime of which he was accused or suspected, and
+whatever influence was employed against him, he received soon after an
+account that took from him all hopes of regaining his pension; and he
+had now no prospect of subsistence but from his play, and he knew no way
+of living for the time required to finish it.
+
+So peculiar were the misfortunes of this man, deprived of an estate and
+title by a particular law, exposed and abandoned by a mother, defrauded
+by a mother of a fortune which his father had allotted him, he entered
+the world without a friend; and though his abilities forced themselves
+into esteem and reputation, he was never able to obtain any real
+advantage; and whatever prospects arose, were always intercepted as
+he began to approach them. The king's intentions in his favour were
+frustrated; his dedication to the prince, whose generosity on every
+other occasion was eminent, procured him no reward; Sir Robert Walpole,
+who valued himself upon keeping his promise to others, broke it to
+him without regret; and the bounty of the queen was, after her death,
+withdrawn from him, and from him only.
+
+Such were his misfortunes, which yet he bore, not only with decency,
+but with cheerfulness; nor was his gaiety clouded even by his last
+disappointments, though he was in a short time reduced to the lowest
+degree of distress, and often wanted both lodging and food. At this time
+he gave another instance of the insurmountable obstinacy of his spirit:
+his clothes were worn out, and he received notice that at a coffee-house
+some clothes and linen were left for him: the person who sent them did
+not, I believe, inform him to whom he was to be obliged, that he might
+spare the perplexity of acknowledging the benefit; but though the offer
+was so far generous, it was made with some neglect of ceremonies, which
+Mr. Savage so much resented that he refused the present, and declined
+to enter the house till the clothes that had been designed for him were
+taken away.
+
+His distress was now publicly known, and his friends therefore thought
+it proper to concert some measures for his relief; and one of them
+[Pope] wrote a letter to him, in which he expressed his concern "for
+the miserable withdrawing of this pension;" and gave him hopes that in
+a short time he should find himself supplied with a competence, "without
+any dependence on those little creatures which we are pleased to
+call the Great." The scheme proposed for this happy and independent
+subsistence was, that he should retire into Wales, and receive an
+allowance of fifty pounds a year, to be raised by a subscription, on
+which he was to live privately in a cheap place, without aspiring any
+more to affluence, or having any further care of reputation. This offer
+Mr. Savage gladly accepted, though with intentions very different from
+those of his friends; for they proposed that he should continue an exile
+from London for ever, and spend all the remaining part of his life at
+Swansea; but he designed only to take the opportunity which their scheme
+offered him of retreating for a short time, that he might prepare his
+play for the stage, and his other works for the press, and then to
+return to London to exhibit his tragedy, and live upon the profits
+of his own labour. With regard to his works he proposed very great
+improvements, which would have required much time or great application;
+and, when he had finished them, he designed to do justice to his
+subscribers by publishing them according to his proposals. As he was
+ready to entertain himself with future pleasures, he had planned out a
+scheme of life for the country, of which he had no knowledge but from
+pastorals and songs. He imagined that he should be transported to scenes
+of flowery felicity, like those which one poet has reflected to another;
+and had projected a perpetual round of innocent pleasures, of which he
+suspected no interruption from pride, or ignorance, or brutality. With
+these expectations he was so enchanted that when he was once gently
+reproached by a friend for submitting to live upon a subscription,
+and advised rather by a resolute exertion of his abilities to support
+himself, he could not bear to debar himself from the happiness which
+was to be found in the calm of a cottage, or lose the opportunity of
+listening, without intermission, to the melody of the nightingale, which
+he believed was to be heard from every bramble, and which he did not
+fail to mention as a very important part of the happiness of a country
+life.
+
+While this scheme was ripening, his friends directed him to take a
+lodging in the liberties of the Fleet, that he might be secure from his
+creditors, and sent him every Monday a guinea, which he commonly spent
+before the next morning, and trusted, after his usual manner, the
+remaining part of the week to the bounty of fortune.
+
+He now began very sensibly to feel the miseries of dependence. Those
+by whom he was to be supported began to prescribe to him with an air of
+authority, which he knew not how decently to resent, nor patiently
+to bear; and he soon discovered from the conduct of most of his
+subscribers, that he was yet in the hands of "little creatures." Of the
+insolence that he was obliged to suffer he gave many instances, of which
+none appeared to raise his indignation to a greater height than the
+method which was taken of furnishing him with clothes. Instead of
+consulting him, and allowing him to send a tailor his orders for what
+they thought proper to allow him, they proposed to send for a tailor to
+take his measure, and then to consult how they should equip him. This
+treatment was not very delicate, nor was it such as Savage's humanity
+would have suggested to him on a like occasion; but it had scarcely
+deserved mention, had it not, by affecting him in an uncommon degree,
+shown the peculiarity of his character. Upon hearing the design that was
+formed, he came to the lodging of a friend with the most violent
+agonies of rage; and, being asked what it could be that gave him such
+disturbance, he replied with the utmost vehemence of indignation, "That
+they had sent for a tailor to measure him."
+
+How the affair ended was never inquired, for fear of renewing his
+uneasiness. It is probable that, upon recollection, he submitted with
+a good grace to what he could not avoid, and that he discovered no
+resentment where he had no power. He was, however, not humbled to
+implicit and universal compliance; for when the gentleman who had first
+informed him of the design to support him by a subscription attempted to
+procure a reconciliation with the Lord Tyrconnel, he could by no means
+be prevailed upon to comply with the measures that were proposed.
+
+A letter was written for him to Sir William Lemon, to prevail upon him
+to interpose his good offices with Lord Tyrconnel, in which he solicited
+Sir William's assistance "for a man who really needed it as much as any
+man could well do;" and informed him that he was retiring "for ever to
+a place where he should no more trouble his relations, friends, or
+enemies;" he confessed that his passion had betrayed him to some
+conduct, with regard to Lord Tyrconnel, for which he could not but
+heartily ask his pardon; and as he imagined Lord Tyrconnel's passion
+might be yet so high, that he would not "receive a letter from him,"
+begged that Sir William would endeavour to soften him; and expressed
+his hopes that he would comply with this request, and that "so small a
+relation would not harden his heart against him."
+
+That any man should presume to dictate a letter to him was not very
+agreeable to Mr. Savage; and therefore he was, before he had opened
+it, not much inclined to approve it. But when he read it he found it
+contained sentiments entirely opposite to his own, and, as he asserted,
+to the truth; and therefore, instead of copying it, wrote his friend
+a letter full of masculine resentment and warm expostulations. He
+very justly observed, that the style was too supplicatory, and the
+representation too abject, and that he ought at least to have made him
+complain with "the dignity of a gentleman in distress." He declared that
+he would not write the paragraph in which he was to ask Lord Tyrconnel's
+pardon; for, "he despised his pardon, and therefore could not heartily,
+and would not hypocritically, ask it." He remarked that his friend made
+a very unreasonable distinction between himself and him; for, says he,
+"when you mention men of high rank in your own character," they are
+"those little creatures whom we are pleased to call the Great;" but when
+you address them "in mine," no servility is sufficiently humble. He then
+with propriety explained the ill consequences which might be expected
+from such a letter, which his relations would print in their own
+defence, and which would for ever be produced as a full answer to all
+that he should allege against them; for he always intended to publish
+a minute account of the treatment which he had received. It is to be
+remembered, to the honour of the gentleman by whom this letter was drawn
+up, that he yielded to Mr. Savage's reasons, and agreed that it ought to
+be suppressed.
+
+After many alterations and delays, a subscription was at length raised,
+which did not amount to fifty pounds a year, though twenty were paid by
+one gentleman; such was the generosity of mankind, that what had been
+done by a player without solicitation, could not now be effected by
+application and interest; and Savage had a great number to court and to
+obey for a pension less than that which Mrs. Oldfield paid him without
+exacting any servilities. Mr. Savage, however, was satisfied, and
+willing to retire, and was convinced that the allowance, though scanty,
+would be more than sufficient for him, being now determined to
+commence a rigid economist, and to live according to the exact rules of
+frugality; for nothing was in his opinion more contemptible than a man
+who, when he knew his income, exceeded it; and yet he confessed that
+instances of such folly were too common, and lamented that some men were
+not trusted with their own money.
+
+Full of these salutary resolutions, he left London in July, 1739, having
+taken leave with great tenderness of his friends, and parted from the
+author of this narrative with tears in his eyes. He was furnished with
+fifteen guineas, and informed that they would be sufficient, not only
+for the expense of his journey, but for his support in Wales for some
+time; and that there remained but little more of the first collection.
+He promised a strict adherence to his maxims of parsimony, and went away
+in the stage-coach; nor did his friends expect to hear from him till he
+informed them of his arrival at Swansea. But when they least expected,
+arrived a letter dated the fourteenth day after his departure, in which
+he sent them word that he was yet upon the road, and without money; and
+that he therefore could not proceed without a remittance. They then
+sent him the money that was in their hands, with which he was enabled to
+reach Bristol, from whence he was to go to Swansea by water.
+
+At Bristol he found an embargo laid upon the shipping, so that he could
+not immediately obtain a passage; and being therefore obliged to stay
+there some time, he with his usual felicity ingratiated himself
+with many of the principal inhabitants, was invited to their houses,
+distinguished at their public feasts, and treated with a regard that
+gratified his vanity, and therefore easily engaged his affection.
+
+He began very early after his retirement to complain of the conduct
+of his friends in London, and irritated many of them so much by his
+letters, that they withdrew, however honourably, their contributions;
+and it is believed that little more was paid him than the twenty
+pounds a year, which were allowed him by the gentleman who proposed the
+subscription.
+
+After some stay at Bristol he retired to Swansea, the place originally
+proposed for his residence, where he lived about a year, very much
+dissatisfied with the diminution of his salary; but contracted, as in
+other places, acquaintance with those who were most distinguished in
+that country, among whom he has celebrated Mr. Powel and Mrs. Jones,
+by some verses which he inserted in The Gentleman's Magazine. Here
+he completed his tragedy, of which two acts were wanting when he left
+London; and was desirous of coming to town, to bring it upon the stage.
+This design was very warmly opposed; and he was advised, by his chief
+benefactor, to put it into the hands of Mr. Thomson and Mr. Mallet, that
+it might be fitted for the stage, and to allow his friends to receive
+the profits, out of which an annual pension should be paid him.
+
+This proposal he rejected with the utmost contempt. He was by no means
+convinced that the judgment of those to whom he was required to submit
+was superior to his own. He was now determined, as he expressed it, to
+be "no longer kept in leading-strings," and had no elevated idea of
+"his bounty, who proposed to pension him out of the profits of his own
+labours."
+
+He attempted in Wales to promote a subscription for his works, and
+had once hopes of success; but in a short time afterwards formed a
+resolution of leaving that part of the country, to which he thought it
+not reasonable to be confined for the gratification of those who, having
+promised him a liberal income, had no sooner banished him to a remote
+corner than they reduced his allowance to a salary scarcely equal to the
+necessities of life. His resentment of this treatment, which, in his own
+opinion at least, he had not deserved, was such, that he broke off all
+correspondence with most of his contributors, and appeared to consider
+them as persecutors and oppressors; and in the latter part of his life
+declared that their conduct towards him since his departure from London
+"had been perfidiousness improving on perfidiousness, and inhumanity on
+inhumanity."
