formation, with encomiums upon the purity and excellence of Mr. Savage's writings.

He was ftill in his ufual exigencies, having no certain fupport, but the penfion allowed him from the Queen, which was not fufficient to laft him the fourth part of the year. His conduct, with regard to his penfion, was very particular. No fooner had he changed the bill, than he vanished from the fight of all his acquaintances, and lay, for fome time, out of the reach of his most intimate friends. At length he appeared again pennylefs as before, but never informed any perfon where he had been, nor was his retreat ever difco-, vered. This was his conftant practice during the whole time he received his penfion. He regularly disappeared, and returned. He indeed affirmed

that he retired to ftudy, and that the money fupported him in folitude for many months, but his friends declared, that the fhort time in which it was fpent, fufficiently confuted his own account of his conduct.

His perpetual indigence, politenefs, and wit, ftill raised him friends, who were defirous to fet him above want, and therefore follicited Sir Robert Walpole in his favour, but though promifes were given, and Mr. Savage trufted, and was trufted, yet these added but one mortification more to the many he had fuffered. His hopes of preferment from that ftatefman iffued in a disappointment; upon which he published a poem in the Gentleman's Magazine, entitled, The Poet's Dependance on a Statesman; in which he complains of the fevere usage he met with. But to despair was no part of the character of Savage; when one patronage failed, he had recourfe to another. The Prince was now extremely popular, and had very liberally rewarded the merit of fome writers, whom Mr. Savage did not think fuperior to himfelf; and therefore he refolved to addrefs a poem to him.

For

For this purpose he made choice of a fubject, which could regard only perfons of the highest rank, and greatest affluence, and which was there. fore proper for a poem intended to procure the patronage of a prince; namely, public fpirit, with regard to public works. But having no friend upon whom he could prevail to prefent it to the Prince, he had no other method of attracting his obfervation, than by publishing frequent advertisements, and therefore received no reward from his patron, however generous upon other occafions. His poverty ftill preffing, he lodged as much by accident, as he dined; for he generally lived by chance, eating only when he was invited to the tables of his acquaintance, from which, the meannefs of his drefs often excluded him, when the politeness, and variety of his converfation, would have been thought a fufficient recompence for his entertainment. Having no lodging, he passed the night often in mean houses, which are set open for any cafual wanderers; fometimes in cellars, amongst the riot and filth of the meanest and moft profligate of the rabble; and fometimes when he was totally without money, walked about the ftreets till he was weary, and lay down in the fummer upon a bulk, and in the winter, with his affociates in poverty, among the ashes of a glasshouse.

In this manner were paffed those days and nights, which nature had enabled him to have employed in elevated fpeculations. On a bulk, in a cellar, or in a glafs-house, among thieves and beggars, was to be found the author of The Wanderer, the man, whose remarks in life might have affifted the statesman, whofe ideas of virtue might have enlightened the moralift, whofe eloquence might have influenced fenates, and whose delicacy might have polished courts. His diftreffes, however afflictive, never dejected him. In his lowest

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sphere

fphere he wanted not fpirit to affert the natural dignity of wit, and was always ready to reprefs that infolence, which fuperiority of fortune incited, and to trample that reputation which rose upon any other bafis, than that of merit. He never admitted any grofs familiarity, or fubmitted to be treated otherwife than as an equal.

Once, when he was without lodging, meat, or cloaths, one of his friends, a man indeed not remarkable for moderation in profperity, left a meffage, that he defired to see him about nine in the morning. Savage knew that his intention was to affift him, but was very much difgufted, that he should prefume to prefcribe the hour of his attendance; and therefore rejected his kindness.

The greatest hardships of poverty were to Savage, not the want of lodging, or of food, but the neglect and contempt it drew upon him. He complained that as his affairs grew defperate, he found his, reputation for capacity vi. fibly decline; that his opinion in queftions of cri. ticifm was no longer regarded, when his coat was out of fashion; and that thofe, who in the interval of his profperity, were always encouraging him to great undertakings, by encomiums on his genius, and affurances of fuccefs, now received any mention of his defigns with coldness, and, in fhort, allowed him to be qualified for no other performance than volunteer-laureat. Yet even this kind of contempt never depreffed him, for he always preferved a steady confidence in his own capacity, and believed nothing above his reach, which he fhould at any time earnestly endeavour to attain.

This life, unhappy as it may be already imagined, was yet embittered in 1738 with new diftreffes. The death of the Queen deprived him of all the profpects of preferment, with which he had fo long entertained his imagination. But even against this calamity there was an expedient at

hand.

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hand. He had taken a refolution of writing a second tragedy upon the ftory of Sir Thomas Overbury, in which he made a total alteration of the plan, added new incidents, and introduced new characters, fo that it was a new tragedy, not a revival of the former. With the profits of this scheme, when finifhed, he fed his imagination, but proceeded flowly in it, and, probably, only em ployed himself upon it, when he could find no other amusement. Upon the Queen's death it was expected of him, that he fhould honour her memory with a funeral panegyric He was thought culpable for omitting it; but on her birth-day, next year, he gave a proof of the power of genius and judgment. He knew that the track of elegy had been fo long beaten, that it was impoffible to travel in it, without treading the footsteps of thefe, who had gone before him, and therefore it was neceffary that he might diftinguifh himself from the herd of encomifts, to find out fome new walk, of funeral panegyric.

2

This difficult task he performed in fuch a manner, that this poem may be justly ranked the best of his own, and amongst the bett pieces that the death of Princes has produced. By transferring the mention of her death, to her birth-day, he has formed a happy combination of topics, which any other man would have thought it difficult to connect in one view; but the relation between them appears natural; and it may be jufly faid, that what no other man could have thought it on, now feems fcarcely poffible for any man to mifs. In this poem, when he takes occafion to mention the King, he modeftly gives him a hint to continue his penfion, which, however, he did not receive at the ufual time, and there was some reason to think that it would be difcontinued. He did not take' thofe methods of retrieving his intereft, which' were most likely to fucceed, for he went one day

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to Sir Robert Walpole's levee, and demanded the reafon of the diftinction that was made between him and the other penfioners of the Queen, with a degree of roughnefs which, perhaps, determined him to withdraw, what had only been delayed., This laft misfortune he bore not only with decency, but cheerfulnefs, nor was his gaiety clouded, even by this disappointment, though he was, in a fhort time, reduced to the lowest degree of diftrefs, and often wanted both lodging and food. At this time he gave another inftance of the infurmountable obftinacy of his fpirit. His cloaths were worn out, and he received notice, that at a coffee-house, fome cloaths and linen were left for him. The perfon who fent them did not, we believe, inform him to whom he was to be obliged, that he might fpare the perplexity of acknowledging the benefit; but though the offer was fo far generous, it was made with fome neglect of ceremonies, which Mr. Savage fo much refented, that he refufed the prefent, and declined to enter the house 'till the cloaths, which were defigned for him, were taken away.

His diftrefs was now publicly known, and his. friends therefore thought it proper to concert fome measures for his relief. The fcheme proposed was, that he should retire into Wales, and receive an allowance of fifty pounds a year, to be raised by fubfcription, on which he was to live privately in a cheap place, without afpiring any more to affluence, or having any farther follicitude for fame.

This offer Mr. Savage gladly accepted, though with intentions very different from thofe of his friends; for they propofed that he fhould continue an exile from London for ever, and spend all the remaining part of his life at Swanfea; but he defigned only to take the opportunity which their fcheme offered him, of retreating for a fhort time,

that