+
+It is not to be supposed that the necessities of Mr. Savage did not
+sometimes incite him to satirical exaggerations of the behaviour of
+those by whom he thought himself reduced to them. But it must be granted
+that the diminution of his allowance was a great hardship, and that
+those who withdrew their subscription from a man who, upon the faith
+of their promise, had gone into a kind of banishment, and abandoned all
+those by whom he had been before relieved in his distresses, will find
+it no easy task to vindicate their conduct. It may be alleged, and
+perhaps justly, that he was petulant and contemptuous; that he more
+frequently reproached his subscribers for not giving him more, than
+thanked them for what he received; but it is to be remembered that his
+conduct, and this is the worst charge that can be drawn up against him,
+did them no real injury, and that it therefore ought rather to have been
+pitied than resented; at least the resentment it might provoke ought
+to have been generous and manly; epithets which his conduct will hardly
+deserve that starves the man whom he has persuaded to put himself into
+his power.
+
+It might have been reasonably demanded by Savage, that they should,
+before they had taken away what they promised, have replaced him in
+his former state, that they should have taken no advantages from the
+situation to which the appearance of their kindness had reduced him, and
+that he should have been recalled to London before he was abandoned. He
+might justly represent, that he ought to have been considered as a lion
+in the toils, and demand to be released before the dogs should be loosed
+upon him. He endeavoured, indeed, to release himself, and, with an
+intent to return to London, went to Bristol, where a repetition of the
+kindness which he had formerly found, invited him to stay. He was not
+only caressed and treated, but had a collection made for him of about
+thirty pounds, with which it had been happy if he had immediately
+departed for London; but his negligence did not suffer him to consider
+that such proofs of kindness were not often to be expected, and that
+this ardour of benevolence was in a great degree the effect of novelty,
+and might, probably, be every day less; and therefore he took no care
+to improve the happy time, but was encouraged by one favour to hope
+for another, till at length generosity was exhausted, and officiousness
+wearied.
+
+Another part of his misconduct was the practice of prolonging his visits
+to unseasonable hours, and disconcerting all the families into which
+he was admitted. This was an error in a place of commerce which all the
+charms of his conversation could not compensate; for what trader would
+purchase such airy satisfaction by the loss of solid gain, which must be
+the consequence of midnight merriment, as those hours which were gained
+at night were generally lost in the morning? Thus Mr. Savage, after
+the curiosity of the inhabitants was gratified, found the number of his
+friends daily decreasing, perhaps without suspecting for what reason
+their conduct was altered; for he still continued to harass, with his
+nocturnal intrusions, those that yet countenanced him, and admitted him
+to their houses.
+
+But he did not spend all the time of his residence at Bristol in visits
+or at taverns, for he sometimes returned to his studies, and began
+several considerable designs. When he felt an inclination to write,
+he always retired from the knowledge of his friends, and lay hid in an
+obscure part of the suburbs, till he found himself again desirous of
+company, to which it is likely that intervals of absence made him more
+welcome. He was always full of his design of returning to London, to
+bring his tragedy upon the stage; but, having neglected to depart with
+the money that was raised for him, he could not afterwards procure a sum
+sufficient to defray the expenses of his journey; nor perhaps would
+a fresh supply have had any other effect than, by putting immediate
+pleasures into his power, to have driven the thoughts of his journey out
+of his mind. While he was thus spending the day in contriving a scheme
+for the morrow, distress stole upon him by imperceptible degrees. His
+conduct had already wearied some of those who were at first enamoured of
+his conversation; but he might, perhaps, still have devolved to others,
+whom he might have entertained with equal success, had not the decay of
+his clothes made it no longer consistent with their vanity to admit him
+to their tables, or to associate with him in public places. He now began
+to find every man from home at whose house he called; and was therefore
+no longer able to procure the necessaries of life, but wandered about
+the town, slighted and neglected, in quest of a dinner, which he did not
+always obtain.
+
+To complete his misery, he was pursued by the officers for small debts
+which he had contracted; and was therefore obliged to withdraw from
+the small number of friends from whom he had still reason to hope for
+favours. His custom was to lie in bed the greatest part of the day, and
+to get out in the dark with the utmost privacy, and, after having paid
+his visit, return again before morning to his lodging, which was in the
+garret of an obscure inn. Being thus excluded on one hand, and confined
+on the other, he suffered the utmost extremities of poverty, and often
+fasted so long that he was seized with faintness, and had lost his
+appetite, not being able to bear the smell of meat till the action of
+his stomach was restored by a cordial. In this distress, he received a
+remittance of five pounds from London, with which he provided himself
+a decent coat, and determined to go to London, but unhappily spent his
+money at a favourite tavern. Thus was he again confined to Bristol,
+where he was every day hunted by bailiffs. In this exigence he once
+more found a friend, who sheltered him in his house, though at the usual
+inconveniences with which his company was attended; for he could neither
+be persuaded to go to bed in the night nor to rise in the day.
+
+It is observable, that in these various scenes of misery he was always
+disengaged and cheerful: he at some times pursued his studies, and at
+others continued or enlarged his epistolary correspondence; nor was
+he ever so far dejected as to endeavour to procure an increase of his
+allowance by any other methods than accusations and reproaches.
+
+He had now no longer any hopes of assistance from his friends at
+Bristol, who as merchants, and by consequence sufficiently studious
+of profit, cannot be supposed to have looked with much compassion upon
+negligence and extravagance, or to think any excellence equivalent to
+a fault of such consequence as neglect of economy. It is natural to
+imagine, that many of those who would have relieved his real wants, were
+discouraged from the exertion of their benevolence by observation of the
+use which was made of their favours, and conviction that relief would be
+only momentary, and that the same necessity would quickly return.
+
+At last he quitted the house of his friend, and returned to his lodgings
+at the inn, still intending to set out in a few days for London, but
+on the 10th of January, 1742-3, having been at supper with two of his
+friends, he was at his return to his lodgings arrested for a debt of
+about eight pounds, which he owed at a coffee-house, and conducted to
+the house of a sheriff's officer. The account which he gives of this
+misfortune, in a letter to one of the gentlemen with whom he had supped,
+is too remarkable to be omitted.
+
+"It was not a little unfortunate for me, that I spent yesterday's
+evening with you; because the hour hindered me from entering on my
+new lodging; however, I have now got one, but such an one as I believe
+nobody would choose.
+
+"I was arrested at the suit of Mrs. Read, just as I was going upstairs
+to bed, at Mr. Bowyer's; but taken in so private a manner, that I
+believe nobody at the White Lion is apprised of it; though I let the
+officers know the strength, or rather weakness, of my pocket, yet they
+treated me with the utmost civility; and even when they conducted me to
+confinement, it was in such a manner, that I verily believe I could have
+escaped, which I would rather be ruined than have done, notwithstanding
+the whole amount of my finances was but threepence halfpenny.
+
+"In the first place, I must insist that you will industriously conceal
+this from Mrs. S---s, because I would not have her good nature suffer
+that pain which I know she would be apt to feel on this occasion.
+
+"Next, I conjure you, dear sir, by all the ties of friendship, by no
+means to have one uneasy thought on my account; but to have the same
+pleasantry of countenance, and unruffled serenity of mind, which (God
+be praised!) I have in this, and have had in a much severer calamity.
+Furthermore, I charge you, if you value my friendship as truly as I do
+yours, not to utter, or even harbour, the least resentment against Mrs.
+Read. I believe she has ruined me, but I freely forgive her; and
+(though I will never more have any intimacy with her) I would, at a due
+distance, rather do her an act of good than ill-will. Lastly (pardon
+the expression), I absolutely command you not to offer me any pecuniary
+assistance nor to attempt getting me any from any one of your friends.
+At another time, or on any other occasion, you may, dear friend, be well
+assured I would rather write to you in the submissive style of a request
+than that of a peremptory command.
+
+"However, that my truly valuable friend may not think I am too proud to
+ask a favour, let me entreat you to let me have your boy to attend me
+for this day, not only for the sake of saving me the expense of porters,
+but for the delivery of some letters to people whose names I would not
+have known to strangers.
+
+"The civil treatment I have thus far met from those whose prisoner I
+am, makes me thankful to the Almighty, that though He has thought fit
+to visit me (on my birth-night) with affliction, yet (such is His great
+goodness!) my affliction is not without alleviating circumstances. I
+murmur not; but am all resignation to the divine will. As to the world,
+I hope that I shall be endued by Heaven with that presence of mind, that
+serene dignity in misfortune, that constitutes the character of a true
+nobleman; a dignity far beyond that of coronets; a nobility arising
+from the just principles of philosophy, refined and exalted by those of
+Christianity."
+
+He continued five days at the officer's, in hopes that he should be able
+to procure bail, and avoid the necessity of going to prison. The state
+in which he passed his time, and the treatment which he received, are
+very justly expressed by him in a letter which he wrote to a friend:
+"The whole day," says he, "has been employed in various people's filling
+my head with their foolish chimerical systems, which has obliged me
+coolly (as far as nature will admit) to digest, and accommodate myself
+to every different person's way of thinking; hurried from one wild
+system to another, till it has quite made a chaos of my imagination, and
+nothing done--promised--disappointed--ordered to send, every hour, from
+one part of the town to the other."
+
+When his friends, who had hitherto caressed and applauded, found that
+to give bail and pay the debt was the same, they all refused to preserve
+him from a prison at the expense of eight pounds: and therefore,
+after having been for some time at the officer's house "at an immense
+expense," as he observes in his letter, he was at length removed to
+Newgate. This expense he was enabled to support by the generosity of Mr.
+Nash at Bath, who, upon receiving from him an account of his condition,
+immediately sent him five guineas, and promised to promote his
+subscription at Bath with all his interest.
+
+By his removal to Newgate he obtained at least a freedom from suspense,
+and rest from the disturbing vicissitudes of hope and disappointment:
+he now found that his friends were only companions who were willing to
+share his gaiety, but not to partake of his misfortunes; and therefore
+he no longer expected any assistance from them. It must, however, be
+observed of one gentleman, that he offered to release him by paying
+the debt, but that Mr. Savage would not consent, I suppose because he
+thought he had before been too burthensome to him. He was offered
+by some of his friends that a collection should be made for his
+enlargement; but he "treated the proposal," and declared "he should
+again treat it, with disdain. As to writing any mendicant letters, he
+had too high a spirit, and determined only to write to some ministers of
+state, to try to regain his pension."
+
+He continued to complain of those that had sent him into the country,
+and objected to them, that he had "lost the profits of his play, which
+had been finished three years;" and in another letter declares his
+resolution to publish a pamphlet, that the world might know how "he had
+been used."
+
+This pamphlet was never written; for he in a very short time recovered
+his usual tranquillity, and cheerfully applied himself to more
+inoffensive studies. He, indeed, steadily declared that he was promised
+a yearly allowance of fifty pounds, and never received half the sum; but
+he seemed to resign himself to that as well as to other misfortunes,
+and lose the remembrance of it in his amusements and employments.
+The cheerfulness with which he bore his confinement appears from the
+following letter, which he wrote January the 30th, to one of his friends
+in London:
+
+"I now write to you from my confinement in Newgate, where I have been
+ever since Monday last was se'nnight, and where I enjoy myself with much
+more tranquillity than I have known for upwards of a twelvemonth past;
+having a room entirely to myself, and pursuing the amusement of my
+poetical studies, uninterrupted, and agreeable to my mind. I thank the
+Almighty, I am now all collected in myself; and, though my person is in
+confinement, my mind can expatiate on ample and useful subjects with
+all the freedom imaginable. I am now more conversant with the Nine than
+ever, and if, instead of a Newgate bird, I may be allowed to be a
+bird of the Muses, I assure you, sir, I sing very freely in my cage;
+sometimes, indeed, in the plaintive notes of the nightingale; but at
+others, in the cheerful strains of the lark."
+
+In another letter he observes, that he ranges from one subject to
+another, without confining himself to any particular task; and that he
+was employed one week upon one attempt, and the next upon another.
+
+Surely the fortitude of this man deserves, at least, to be mentioned
+with applause; and, whatever faults may be imputed to him, the virtue
+of suffering well cannot be denied him. The two powers which, in the
+opinion of Epictetus, constituted a wise man, are those of bearing and
+forbearing, which it cannot indeed be affirmed to have been equally
+possessed by Savage; and indeed the want of one obliged him very
+frequently to practise the other. He was treated by Mr. Dagge, the
+keeper of the prison, with great humanity; was supported by him at his
+own table, without any certainty of a recompense; had a room to himself,
+to which he could at any time retire from all disturbance; was allowed
+to stand at the door of the prison, and sometimes taken out into the
+fields; so that he suffered fewer hardships in prison than he had been
+accustomed to undergo in the greatest part of his life.
+
+The keeper did not confine his benevolence to a gentle execution of his
+office, but made some overtures to the creditor for his release,
+though without effect; and continued, during the whole time of his
+imprisonment, to treat him with the utmost tenderness and civility.
+
+Virtue is undoubtedly most laudable in that state which makes it most
+difficult; and therefore the humanity of a gaoler certainly deserves
+this public attestation; and the man whose heart has not been
+hardened by such an employment may be justly proposed as a pattern
+of benevolence. If an inscription was once engraved "to the honest
+toll-gatherer," less honours ought not to be paid "to the tender
+gaoler."
+
+Mr. Savage very frequently received visits, and sometimes presents, from
+his acquaintances: but they did not amount to a subsistence, for the
+greater part of which he was indebted to the generosity of this keeper;
+but these favours, however they might endear to him the particular
+persons from whom he received them, were very far from impressing upon
+his mind any advantageous ideas of the people of Bristol, and therefore
+he thought he could not more properly employ himself in prison than in
+writing a poem called "London and Bristol Delineated."
+
+When he had brought this poem to its present state, which, without
+considering the chasm, is not perfect, he wrote to London an account of
+his design, and informed his friend that he was determined to print it
+with his name; but enjoined him not to communicate his intention to
+his Bristol acquaintance. The gentleman, surprised at his resolution,
+endeavoured to persuade 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:--
+
+"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. S----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 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 at Bristol, once caressed, esteemed, and presented with a liberal
+collection, he could forget on a sudden 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 show 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.
+
+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 criminals;
+for it was not pleasing to him 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 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.
+
+He had now ceased from corresponding with any of his subscribers except
+one, 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
+inquire after the state of his debts. However, he took care to enter
+his name according to the 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 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 expense. This
+he treated as an empty menace; and perhaps might have hastened the
+publication, only to show 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 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. Henley, in one of his advertisements, had mentioned "Pope's
+treatment of Savage." 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 afterwards 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 bedside, 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 expense of
+the keeper.
+
+Such were the life and death of Richard Savage, a man 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 visage, coarse features, and melancholy aspect; 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. His judgment 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 that 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 the art of escaping from his
+own reflections, and accommodating himself to every new scene.
+
+To this quality is to be imputed the extent of his knowledge, compared
+with the small time which he spent in visible endeavours to acquire it.
+He mingled in cursory conversation with the same steadiness of attention
+as others apply to a lecture; and amidst the appearance of thoughtless
+gaiety lost no new idea that was started, nor any hint that could be
+improved. He had therefore made in coffee-houses the same proficiency as
+others in their closets; and it is remarkable that the writings of a man
+of little education and little reading have an air of learning scarcely
+to be found in any other performances, but which perhaps as often
+obscures as embellishes them.
+
+His judgment was eminently exact both with regard to writings and to
+men. The knowledge of life was indeed his chief attainment; and it is
+not without some satisfaction that I can produce the suffrage of Savage
+in favour of human nature, of which he never appeared to entertain
+such odious ideas as some who perhaps had neither his judgment nor
+experience, have published, either in ostentation of their sagacity,
+vindication of their crimes, or gratification of their malice.
+
+His method of life particularly qualified him for conversation, of which
+he knew how to practise all the graces. He was never vehement or loud,
+but at once modest and easy, open and respectful; his language was
+vivacious or elegant, and equally happy upon grave and humorous
+subjects. He was generally censured for not knowing when to retire; but
+that was not the defect of his judgment, but of his fortune: when he
+left his company he used frequently to spend the remaining part of the
+night in the street, or at least was abandoned to gloomy reflections,
+which it is not strange that he delayed as long as he could; and
+sometimes forgot that he gave others pain to avoid it himself.
+
+It cannot be said that he made use of his abilities for the direction of
+his own conduct; an irregular and dissipated manner of life had made him
+the slave of every passion that happened to be excited by the presence
+of its object, and that slavery to his passions reciprocally produced a
+life irregular and dissipated. He was not master of his own motions, nor
+could promise anything for the next day.
+
+With regard to his economy, nothing can be added to the relation of his
+life. He appeared to think himself born to be supported by others, and
+dispensed from all necessity of providing for himself; he therefore
+never prosecuted any scheme of advantage, nor endeavoured even to secure
+the profits which his writings might have afforded him. His temper
+was, in consequence of the dominion of his passions, uncertain and
+capricious; he was easily engaged, and easily disgusted; but he is
+accused of retaining his hatred more tenaciously than his benevolence.
+He was compassionate both by nature and principle, and always ready to
+perform offices of humanity; but when he was provoked (and very small
+offences were sufficient to provoke him), he would prosecute his revenge
+with the utmost acrimony till his passion had subsided.
+
+His friendship was therefore of little value; for though he was zealous
+in the support or vindication of those whom he loved, yet it was always
+dangerous to trust him, because he considered himself as discharged
+by the first quarrel from all ties of honour and gratitude; and would
+betray those secrets which in the warmth of confidence had been
+imparted to him. This practice drew upon him an universal accusation of
+ingratitude; nor can it be denied that he was very ready to set himself
+free from the load of an obligation; for he could not bear to conceive
+himself in a state of dependence, his pride being equally powerful with
+his other passions, and appearing in the form of insolence at one time,
+and of vanity at another. Vanity, the most innocent species of pride,
+was most frequently predominant: he could not easily leave off, when he
+had once begun to mention himself or his works; nor ever read his verses
+without stealing his eyes from the page, to discover in the faces of his
+audience how they were affected with any favourite passage.
+
+A kinder name than that of vanity ought to be given to the delicacy with
+which he was always careful to separate his own merit from every other
+man's, and to reject that praise to which he had no claim. He did not
+forget, in mentioning his performances, to mark every line that had
+been suggested or amended; and was so accurate as to relate that he owed
+three words in "The Wanderer" to the advice of his friends. His veracity
+was questioned, but with little reason; his accounts, though not indeed
+always the same, were generally consistent. When he loved any man,
+he suppressed all his faults; and when he had been offended by him,
+concealed all his virtues; but his characters were generally true, so
+far as he proceeded; though it cannot be denied that his partiality
+might have sometimes the effect of falsehood.
+
+In cases indifferent he was zealous for virtue, truth, and justice:
+he knew very well the necessity of goodness to the present and future
+happiness of mankind; nor is there perhaps any writer who has less
+endeavoured to please by flattering the appetites, or perverting the
+judgment.
+
+As an author, therefore, and he now ceases to influence mankind in
+any other character, if one piece which he had resolved to suppress
+be excepted, he has very little to fear from the strictest moral or
+religious censure. And though he may not be altogether secure against
+the objections of the critic, it must however be acknowledged that his
+works are the productions of a genius truly poetical; and, what many
+writers who have been more lavishly applauded cannot boast, that they
+have an original air, which has no resemblance of any foregoing
+writer, that the versification and sentiments have a cast peculiar to
+themselves, which no man can imitate with success, because what was
+nature in Savage would in another be affectation. It must be confessed
+that his descriptions are striking, his images animated, his fictions
+justly imagined, and his allegories artfully pursued; that his diction
+is elevated, though sometimes forced, and his numbers sonorous and
+majestic, though frequently sluggish and encumbered. Of his style the
+general fault is harshness, and its general excellence is dignity; of
+his sentiments, the prevailing beauty is simplicity, and uniformity the
+prevailing defect.
+
+For his life, or for his writings, none who candidly consider his
+fortune will think an apology either necessary or difficult. If he was
+not always sufficiently instructed in his subject, his knowledge was at
+least greater than could have been attained by others in the same state.
+If his works were sometimes unfinished, accuracy cannot reasonably
+be expected from a man oppressed with want, which he has no hope of
+relieving but by a speedy publication. The insolence and resentment
+of which he is accused were not easily to be avoided by a great mind
+irritated by perpetual hardships and constrained hourly to return the
+spurns of contempt, and repress the insolence of prosperity; and vanity
+surely may be readily pardoned in him, to whom life afforded no other
+comforts than barren praises, and the consciousness of deserving them.
+
+Those are no proper judges of his conduct who have slumbered away their
+time on the down of plenty; nor will any wise man easily presume to say,
+"Had I been in Savage's condition, I should have lived or written better
+than Savage."
+
+This relation will not be wholly without its use, if those who languish
+under any part of his sufferings shall be enabled to fortify their
+patience by reflecting that they feel only these afflictions from which
+the abilities of Savage did not exempt him; or those who, in confidence
+of superior capacities or attainments, disregard the common maxims of
+life, shall be reminded that nothing will supply the want of prudence;
+and that negligence and irregularity, long continued, will make
+knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.
+
+
+
+
+SWIFT.
+
+
+An account of Dr. Swift has been already collected, with great diligence
+and acuteness, by Dr. Hawkesworth, according to a scheme which I laid
+before him in the intimacy of our friendship. I cannot therefore be
+expected to say much of a life, concerning which I had long since
+communicated my thoughts to a man capable of dignifying his narrations
+with so much elegance of language and force of sentiment.
+
+Jonathan Swift was, according to an account said to be written by
+himself, the son of Jonathan Swift, an attorney, and was born at Dublin
+on St. Andrew's day, 1667: according to his own report, as delivered by
+Pope to Spence, he was born at Leicester, the son of a clergyman who was
+minister of a parish in Herefordshire. During his life the place of his
+birth was undetermined. He was contented to be called an Irishman by the
+Irish; but would occasionally call himself an Englishman. The question
+may, without much regret, be left in the obscurity in which he delighted
+to involve it.
+
+Whatever was his birth, his education was Irish. He was sent at the age
+of six to the school at Kilkenny, and in his fifteenth year (1682) was
+admitted into the University of Dublin. In his academical studies he
+was either not diligent or not happy. It must disappoint every reader's
+expectation, that, when at the usual time he claimed the Bachelorship
+of Arts, he was found by the examiners too conspicuously deficient for
+regular admission, and obtained his degree at last by SPECIAL FAVOUR; a
+term used in that university to denote want of merit.
+
+Of this disgrace it may be easily supposed that he was much ashamed, and
+shame had its proper effect in producing reformation. He resolved from
+that time to study eight hours a day, and continued his industry for
+seven years, with what improvement is sufficiently known. This part
+of his story well deserves to be remembered; it may afford useful
+admonition and powerful encouragement to men whose abilities have been
+made for a time useless by their passions or pleasures, and who having
+lost one part of life in idleness, are tempted to throw away the
+remainder in despair. In this course of daily application he continued
+three years longer at Dublin; and in this time, if the observation and
+memory of an old companion may be trusted, he drew the first sketch of
+his "Tale of a Tub."
+
+When he was about one-and-twenty (1688), being by the death of Godwin
+Swift, his uncle, who had supported him, left without subsistence,
+he went to consult his mother, who then lived at Leicester, about the
+future course of his life; and by her direction solicited the advice
+and patronage of Sir William Temple, who had married one of Mrs. Swift's
+relations, and whose father Sir John Temple, Master of the Rolls in
+Ireland, had lived in great familiarity of friendship with Godwin Swift,
+by whom Jonathan had been to that time maintained.
+
+Temple received with sufficient kindness the nephew of his father's
+friend, with whom he was, when they conversed together, so much pleased,
+that he detained him two years in his house. Here he became known to
+King William, who sometimes visited Temple, when he was disabled by the
+gout, and, being attended by Swift in the garden, showed him how to cut
+asparagus in the Dutch way. King William's notions were all military;
+and he expressed his kindness to Swift by offering to make him a captain
+of horse.
+
+When Temple removed to Moor Park, he took Swift with him; and when he
+was consulted by the Earl of Portland about the expedience of complying
+with a bill then depending for making parliaments triennial, against
+which King William was strongly prejudiced, after having in vain tried
+to show the earl that the proposal involved nothing dangerous to royal
+power, he sent Swift for the same purpose to the king. Swift, who
+probably was proud of his employment, and went with all the confidence
+of a young man, found his arguments, and his art of displaying them,
+made totally ineffectual by the predetermination of the king; and used
+to mention this disappointment as his first antidote against vanity.
+Before he left Ireland he contracted a disorder, as he thought, by
+eating too much fruit. The original of diseases is commonly obscure.
+Almost everybody eats as much fruit as he can get, without any great
+inconvenience. The disease of Swift was giddiness with deafness, which
+attacked him from time to time, began very early, pursued him through
+life, and at last sent him to the grave, deprived of reason. Being much
+oppressed at Moor Park by this grievous malady, he was advised to try
+his native air, and went to Ireland; but finding no benefit, returned
+to Sir William, at whose house he continued his studies, and is known to
+have read, among other books, Cyprian and Irenaeus. He thought exercise
+of great necessity, and used to run half a mile up and down a hill every
+two hours.
+
+It is easy to imagine that the mode in which his first degree was
+conferred left him no great fondness for the University of Dublin,
+and therefore he resolved to become a Master of Arts at Oxford. In the
+testimonial which he produced the words of disgrace were omitted; and he
+took his Master's degree (July 5, 1692) with such reception and regard
+as fully contented him.
+
+While he lived with Temple, he used to pay his mother at Leicester a
+yearly visit. He travelled on foot, unless some violence of weather
+drove him into a waggon; and at night he would go to a penny lodging,
+where he purchased clean sheets for sixpence. This practice Lord Orrery
+imputes to his innate love of grossness and vulgarity: some may ascribe
+it to his desire of surveying human life through all its varieties: and
+others, perhaps with equal probability, to a passion which seems to have
+been deeply fixed in his heart, the love of a shilling. In time he began
+to think that his attendance at Moor Park deserved some other recompense
+than the pleasure, however mingled with improvement, of Temple's
+conversation; and grew so impatient, that (1694) he went away in
+discontent. Temple, conscious of having given reason for complaint,
+is said to have made him deputy Master of the Rolls in Ireland; which,
+according to his kinsman's account, was an office which he knew him not
+able to discharge. Swift therefore resolved to enter into the Church,
+in which he had at first no higher hopes than of the chaplainship to the
+Factory at Lisbon; but being recommended to Lord Capel, he obtained the
+prebend of Kilroot in Connor, of about a hundred pounds a year. But the
+infirmities of Temple made a companion like Swift so necessary, that he
+invited him back, with a promise to procure him English preferment in
+exchange for the prebend, which he desired him to resign. With
+this request Swift complied, having perhaps equally repented their
+separation, and they lived on together with mutual satisfaction; and, in
+the four years that passed between his return and Temple's death, it
+is probable that he wrote the "Tale of a Tub," and the "Battle of the
+Books."
+
+Swift began early to think, or to hope, that he was a poet, and wrote
+Pindaric Odes to Temple, to the king, and to the Athenian Society, a
+knot of obscure men, who published a periodical pamphlet of answers to
+questions, sent, or supposed to be sent, by letters. I have been told
+that Dryden, having perused these verses, said, "Cousin Swift, you will
+never be a poet;" and that this denunciation was the motive of Swift's
+perpetual malevolence to Dryden. In 1699 Temple died, and left a legacy
+with his manuscripts to Swift, for whom he had obtained, from King
+William, a promise of the first prebend that should be vacant at
+Westminster or Canterbury. That this promise might not be forgotten,
+Swift dedicated to the king the posthumous works with which he was
+intrusted; but neither the dedication, nor tenderness for the man
+whom he once had treated with confidence and fondness, revived in King
+William the remembrance of his promise. Swift awhile attended the Court;
+but soon found his solicitations hopeless. He was then invited by
+the Earl of Berkeley to accompany him into Ireland, as his private
+secretary; but, after having done the business till their arrival
+at Dublin, he then found that one Bush had persuaded the earl that a
+clergyman was not a proper secretary, and had obtained the office for
+himself. In a man like Swift, such circumvention and inconstancy must
+have excited violent indignation. But he had yet more to suffer. Lord
+Berkeley had the disposal of the deanery of Derry, and Swift expected
+to obtain it; but by the secretary's influence, supposed to have been
+secured by a bribe, it was bestowed on somebody else; and Swift was
+dismissed with the livings of Laracor and Rathbeggin in the diocese of
+Meath, which together did not equal half the value of the deanery. At
+Laracor he increased the parochial duty by reading prayers on Wednesdays
+and Fridays, and performed all the offices of his profession with great
+decency and exactness.
+
+Soon after his settlement at Laracor, he invited to Ireland the
+unfortunate Stella, a young woman whose name was Johnson, the daughter
+of the steward of Sir William Temple, who, in consideration of her
+father's virtues, left her a thousand pounds. With her came Mrs.
+Dingley, whose whole fortune was twenty-seven pounds a year for her
+life. With these ladies he passed his hours of relaxation, and to them
+he opened his bosom; but they never resided in the same house, nor did
+he see either without a witness. They lived at the Parsonage when Swift
+was away, and, when he returned, removed to a lodging, or to the house
+of a neighbouring clergyman.
+
+Swift was not one of those minds which amaze the world with early
+pregnancy: his first work, except his few poetical Essays, was the
+"Dissensions in Athens and Rome," published (1701) in his thirty-fourth
+year. After its appearance, paying a visit to some bishop, he heard
+mention made of the new pamphlet that Burnet had written, replete with
+political knowledge. When he seemed to doubt Burnet's right to the
+work, he was told by the bishop that he was "a young man," and still
+persisting to doubt, that he was "a very positive young man."
+
+Three years afterwards (1704) was published "The Tale of a Tub;" of this
+book charity may be persuaded to think that it might be written by a man
+of a peculiar character without ill intention; but it is certainly of
+dangerous example. That Swift was its author, though it be universally
+believed, was never owned by himself, nor very well proved by any
+evidence; but no other claimant can be produced, and he did not deny it
+when Archbishop Sharp and the Duchess of Somerset, by showing it to the
+queen, debarred him from a bishopric. When this wild work first raised
+the attention of the public, Sacheverell, meeting Smalridge, tried to
+flatter him by seeming to think him the author, but Smalridge answered
+with indignation, "Not all that you and I have in the world, nor all
+that ever we shall have, should hire me to write the 'Tale of a Tub.'"
+
+The digression relating to Wotton and Bentley must be confessed to
+discover want of knowledge or want of integrity; he did not understand
+the two controversies, or he willingly misrepresented them. But Wit can
+stand its ground against Truth only a little while. The honours due to
+Learning have been justly distributed by the decision of posterity.
+
+"The Battle of the Books" is so like the "Combat des Livres," which
+the same question concerning the Ancients and Moderns had produced in
+France, that the improbability of such a coincidence of thoughts
+without communication, is not, in my opinion, balanced by the anonymous
+protestation prefixed, in which all knowledge of the French book is
+peremptorily disowned.
+
+For some time after, Swift was probably employed in solitary study,
+gaining the qualifications requisite for future eminence. How often he
+visited England, and with what diligence he attended his parishes, I
+know not. It was not till about four years afterwards that he became a
+professed author; and then one year (1708) produced "The Sentiments of
+a Church of England Man;" the ridicule of Astrology under the name of
+"Bickerstaff;" the "Argument against abolishing Christianity;" and the
+defence of the "Sacramental Test."
+
+"The Sentiments of a Church of England Man" is written with great
+coolness, moderation, ease, and perspicuity. The "Argument against
+abolishing Christianity" is a very happy and judicious irony. One
+passage in it deserves to be selected:--
+
+"If Christianity were once abolished, how could the free-thinkers, the
+strong reasoners, and the men of profound learning, be able to find
+another subject so calculated, in all points, whereon to display their
+abilities? What wonderful productions of wit should we be deprived of
+from those whose genius, by continual practice, hath been wholly turned
+upon raillery and invectives against religion, and would therefore never
+be able to shine or distinguish themselves upon any other subject! We
+are daily complaining of the great decline of wit among us, and would
+take away the greatest, perhaps the only topic we have left. Who would
+ever have suspected Asgill for a wit, or Toland for a philosopher, if
+the inexhaustible stock of Christianity had not been at hand to provide
+them with materials? What other subject, through all art or nature,
+could have produced Tindal for a profound author, or furnished him with
+readers? It is the wise choice of the subject that alone adorns and
+distinguishes the writer. For had a hundred such pens as these been
+employed on the side of religion, they would have immediately sunk into
+silence and oblivion."
+
+The reasonableness of a "Test" is not hard to be proved; but perhaps it
+must be allowed that the proper test has not been chosen. The attention
+paid to the papers published under the name of "Bickerstaff," induced
+Steele, when he projected the Tatler, to assume an appellation which had
+already gained possession of the reader's notice.
+
+In the year following he wrote a "Project for the Advancement of
+Religion," addressed to Lady Berkeley, by whose kindness it is not
+unlikely that he was advanced to his benefices. To this project,
+which is formed with great purity of intention, and displayed with
+sprightliness and elegance, it can only be objected, that, like many
+projects, it is, if not generally impracticable, yet evidently hopeless,
+as it supposes more zeal, concord, and perseverance than a view of
+mankind gives reason for expecting. He wrote likewise this year
+a "Vindication of Bickerstaff," and an explanation of an "Ancient
+Prophecy," part written after the facts, and the rest never completed,
+but well planned to excite amazement.
+
+Soon after began the busy and important part of Swift's life. He was
+employed (1710) by the Primate of Ireland to solicit the queen for a
+remission of the First Fruits and Twentieth Parts to the Irish Clergy.
+With this purpose he had recourse to Mr. Harley, to whom he was
+mentioned as a man neglected and oppressed by the last Ministry, because
+he had refused to co-operate with some of their schemes. What he had
+refused has never been told; what he had suffered was, I suppose,
+the exclusion from a bishopric by the remonstrances of Sharp, whom he
+describes as "the harmless tool of others' hate," and whom he represents
+as afterwards "suing for pardon."
+
+Harley's designs and situation were such as made him glad of an
+auxiliary so well qualified for his service: he therefore soon admitted
+him to familiarity, whether ever to confidence some have made a doubt;
+but it would have been difficult to excite his zeal without persuading
+him that he was trusted, and not very easy to delude him by false
+persuasions. He was certainly admitted to those meetings in which
+the first hints and original plan of action are supposed to have been
+formed; and was one of the sixteen ministers, or agents of the Ministry,
+who met weekly at each other's houses, and were united by the name of
+"Brother." Being not immediately considered as an obdurate Tory, he
+conversed indiscriminately with all the wits, and was yet the friend of
+Steele; who, in the Tatler, which began in April, 1709, confesses the
+advantage of his conversation, and mentions something contributed by him
+to his paper. But he was now emerging into political controversy; for
+the year 1710 produced the Examiner, of which Swift wrote thirty-three
+papers. In argument he may be allowed to have the advantage: for where
+a wide system of conduct, and the whole of a public character, is laid
+open to inquiry, the accuser, having the choice of facts, must be very
+unskilful if he does not prevail: but with regard to wit, I am afraid
+none of Swift's papers will be found equal to those by which Addison
+opposed him.
+
+He wrote in the year 1711 a "Letter to the October Club," a number
+of Tory gentlemen sent from the country to Parliament, who formed
+themselves into a club, to the number of about a hundred, and met to
+animate the zeal and raise the expectations of each other. They thought,
+with great reason, that the Ministers were losing opportunities; that
+sufficient use was not made of the ardour of the nation; they called
+loudly for more changes, and stronger efforts; and demanded the
+punishment of part and the dismission of the rest, of those whom they
+considered as public robbers. Their eagerness was not gratified by the
+queen, or by Harley. The queen was probably slow because she was afraid;
+and Harley was slow because he was doubtful; he was a Tory only by
+necessity, or for convenience; and, when he had power in his hands, had
+no settled purpose for which he should employ it; forced to gratify to
+a certain degree the Tories who supported him, but unwilling to make his
+reconcilement to the Whigs utterly desperate, he corresponded at once
+with the two expectants of the Crown, and kept, as has been observed,
+the succession undetermined. Not knowing what to do, he did nothing;
+and, with the fate of a double dealer, at last he lost his power, but
+kept his enemies.
+
+Swift seems to have concurred in opinion with the "October Club;" but
+it was not in his power to quicken the tardiness of Harley, whom he
+stimulated as much as he could, but with little effect. He that knows
+not whither to go, is in no haste to move. Harley, who was perhaps not
+quick by nature, became yet more slow by irresolution; and was content
+to hear that dilatoriness lamented as natural, which he applauded in
+himself as politic. Without the Tories, however, nothing could be done;
+and, as they were not to be gratified, they must be appeased; and
+the conduct of the Minister, if it could not be vindicated, was to be
+plausibly excused.
+
+Early in the next year he published a "Proposal for Correcting,
+Improving, and Ascertaining the English Tongue," in a Letter to the
+Earl of Oxford; written without much knowledge of the general nature
+of language, and without any accurate inquiry into the history of other
+tongues. The certainty and stability which, contrary to all experience,
+he thinks attainable, he proposes to secure by instituting an academy;
+the decrees of which every man would have been willing, and many would
+have been proud, to disobey, and which, being renewed by successive
+elections, would in a short time have differed from itself.
+
+Swift now attained the zenith of his political importance: he published
+(1712) the "Conduct of the Allies," ten days before the Parliament
+assembled. The purpose was to persuade the nation to a peace; and
+never had any writer more success. The people, who had been amused with
+bonfires and triumphal processions, and looked with idolatry on the
+General and his friends, who, as they thought, had made England the
+arbitress of nations, were confounded between shame and rage, when they
+found that "mines had been exhausted, and millions destroyed," to secure
+the Dutch or aggrandise the Emperor, without any advantage to ourselves;
+that we had been bribing our neighbours to fight their own quarrel;
+and that amongst our enemies we might number our allies. That is now no
+longer doubted, of which the nation was then first informed, that the
+war was unnecessarily protracted to fill the pockets of Marlborough;
+and that it would have been continued without end, if he could have
+continued his annual plunder. But Swift, I suppose, did not yet know
+what he has since written, that a commission was drawn which would have
+appointed him General for life, had it not become ineffectual by the
+resolution of Lord Cowper, who refused the seal.
+
+"Whatever is received," say the schools, "is received in proportion to
+the recipient." The power of a political treatise depends much upon the
+disposition of the people; the nation was then combustible, and a spark
+set it on fire. It is boasted, that between November and January eleven
+thousand were sold: a great number at that time, when we were not yet
+a nation of readers. To its propagation certainly no agency of power or
+influence was wanting. It furnished arguments for conversation, speeches
+for debate, and materials for parliamentary resolutions. Yet, surely,
+whoever surveys this wonder-working pamphlet with cool perusal, will
+confess that its efficacy was supplied by the passions of its readers;
+that it operates by the mere weight of facts, with very little
+assistance from the hand that produced them.
+
+This year (1712) he published his "Reflections on the Barrier Treaty,"
+which carries on the design of his "Conduct of the Allies," and shows
+how little regard in that negotiation had been shown to the interest of
+England, and how much of the conquered country had been demanded by
+the Dutch. This was followed by "Remarks on the Bishop of Sarum's
+Introduction to his third Volume of the History of the Reformation;" a
+pamphlet which Burnet published as an alarm, to warn the nation of the
+approach of Popery. Swift, who seems to have disliked the bishop with
+something more than political aversion, treats him like one whom he is
+glad of an opportunity to insult.
+
+Swift, being now the declared favourite and supposed confidant of the
+Tory Ministry, was treated by all that depended on the Court with the
+respect which dependents know how to pay. He soon began to feel part of
+the misery of greatness; he that could say that he knew him, considered
+himself as having fortune in his power. Commissions, solicitations,
+remonstrances crowded about him; he was expected to do every man's
+business; to procure employment for one, and to retain it for another.
+In assisting those who addressed him, he represents himself as
+sufficiently diligent; and desires to have others believe what he
+probably believed himself, that by his interposition many Whigs of
+merit, and among them Addison and Congreve, were continued in their
+places. But every man of known influence has so many petitions which he
+cannot grant, that he must necessarily offend more than he gratifies,
+because the preference given to one affords all the rest reason for
+complaint. "When I give away a place," said Lewis XIV., "I make a
+hundred discontented, and one ungrateful."
+
+Much has been said of the equality and independence which he preserved
+in his conversation with the Ministers; of the frankness of his
+remonstrances, and the familiarity of his friendship. In accounts of
+this kind a few single incidents are set against the general tenour of
+behaviour. No man, however, can pay a more servile tribute to the great,
+than by suffering his liberty in their presence to aggrandise him in
+his own esteem. Between different ranks of the community there is
+necessarily some distance; he who is called by his superior to pass
+the interval, may properly accept the invitation; but petulance and
+obtrusion are rarely produced by magnanimity; nor have often any nobler
+cause than the pride of importance, and the malice of inferiority. He
+who knows himself necessary may set, while that necessity lasts, a
+high value upon himself; as, in a lower condition, a servant eminently
+skilful may be saucy; but he is saucy only because he is servile. Swift
+appears to have preserved the kindness of the great when they wanted him
+no longer; and therefore it must be allowed, that the childish freedom,
+to which he seems enough inclined, was overpowered by his better
+qualities. His disinterestedness has likewise been mentioned; a
+strain of heroism which would have been in his condition romantic and
+superfluous. Ecclesiastical benefices, when they become vacant, must
+be given away; and the friends of power may, if there be no inherent
+disqualification, reasonably expect them. Swift accepted (1713) the
+deanery of St. Patrick, the best preferment that his friends could
+venture to give him. That Ministry was in a great degree supported by
+the clergy, who were not yet reconciled to the author of the "Tale of a
+Tub," and would not without much discontent and indignation have borne
+to see him installed in an English cathedral. He refused, indeed, fifty
+pounds from Lord Oxford; but he accepted afterwards a draught of a
+thousand upon the Exchequer, which was intercepted by the queen's death,
+and which he resigned, as he says himself, "multa gemens, with many a
+groan." In the midst of his power and his politics, he kept a journal of
+his visits, his walks, his interviews with Ministers, and quarrels with
+his servant, and transmitted it to Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Dingley, to
+whom he knew that whatever befell him was interesting, and no accounts
+could be too minute. Whether these diurnal trifles were properly exposed
+to eyes which had never received any pleasure from the presence of the
+Dean may be reasonably doubted: they have, however, some odd attraction;
+the reader, finding frequent mention of names which he has been used to
+consider as important, goes on in hope of information; and as there
+is nothing to fatigue attention, if he is disappointed he can hardly
+complain. It is easy to perceive, from every page, that though ambition
+pressed Swift into a life of bustle, the wish for a life of ease was
+always returning. He went to take possession of his deanery as soon as
+he had obtained it; but he was not suffered to stay in Ireland more than
+a fortnight before he was recalled to England, that he might reconcile
+Lord Oxford and Lord Bolingbroke, who began to look on one another with
+malevolence, which every day increased, and which Bolingbroke appeared
+to retain in his last years.
+
+Swift contrived an interview, from which they both departed
+discontented; he procured a second, which only convinced him that the
+feud was irreconcilable; he told them his opinion, that all was lost.
+This denunciation was contradicted by Oxford; but Bolingbroke whispered
+that he was right. Before this violent dissension had shattered the
+Ministry, Swift had published, in the beginning of the year (1714), "The
+Public Spirit of the Whigs," in answer to "The Crisis," a pamphlet for
+which Steele was expelled from the House of Commons. Swift was now
+so far alienated from Steele, as to think him no longer entitled to
+decency, and therefore treats him sometimes with contempt, and sometimes
+with abhorrence. In this pamphlet the Scotch were mentioned in terms so
+provoking to that irritable nation, that resolving "not to be offended
+with impunity," the Scotch lords in a body demanded an audience of the
+queen, and solicited reparation. A proclamation was issued, in which
+three hundred pounds were offered for the discovery of the author. From
+this storm he was, as he relates, "secured by a sleight;" of what kind,
+or by whose prudence, is not known; and such was the increase of his
+reputation, that the Scottish nation "applied again that he would
+be their friend." He was become so formidable to the Whigs, that
+his familiarity with the Ministers was clamoured at in Parliament,
+particularly by two men, afterwards of great note, Aislabie and Walpole.
+But, by the disunion of his great friends, his importance and designs
+were now at an end; and seeing his services at last useless, he retired
+about June (1714) into Berkshire, where, in the house of a friend, he
+wrote what was then suppressed, but has since appeared under the title
+of "Free Thoughts on the present State of Affairs." While he was waiting
+in this retirement for events which time or chance might bring to pass,
+the death of the Queen broke down at once the whole system of Tory
+politics; and nothing remained but to withdraw from the implacability of
+triumphant Whiggism, and shelter himself in unenvied obscurity.
+
+The accounts of his reception in Ireland, given by Lord Orrery and
+Dr. Delany, are so different, that the credit of the writers, both
+undoubtedly veracious, cannot be saved, but by supposing, what I think
+is true, that they speak of different times. When Delany says, that he
+was received with respect, he means for the first fortnight, when he
+came to take legal possession; and when Lord Orrery tells that he was
+pelted by the populace, he is to be understood of the time when, after
+the Queen's death, he became a settled resident.
+
+The Archbishop of Dublin gave him at first some disturbance in the
+exercise of his jurisdiction; but it was soon discovered, that between
+prudence and integrity, he was seldom in the wrong; and that, when he
+was right, his spirit did not easily yield to opposition.
+
+Having so lately quitted the tumults of a party, and the intrigues of a
+court, they still kept his thoughts in agitation, as the sea fluctuates
+a while when the storm has ceased. He therefore filled his hours with
+some historical attempts, relating to the "Change of the Ministers,"
+and "The Conduct of the Ministry." He likewise is said to have written
+a "History of the Four last Years of Queen Anne," which he began in
+her lifetime, and afterwards laboured with great attention, but never
+published. It was after his death in the hands of Lord Orrery and Dr.
+King. A book under that title was published with Swift's name by Dr.
+Lucas; of which I can only say, that it seemed by no means to correspond
+with the notions that I had formed of it, from a conversation which I
+once heard between the Earl of Orrery and old Mr. Lewis.
+
+Swift now, much against his will, commenced Irishman for life, and was
+to contrive how he might be best accommodated in a country where he
+considered himself as in a state of exile. It seems that his first
+recourse was to piety. The thoughts of death rushed upon him at this
+time with such incessant importunity, that they took possession of his
+mind, when he first waked, for many years together. He opened his
+house by a public table two days a week, and found his entertainments
+gradually frequented by more and more visitants of learning among the
+men, and of elegance among the women. Mrs. Johnson had left the country,
+and lived in lodgings not far from the deanery. On his public days she
+regulated the table, but appeared at it as a mere guest, like other
+ladies. On other days he often dined, at a stated price, with Mr.
+Worral, a clergyman of his cathedral, whose house was recommended by
+the peculiar neatness and pleasantry of his wife. To this frugal mode
+of living, he was first disposed by care to pay some debts which he had
+contracted, and he continued it for the pleasure of accumulating money.
+His avarice, however, was not suffered to obstruct the claims of his
+dignity; he was served in plate, and used to say that he was the poorest
+gentleman in Ireland that ate upon plate, and the richest that lived
+without a coach. How he spent the rest of his time, and how he employed
+his hours of study, has been inquired with hopeless curiosity. For who
+can give an account of another's studies? Swift was not likely to admit
+any to his privacies, or to impart a minute account of his business or
+his leisure.
+
+Soon after (1716), in his forty-ninth year, he was privately married to
+Mrs. Johnson, by Dr. Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, as Dr. Madden told me,
+in the garden. The marriage made no change in their mode of life; they
+lived in different houses, as before; nor did she ever lodge in the
+deanery but when Swift was seized with a fit of giddiness. "It would be
+difficult," says Lord Orrery, "to prove that they were ever afterwards
+together without a third person."
+
+The Dean of St. Patrick's lived in a private manner, known and regarded
+only by his friends; till, about the year 1720, he, by a pamphlet,
+recommended to the Irish the use, and consequently the improvement, of
+their manufactures. For a man to use the productions of his own labour
+is surely a natural right, and to like best what he makes himself is
+a natural passion. But to excite this passion, and enforce this right,
+appeared so criminal to those who had an interest in the English trade,
+that the printer was imprisoned; and, as Hawkesworth justly observes,
+the attention of the public being, by this outrageous resentment, turned
+upon the proposal, the author was by consequence made popular.
+
+In 1723 died Mrs. Van Homrigh, a woman made unhappy by her admiration
+of wit, and ignominiously distinguished by the name of Vanessa, whose
+conduct has been already sufficiently discussed, and whose history is
+too well known to be minutely repeated. She was a young woman fond of
+literature, whom Decanus, the dean, called Cadenus by transposition
+of the letters, took pleasure in directing and instructing: till, from
+being proud of his praise, she grew fond of his person. Swift was then
+about forty-seven, at an age when vanity is strongly excited by the
+amorous attention of a young woman. If it be said that Swift should have
+checked a passion which he never meant to gratify, recourse must be
+had to that extenuation which he so much despised, "men are but men;"
+perhaps, however, he did not at first know his own mind, and, as
+he represents himself, was undetermined. For his admission of her
+courtship, and his indulgence of her hopes after his marriage to Stella,
+no other honest plea can be found than that he delayed a disagreeable
+discovery from time to time, dreading the immediate bursts of distress,
+and watching for a favourable moment. She thought herself neglected,
+and died of disappointment, having ordered, by her will, the poem to be
+published, in which Cadenus had proclaimed her excellence and confessed
+his love. The effect of the publication upon the Dean and Stella is thus
+related by Delany:--
+
+"I have good reason to believe that they both were greatly shocked and
+distressed (though it may be differently) upon this occasion. The Dean
+made a tour to the south of Ireland for about two months at this time,
+to dissipate his thoughts and give place to obloquy. And Stella retired
+(upon the earnest invitation of the owner) to the house of a cheerful,
+generous, good-natured friend of the Dean's, whom she always much loved
+and honoured. There my informer often saw her, and, I have reason to
+believe, used his utmost endeavours to relieve, support, and amuse
+her, in this sad situation. One little incident he told me of on that
+occasion I think I shall never forget. As his friend was an hospitable,
+open-hearted man, well beloved and largely acquainted, it happened one
+day that some gentlemen dropped in to dinner, who were strangers to
+Stella's situation; and as the poem of 'Cadenus and Vanessa' was then
+the general topic of conversation, one of them said, 'Surely that
+Vanessa must be an extraordinary woman that could inspire the Dean to
+write so finely upon her.' Mrs. Johnson smiled, and answered, 'that she
+thought that point not quite so clear; for it was well known that the
+Dean could write finely upon a broomstick.'"
+
+The great acquisition of esteem and influence was made by the "Drapier's
+Letters," in 1724. One Wood, of Wolverhampton, in Staffordshire, a man
+enterprising and rapacious, had, as is said, by a present to the Duchess
+of Munster, obtained a patent, empowering him to coin one hundred and
+eighty thousand pounds of halfpence and farthings for the kingdom
+of Ireland, in which there was a very inconvenient and embarrassing
+scarcity of copper coin, so that it was possible to run in debt upon the
+credit of a piece of money; for the cook or keeper of an alehouse could
+not refuse to supply a man that had silver in his hand, and the buyer
+would not leave his money without change. The project was therefore
+plausible. The scarcity, which was already great, Wood took care to make
+greater, by agents who gathered up the old halfpence; and was about to
+turn his brass into gold, by pouring the treasures of his new mint upon
+Ireland, when Swift, finding that the metal was debased to an enormous
+degree, wrote letters, under the name of M. B. Drapier, to show the
+folly of receiving, and the mischief that must ensue by giving gold and
+silver for coin worth perhaps not a third part of its nominal value.
+The nation was alarmed; the new coin was universally refused, but the
+governors of Ireland considered resistance to the king's patent as
+highly criminal; and one Whitshed, then Chief Justice, who had tried the
+printer of the former pamphlet, and sent out the jury nine times, till
+by clamour and menaces they were frightened into a special verdict, now
+presented the Drapier, but could not prevail on the grand jury to find
+the bill.
+
+Lord Carteret and the Privy Council published a proclamation, offering
+three hundred pounds for discovering the author of the Fourth Letter.
+Swift had concealed himself from his printers and trusted only his
+butler, who transcribed the paper. The man, immediately after the
+appearance of the proclamation, strolled from the house, and stayed out
+all night, and part of the next day. There was reason enough to fear
+that he had betrayed his master for the reward; but he came home, and
+the Dean ordered him to put off his livery, and leave the house; "for,"
+says he, "I know that my life is in your power, and I will not bear, out
+of fear, either your insolence or negligence." The man excused his fault
+with great submission, and begged that he might be confined in the
+house while it was in his power to endanger the master; but the Dean
+resolutely turned him out, without taking further notice of him, till
+the term of the information had expired, and then received him again.
+Soon afterwards he ordered him and the rest of his servants into his
+presence, without telling his intentions, and bade them take notice
+that their fellow-servant was no longer Robert the butler, but that his
+integrity had made him Mr. Blakeney, verger of St. Patrick's, an officer
+whose income was between thirty and forty pounds a year; yet he still
+continued for some years to serve his old master as his butler.
+
+Swift was known from this time by the appellation of The Dean. He was
+honoured by the populace as the champion, patron, and instructor of
+Ireland; and gained such power as, considered both in its extent and
+duration, scarcely any man has ever enjoyed without greater wealth
+or higher station. He was from this important year the oracle of the
+traders, and the idol of the rabble, and by consequence was feared and
+courted by all to whom the kindness of the traders or the populace was
+necessary. The Drapier was a sign; the Drapier was a health; and which
+way soever the eye or the ear was turned, some tokens were found of the
+nation's gratitude to the Drapier.
+
+The benefit was indeed great; he had rescued Ireland from a very
+oppressive and predatory invasion, and the popularity which he had
+gained he was diligent to keep, by appearing forward and zealous on
+every occasion where the public interest was supposed to be involved.
+Nor did he much scruple to boast his influence; for when, upon some
+attempts to regulate the coin, Archbishop Boulter, then one of the
+justices, accused him of exasperating the people, he exculpated himself
+by saying, "If I had lifted up my finger, they would have torn you to
+pieces." But the pleasure of popularity was soon interrupted by domestic
+misery. Mrs. Johnson, whose conversation was to him the great softener
+of the ills of life, began in the year of the Drapier's triumph to
+decline, and two years afterwards was so wasted with sickness that her
+recovery was considered as hopeless. Swift was then in England, and had
+been invited by Lord Bolingbroke to pass the winter with him in France;
+but this call of calamity hastened him to Ireland, where perhaps his
+presence contributed to restore her to imperfect and tottering health.
+He was now so much at ease, that (1727) he returned to England, where
+he collected three volumes of Miscellanies in conjunction with Pope, who
+prefixed a querulous and apologetical Preface.
+
+This important year sent likewise into the world "Gulliver's Travels," a
+production so new and strange, that it filled the reader with a mingled
+emotion of merriment and amazement. It was received with such avidity,
+that the price of the first edition was raised before the second
+could be made; it was read by the high and the low, the learned and
+illiterate. Criticism was for a while lost in wonder; no rules of
+judgment were applied to a book written in open defiance of truth and
+regularity. But when distinctions came to be made, the part which gave
+the least pleasure was that which describes the Flying Island, and that
+which gave most disgust must be the history of Houyhnhnms.
+
+While Swift was enjoying the reputation of his new work, the news of the
+king's death arrived, and he kissed the hands of the new king and queen
+three days after their accession. By the queen, when she was princess,
+he had been treated with some distinction, and was well received by her
+in her exaltation; but whether she gave hopes which she never took care
+to satisfy, or he formed expectations which she never meant to raise,
+the event was that he always afterwards thought on her with malevolence,
+and particularly charged her with breaking her promise of some medals
+which she engaged to send him. I know not whether she had not, in her
+turn, some reason for complaint. A letter was sent her, not so much
+entreating, as requiring her patronage of Mrs. Barber, an ingenious
+Irishwoman, who was then begging subscriptions for her Poems. To this
+letter was subscribed the name of Swift, and it has all the appearance
+of his diction and sentiments; but it was not written in his hand, and
+had some little improprieties. When he was charged with this letter,
+he laid hold of the inaccuracies, and urged the improbability of the
+accusation, but never denied it: he shuffles between cowardice and
+veracity, and talks big when he says nothing. He seems desirous enough
+of recommencing courtier, and endeavoured to gain the kindness of Mrs.
+Howard, remembering what Mrs. Masham had performed in former times; but
+his flatteries were, like those of other wits, unsuccessful; the lady
+either wanted power, or had no ambition of poetical immortality. He was
+seized not long afterwards by a fit of giddiness, and again heard of the
+sickness and danger of Mrs. Johnson. He then left the house of Pope,
+as it seems, with very little ceremony, finding "that two sick friends
+cannot live together;" and did not write to him till he found himself at
+Chester. He turned to a home of sorrow: poor Stella was sinking into the
+grave, and, after a languishing decay of about two months, died in her
+forty-fourth year, on January 28, 1728. How much he wished her life his
+papers show; nor can it be doubted that he dreaded the death of her whom
+he loved most, aggravated by the consciousness that himself had hastened
+it.
+
+Beauty and the power of pleasing, the greatest external advantages that
+woman can desire or possess, were fatal to the unfortunate Stella. The
+man whom she had the misfortune to love was, as Delany observes, fond
+of singularity, and desirous to make a mode of happiness for himself,
+different from the general course of things and order of Providence.
+From the time of her arrival in Ireland he seems resolved to keep her in
+his power, and therefore hindered a match sufficiently advantageous by
+accumulating unreasonable demands, and prescribing conditions that could
+not be performed. While she was at her own disposal he did not consider
+his possession as secure; resentment, ambition, or caprice might
+separate them: he was therefore resolved to make "assurance doubly
+sure," and to appropriate her by a private marriage, to which he had
+annexed the expectation of all the pleasures of perfect friendship,
+without the uneasiness of conjugal restraint. But with this state poor
+Stella was not satisfied; she never was treated as a wife, and to the
+world she had the appearance of a mistress. She lived sullenly on, in
+hope that in time he would own and receive her; but the time did not
+come till the change of his manners and depravation of his mind made her
+tell him, when he offered to acknowledge her, that "it was too late."
+She then gave up herself to sorrowful resentment, and died under the
+tyranny of him by whom she was in the highest degree loved and honoured.
+What were her claims to this eccentric tenderness, by which the laws of
+nature were violated to restrain her, curiosity will inquire; but
+how shall it be gratified? Swift was a lover; his testimony may be
+suspected. Delany and the Irish saw with Swift's eyes, and therefore add
+little confirmation. That she was virtuous, beautiful, and elegant, in
+a very high degree, such admiration from such a lover makes it very
+probable: but she had not much literature, for she could not spell her
+own language; and of her wit, so loudly vaunted, the smart sayings which
+Swift himself has collected afford no splendid specimen.
+
+The reader of Swift's "Letter to a Lady on her Marriage," may be allowed
+to doubt whether his opinion of female excellence ought implicitly to
+be admitted; for, if his general thoughts on women were such as he
+exhibits, a very little sense in a lady would enrapture, and a very
+little virtue would astonish him. Stella's supremacy, therefore, was
+perhaps only local; she was great because her associates were little.
+
+In some Remarks lately published on the Life of Swift, his marriage
+is mentioned as fabulous, or doubtful; but, alas! poor Stella, as Dr.
+Madden told me, related her melancholy story to Dr. Sheridan, when
+he attended her as a clergyman to prepare her for death; and Delany
+mentions it not with doubt, but only with regret. Swift never mentioned
+her without a sigh. The rest of his life was spent in Ireland, in a
+country to which not even power almost despotic, nor flattery almost
+idolatrous, could reconcile him. He sometimes wished to visit England,
+but always found some reason of delay. He tells Pope, in the decline
+of life, that he hopes once more to see him; "but if not," says he, "we
+must part as all human beings have parted."
+
+After the death of Stella, his benevolence was contracted, and his
+severity exasperated; he drove his acquaintance from his table, and
+wondered why he was deserted. But he continued his attention to the
+public, and wrote from time to time such directions, admonitions, or
+censures, as the exigence of affairs, in his opinion, made proper; and
+nothing fell from his pen in vain. In a short poem on the Presbyterians,
+whom he always regarded with detestation, he bestowed one stricture upon
+Bettesworth, a lawyer eminent for his insolence to the clergy, which,
+from very considerable reputation, brought him into immediate and
+universal contempt. Bettesworth, enraged at his disgrace and loss, went
+to Swift, and demanded whether he was the author of that poem? "Mr.
+Bettesworth," answered he, "I was in my youth acquainted with great
+lawyers, who, knowing my disposition to satire, advised me, that if any
+scoundrel or blockhead whom I had lampooned should ask, 'Are you the
+author of this paper?' I should tell him that I was not the author;
+and therefore, I tell you, Mr. Bettesworth, that I am not the author of
+these lines."
+
+Bettesworth was so little satisfied with this account, that he publicly
+professed his resolution of a violent and corporal revenge; but the
+inhabitants of St. Patrick's district embodied themselves in the Dean's
+defence. Bettesworth declared in Parliament that Swift had deprived him
+of twelve hundred pounds a year.
+
+Swift was popular awhile by another mode of beneficence. He set aside
+some hundreds to be lent in small sums to the poor, from five shillings,
+I think, to five pounds. He took no interest, and only required that,
+at repayment, a small fee should be given to the accountant, but he
+required that the day of promised payment should be exactly kept. A
+severe and punctilious temper is ill qualified for transactions with the
+poor: the day was often broken, and the loan was not repaid. This might
+have been easily foreseen; but for this Swift had made no provision of
+patience or pity. He ordered his debtors to be sued. A severe creditor
+has no popular character; what then was likely to be said of him who
+employs the catchpoll under the appearance of charity? The clamour
+against him was loud, and the resentment of the populace outrageous; he
+was therefore forced to drop his scheme, and own the folly of expecting
+punctuality from the poor.
+
+His asperity continually increasing, condemned him to solitude; and
+his resentment of solitude sharpened his asperity. He was not, however,
+totally deserted; some men of learning, and some women of elegance,
+often visited him; and he wrote from time to time either verse or prose:
+of his verses he willingly gave copies, and is supposed to have felt no
+discontent when he saw them printed. His favourite maxim was "Vive la
+bagatelle:" he thought trifles a necessary part of life, and perhaps
+found them necessary to himself. It seems impossible to him to be idle,
+and his disorders made it difficult or dangerous to be long seriously
+studious, or laboriously diligent. The love of ease is always gaining
+upon age, and he had one temptation to petty amusements peculiar to
+himself; whatever he did, he was sure to hear applauded; and such was
+his predominance over all that approached, that all their applauses
+were probably sincere. He that is much flattered soon learns to flatter
+himself; we are commonly taught our duty by fear or shame, and how can
+they act upon the man who hears nothing but his own praises? As his
+years increased, his fits of giddiness and deafness grew more frequent,
+and his deafness made conversation difficult; they grew likewise more
+severe, till in 1736, as he was writing a poem called "The Legion Club,"
+he was seized with a fit so painful and so long continued, that he never
+after thought it proper to attempt any work of thought or labour. He was
+always careful of his money, and was therefore no liberal entertainer,
+but was less frugal of his wine than of his meat. When his friends of
+either sex came to him in expectation of a dinner, his custom was to
+give every one a shilling, that they might please themselves with their
+provision. At last his avarice grew too powerful for his kindness; he
+would refuse a bottle of wine, and in Ireland no man visits where he
+cannot drink. Having thus excluded conversation, and desisted from
+study, he had neither business nor amusement; for, having by some
+ridiculous resolution, or mad vow, determined never to wear spectacles,
+he could make like little use of books in his latter years; his ideas,
+therefore, being neither renovated by discourse, nor increased by
+reading, wore gradually away, and left his mind vacant to the vexations
+of the hour, till at last his anger was heightened into madness.
+He, however, permitted one book to be published, which had been the
+production of former years--"Polite Conversation," which appeared in
+1738. The "Directions for Servants," was printed soon after his death.
+These two performances show a mind incessantly attentive, and, when it
+was not employed upon great things, busy with minute occurrences. It is
+apparent that he must have had the habit of noting whatever he observed;
+for such a number of particulars could never have been assembled by
+the power of recollection. He grew more violent, and his mental powers
+declined, till (1741) it was found necessary that legal guardians should
+be appointed of his person and fortune. He now lost distinction. His
+madness was compounded of rage and fatuity. The last face that he knew
+was that of Mrs. Whiteway; and her he ceased to know in a little time.
+His meat was brought him cut into mouthfuls: but he would never touch
+it while the servant stayed, and at last, after it had stood perhaps an
+hour, would eat it walking; for he continued his old habit, and was on
+his feet ten hours a day. Next year (1742) he had an inflammation in his
+left eye, which swelled it to the size of an egg, with boils in other
+parts; he was kept long waking with the pain, and was not easily
+restrained by five attendants from tearing out his eye.
+
+The tumour at last subsided; and a short interval of reason ensuing; in
+which he knew his physician and his family, gave hopes of his recovery;
+but in a few days he sank into a lethargic stupidity, motionless,
+heedless, and speechless. But it is said that after a year of total
+silence, when his housekeeper, on the 30th of November, told him that
+the usual bonfires and illuminations were preparing to celebrate his
+birthday, he answered, "It is all folly; they had better let it alone."
+
+It is remembered that he afterwards spoke now and then, or gave some
+intimation of a meaning; but at last sank into a perfect silence,
+which continued till about the end of October, 1744, when, in his
+seventy-eighth year, he expired without a struggle.
+
+When Swift is considered as an author, it is just to estimate his powers
+by their effects. In the reign of Queen Anne he turned the stream of
+popularity against the Whigs, and must be confessed to have dictated for
+a time the political opinions of the English nation. In the succeeding
+reign he delivered Ireland from plunder and oppression: and showed that
+wit, confederated with truth, had such force as authority was unable to
+resist. He said truly of himself, that Ireland "was his debtor." It was
+from the time when he first began to patronise the Irish, that they may
+date their riches and prosperity. He taught them first to know their
+own interest, their weight, and their strength, and gave them spirit to
+assert that equality with their fellow-subjects to which they have ever
+since been making vigorous advances, and to claim those rights which
+they have at last established. Nor can they be charged with ingratitude
+to their benefactor; for they reverenced him as a guardian, and obeyed
+him as a dictator.
+
+In his works he has given very different specimens both of sentiments
+and expression. His "Tale of a Tub" has little resemblance to his other
+pieces. It exhibits a vehemence and rapidity of mind, a copiousness of
+images, and vivacity of diction, such as he afterwards never possessed,
+or never exerted. It is of a mode so distinct and peculiar, that it must
+be considered by itself; what is true of that, is not true of anything
+else which he has written. In his other works is found an equable tenour
+of easy language, which rather trickles than flows. His delight was in
+simplicity. That he has in his works no metaphor, as has been said, is
+not true; but his few metaphors seem to be received rather by necessity
+than choice. He studied purity; and though perhaps all his strictures
+are not exact, yet it is not often that solecisms can be found; and
+whoever depends on his authority may generally conclude himself safe.
+His sentences are never too much dilated or contracted; and it will not
+be easy to find any embarrassment in the complication of his clauses,
+any inconsequence in his connections, or abruptness in his transitions.
+His style was well suited to his thoughts, which are never subtilised
+by nice disquisitions, decorated by sparkling conceits, elevated by
+ambitious sentences, or variegated by far-sought learning. He pays no
+court to the passions; he excites neither surprise nor admiration: he
+always understands himself, and his readers always understand him: the
+peruser of Swift wants little previous knowledge; it will be sufficient
+that he is acquainted with common words and common things; he is neither
+required to mount elevations, nor to explore profundities; his passage
+is always on a level, along solid ground, without asperities, without
+obstruction. This easy and safe conveyance of meaning it was Swift's
+desire to attain, and for having attained he deserves praise. For
+purposes merely didactic, when something is to be told that was not
+known before, it is the best mode; but against that inattention by which
+known truths are suffered to lie neglected, it makes no provision; it
+instructs, but does not persuade.
+
+By his political education he was associated with the Whigs; but he
+deserted them when they deserted their principles, yet without running
+into the contrary extreme; he continued throughout his life to retain
+the disposition which he assigns to the "Church-of-England Man," of
+thinking commonly with the Whigs of the State, and with the Tories
+of the Church. He was a Churchman, rationally zealous; he desired the
+prosperity, and maintained the honour of the clergy; of the Dissenters
+he did not wish to infringe the Toleration, but he opposed their
+encroachments. To his duty as Dean he was very attentive. He managed
+the revenues of his church with exact economy; and it is said by Delany,
+that more money was, under his direction, laid out in repairs, than had
+ever been in the same time since its first erection. Of his choir he
+was eminently careful; and though he neither loved nor understood music,
+took care that all the singers were well qualified, admitting none
+without the testimony of skilful judges.
+
+In his church he restored the practice of weekly communion, and
+distributed the sacramental elements in the most solemn and devout
+manner with his own hand. He came to church every morning, preached
+commonly in his turn, and attended the evening anthem, that it might not
+be negligently performed. He read the service, "rather with a strong,
+nervous voice, than in a graceful manner; his voice was sharp and
+high-toned, rather than harmonious." He entered upon the clerical state
+with hope to excel in preaching; but complained that, from the time
+of his political controversies, "he could only preach pamphlets." This
+censure of himself, if judgment be made from those sermons which have
+been printed, was unreasonably severe.
+
+The suspicions of his irreligion proceeded in a great measure from his
+dread of hypocrisy; instead of wishing to seem better, he delighted in
+seeming worse than he was. He went in London to early prayers, lest he
+should be seen at church; he read prayers to his servants every morning
+with such dexterous secrecy, that Dr. Delany was six months in his house
+before he knew it. He was not only careful to hide the good which he
+did, but willingly incurred the suspicion of evil which he did not.
+He forgot what himself had formerly asserted, that hypocrisy is less
+mischievous than open impiety. Dr. Delany, with all his zeal for his
+honour, has justly condemned this part of his character.
+
+The person of Swift had not many recommendations. He had a kind of muddy
+complexion, which, though he washed himself with Oriental scrupulosity,
+did not look clear. He had a countenance sour and severe, which he
+seldom softened by any appearance of gaiety. He stubbornly resisted any
+tendency to laughter. To his domestics he was naturally rough: and a man
+of a rigorous temper, with that vigilance of minute attention which his
+works discover, must have been a master that few could bear. That he was
+disposed to do his servants good, on important occasions, is no great
+mitigation; benefaction can be but rare, and tyrannic peevishness is
+perpetual. He did not spare the servants of others. Once, when he dined
+alone with the Earl of Orrery, he said of one that waited in the room,
+"That man has, since we sat to the table, committed fifteen faults."
+What the faults were, Lord Orrery, from whom I heard the story, had not
+been attentive enough to discover. My number may perhaps not be exact.
+
+In his economy he practised a peculiar and offensive parsimony, without
+disguise or apology. The practice of saving being once necessary, became
+habitual, and grew first ridiculous, and at last detestable. But
+his avarice, though it might exclude pleasure, was never suffered to
+encroach upon his virtue. He was frugal by inclination, but liberal
+by principle: and if the purpose to which he destined his little
+accumulations be remembered, with his distribution of occasional
+charity, it will perhaps appear that he only liked one mode of expense
+better than another, and saved merely that he might have something to
+give. He did not grow rich by injuring his successors, but left both
+Laracor and the Deanery more valuable than he found them. With all this
+talk of his covetousness and generosity, it should be remembered that he
+was never rich. The revenue of his Deanery was not much more than
+seven hundred a year. His beneficence was not graced with tenderness or
+civility; he relieved without pity, and assisted without kindness; so
+that those who were fed by him could hardly love him. He made a rule to
+himself to give but one piece at a time, and therefore always stored his
+pocket with coins of different value. Whatever he did he seemed willing
+to do in a manner peculiar to himself, without sufficiently considering
+that singularity, as it implies a contempt of the general practice, is
+a kind of defiance which justly provokes the hostility of ridicule; he,
+therefore, who indulges peculiar habits, is worse than others, if he be
+not better.
+
+Of his humour, a story told by Pope may afford a specimen.
+
+"Dr. Swift has an odd, blunt way, that is mistaken by strangers for ill
+nature.--'Tis so odd, that there's no describing it but by facts. I'll
+tell you one that first comes into my head. One evening Gay and I went
+to see him: you know how intimately we were all acquainted. On our
+coming in, 'Heyday, gentlemen' (says the doctor), 'what's the meaning of
+this visit? How came you to leave the great Lords that you are so fond
+of, to come hither to see a poor Dean?'--'Because we would rather see
+you than any of them.'--'Ay, anyone that did not know so well as I do
+might believe you. But since you are come, I must get some supper
+for you, I suppose.'--'No, Doctor, we have supped already.'--'Supped
+already? that's impossible! why, 'tis not eight o'clock yet: that's very
+strange; but if you had not supped, I must have got something for you.
+Let me see, what should I have had? A couple of lobsters; ay, that would
+have done very well; two shillings--tarts, a shilling; but you will
+drink a glass of wine with me, though you supped so much before your
+usual time only to spare my pocket?'--'No, we had rather talk with you
+than drink with you.'--'But if you had supped with me, as in all reason
+you ought to have done, you must then have drunk with me. A bottle
+of wine, two shillings--two and two is four, and one is five; just
+two-and-sixpence a-piece. There, Pope, there's half a crown for you,
+and there's another for you, sir; for I won't save anything by you. I am
+determined.'--This was all said and done with his usual seriousness
+on such occasions; and, in spite of everything we could say to the
+contrary, he actually obliged us to take the money."
+
+In the intercourse of familiar life, he indulged his disposition to
+petulance and sarcasm, and thought himself injured if the licentiousness
+of his raillery, the freedom of his censures, or the petulance of his
+frolics was resented or repressed. He predominated over his companions
+with very high ascendancy, and probably would bear none over whom he
+could not predominate. To give him advice was, in the style of his
+friend Delany, "to venture to speak to him." This customary superiority
+soon grew too delicate for truth; and Swift, with all his penetration,
+allowed himself to be delighted with low flattery. On all common
+occasions, he habitually affects a style of arrogance, and dictates
+rather than persuades. This authoritative and magisterial language
+he expected to be received as his peculiar mode of jocularity: but he
+apparently flattered his own arrogance by an assumed imperiousness,
+in which he was ironical only to the resentful, and to the submissive
+sufficiently serious. He told stories with great felicity, and delighted
+in doing what he knew himself to do well; he was therefore captivated by
+the respectful silence of a steady listener, and told the same tales too
+often. He did not, however, claim the right of talking alone; for it was
+his rule, when he had spoken a minute, to give room by a pause for any
+other speaker. Of time, on all occasions, he was an exact computer, and
+knew the minutes required to every common operation.
+
+It may be justly supposed that there was in his conversation, what
+appears so frequently in his Letters, an affectation of familiarity with
+the great, an ambition of momentary equality sought and enjoyed by the
+neglect of those ceremonies which custom has established as the
+barriers between one order of society and another. This transgression of
+regularity was by himself and his admirers termed greatness of soul. But
+a great mind disdains to hold anything by courtesy, and therefore never
+usurps what a lawful claimant may take away. He that encroaches on
+another's dignity puts himself in his power; he is either repelled with
+helpless indignity, or endured by clemency and condescension.
+
+Of Swift's general habits of thinking, if his Letters can be supposed to
+afford any evidence, he was not a man to be either loved or envied. He
+seems to have wasted life in discontent, by the rage of neglected
+pride, and the languishment of unsatisfied desire. He is querulous and
+fastidious, arrogant and malignant; he scarcely speaks of himself but
+with indignant lamentations, or of others but with insolent superiority
+when he is gay, and with angry contempt when he is gloomy. From the
+letters that passed between him and Pope it might be inferred that they,
+with Arbuthnot and Gay, had engrossed all the understanding and virtue
+of mankind; that their merits filled the world; or that there was no
+hope of more. They show the age involved in darkness, and shade the
+picture with sullen emulation.
+
+When the Queen's death drove him into Ireland, he might be allowed to
+regret for a time the interception of his views, the extinction of
+his hopes, and his ejection from gay scenes, important employment, and
+splendid friendships; but when time had enabled reason to prevail over
+vexation, the complaints, which at first were natural, became ridiculous
+because they were useless. But querulousness was now grown habitual,
+and he cried out when he probably had ceased to feel. His reiterated
+wailings persuaded Bolingbroke that he was really willing to quit his
+deanery for an English parish; and Bolingbroke procured an exchange,
+which was rejected; and Swift still retained the pleasure of
+complaining.
+
+The greatest difficulty that occurs, in analysing his character, is to
+discover by what depravity of intellect he took delight in revolving
+ideas, from which almost every other mind shrinks with disgust. The
+ideas of pleasure, even when criminal, may solicit the imagination; but
+what has disease, deformity, and filth, upon which the thoughts can be
+allured to dwell? Delany is willing to think that Swift's mind was not
+much tainted with this gross corruption before his long visit to
+Pope. He does not consider how he degrades his hero, by making him at
+fifty-nine the pupil of turpitude, and liable to the malignant influence
+of an ascendant mind. But the truth is, that Gulliver had described his
+Yahoos before the visit; and he that had formed those images had nothing
+filthy to learn.
+
+I have here given the character of Swift as he exhibits himself to
+my perception; but now let another be heard who knew him better. Dr.
+Delany, after long acquaintance, describes him to Lord Orrery in these
+terms:--
+
+"My Lord, when you consider Swift's singular, peculiar, and most
+variegated vein of wit, always rightly intended, although not always so
+rightly directed; delightful in many instances, and salutary even where
+it is most offensive; when you consider his strict truth, his fortitude
+in resisting oppression and arbitrary power; his fidelity in friendship;
+his sincere love and zeal for religion; his uprightness in making right
+resolutions, and his steadiness in adhering to them; his care of his
+church, its choir, its economy, and its income; his attention to all
+those who preached in his cathedral, in order to their amendment
+in pronunciation and style; as also his remarkable attention to the
+interest of his successors preferably to his own present emoluments; his
+invincible patriotism, even to a country which he did not love; his very
+various, well-devised, well-judged, and extensive charities, throughout
+his life; and his whole fortune (to say nothing of his wife's) conveyed
+to the same Christian purposes at his death; charities, from which he
+could enjoy no honour, advantage, or satisfaction of any kind in this
+world: when you consider his ironical and humorous, as well as his
+serious schemes, for the promotion of true religion and virtue; his
+success in soliciting for the First Fruits and Twentieths, to the
+unspeakable benefit of the Established Church of Ireland; and his
+felicity (to rate it no higher) in giving occasion to the building of
+fifty new churches in London:
+
+"All this considered, the character of his life will appear like that
+of his writings; they will both bear to be reconsidered, and re-examined
+with the utmost attention, and always discover new beauties and
+excellences upon every examination.
+
+"They will bear to be considered as the sun, in which the brightness
+will hide the blemishes; and whenever petulant ignorance, pride,
+malignity, or envy interposes to cloud or sully his fame, I take upon me
+to pronounce, that the eclipse will not last long.
+
+"To conclude--No man ever deserved better of his country, than Swift did
+of his; a steady, persevering, inflexible friend; a wise, a watchful,
+and a faithful counsellor, under many severe trials and bitter
+persecutions, to the manifest hazard both of his liberty and fortune.
+
+"He lived a blessing, he died a benefactor, and his name will ever live
+an honour to Ireland."
+
+In the poetical works of Dr. Swift there is not much upon which the
+critic can exercise his powers. They are often humorous, almost always
+light, and have the qualities which recommend such compositions,
+easiness and gaiety. They are, for the most part, what their author
+intended. The diction is correct, the numbers are smooth, and the rhymes
+exact. There seldom occurs a hard-laboured expression, or a redundant
+epithet; all his verses exemplify his own definition of a good style;
+they consist of "proper words in proper places."
+
+To divide this collection into classes, and show how some pieces are
+gross, and some are trifling, would be to tell the reader what he knows
+already, and to find faults of which the author could not be ignorant,
+who certainly wrote not often to his judgment, but his humour.
+
+It was said, in a Preface to one of the Irish editions, that Swift had
+never been known to take a single thought from any writer, ancient or
+modern. This is not literally true; but perhaps no writer can easily be
+found that has borrowed so little, or that, in all his excellences and
+all his defects, has so well maintained his claim to be considered as
+original.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage,
+and Swift, by Samuel Johnson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF THE POETS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 4679.txt or 4679.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/6/7/4679/
+
+Produced by Les Bowler
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.