Volume V Part 4 (1/2)

This conduct indeed, seldom drew him into much inconvenience, or his conversation and address were 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 an enemy.

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 a.s.serted that he had done nothing which 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 upon nothing.

Savage's pa.s.sions were strong, among which his resentment was not the weakest; and as grat.i.tude was not his constant virtue, we ought not too hastily to give credit to all his prejudice a.s.serts against (his once praised patron) lord Tyrconnel.

During his continuance with the lord Tyrconnel, he wrote the Triumph of Health and Mirth, on the recovery of the lady Tyrconnel, from a languis.h.i.+ng illness. This poem is built upon a beautiful fiction. Mirth overwhelmed with sickness for the death of a 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 a perpetual spring, and the breezes of the morning sporting about her. Being solicited by her sister Mirth, she readily promises her a.s.sistance, flies away in a cloud, and impregnates the waters of Bath with new virtues, by which the sickness of Belinda is relieved.

While Mr. Savage continued in high life, he did not let slip any opportunity to examine whether the merit of the great is magnified or diminished by the medium through which it is contemplated, and whether great men were selected for high stations, or high stations made great men. The result of his observations is not much to the advantage of those in power.

But the golden aera of Savage's life was now at an end, he was banished the table of lord Tyrconnel, and turned again a-drift upon the world.

While he was in prosperity, he did not behave with a moderation likely to procure friends amongst his inferiors. He took an opportunity in the sun-s.h.i.+ne of his fortune, to revenge himself of those creatures, who, as they are the wors.h.i.+ppers of power, made court to him, whom they had before contemptuously treated. This a.s.suming behaviour of Savage was not altogether unnatural. He had been avoided and despised by those despicable sycophants, who were proud of his acquaintance when railed to eminence. In this case, who would not spurn such mean Beings? His degradation therefore from the condition which he had enjoyed with so much superiority, was considered by many as an occasion of triumph.

Those who had courted him without success, had an opportunity to return the contempt they had suffered.

Mean time, Savage was very 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 his wit and virulence, that he came with a number of attendants, to beat him at a coffee-house; but it happened that he had left the place a few minutes before: Mr. Savage went next day to repay his visit at his own house, but was prevailed upon by his domestics to retire without insisting upon seeing him.

He now thought himself again at full liberty to expose the cruelty of his mother, and therefore about this time published THE b.a.s.t.a.r.d, a Poem remarkable for the vivacity in the beginning, where he makes a pompous enumeration of the imaginary advantages of base birth, and the pathetic sentiments at the close; where he recounts the real calamities which he suffered by the crime of his parents.

The verses which have an immediate relation to those two circ.u.mstances, we shall here insert.

In gayer hours, when high my fancy ran, The Muse exulting thus her lay began.

Bless'd be the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's birth! thro' wond'rous ways, He s.h.i.+nes excentric like a comet's blaze.

No sickly fruit of faint compliance he; He! stamp'd in nature's mint with extasy!

He lives to build, not boast a gen'rous race, No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.

His daring hope, no fire's example bounds; His first-born nights no prejudice confounds.

He, kindling from within requires no flame, He glories in a b.a.s.t.a.r.d's glowing name.

--Nature's unbounded son he stands alone, His heart unbia.s.s'd, and his mind his own.

--O mother! yet no mother!--'Tis to you My thanks for such distinguish'd claims are due.

--What had I lost if conjugally kind, By nature hating, yet by vows confin'd, You had faint drawn me with a form alone, A lawful lump of life, by force your own!

--I had been born your dull domestic heir, Load of your life and motive of your care; Perhaps been poorly rich and meanly great; The slave of pomp, a cypher in the state: Lordly neglectful of a worth unknown, And slumb'ring in a feat by chance my own,

After mentioning the death of Sinclair, he goes on thus:

--Where shall my hope find rest?--No mother's care s.h.i.+elded my infant innocence with prayer; No father's guardian hand my youth maintain'd, Call'd forth my virtues, and from vice refrain'd.

This poem had extraordinary success, great numbers were immediately dispersed, and editions were multiplied with unusual rapidity.

One circ.u.mstance attended the publication, which Savage used to relate with great satisfaction. His mother, to whom the poem with due reverence was 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 a.s.sembly rooms, or cross the walks, without being saluted with some lines from the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. She therefore left Bath with the utmost haste, to shelter herself in the crowds of London. Thus Savage had the satisfaction of finding, that tho' he could not reform, he could yet punish his mother.

Some time after Mr. Savage 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 birth day, to which he gave the odd t.i.tle of Volunteer-Laureat. He had not at that time one friend to present his poem at court, yet the Queen, notwithstanding this act of ceremony was wanting, in a few days after publication, sent him a bank note of fifty-pounds, by lord North and Guildford; and her permission to write annually on the same subject, and that he should yearly receive the like present, till something better should be done for him. After this he was permitted to present one of his annual poems to her majesty, and had the honour of kissing her hand.

When the dispute between the bishop of London, and the chancellor, furnished for some time the chief topic of conversation, Mr. Savage who was an enemy to all claims of ecclesiastical power, engaged with his usual zeal against the bishop. In consequence of his aversion to the dominion of superst.i.tious churchmen, he wrote a poem called The Progress of a Divine, in which he conducts a profligate priest thro' all the gradations of wickedness, from a poor curacy in the country, to the highest preferment in the church; and after describing his behaviour in every station, enumerates that this priest thus accomplished, found at last a patron in the bishop of London.

The clergy were universally provoked with this satire, and Savage was censured in the weekly Miscellany, with a severity he did not seem inclined to forget: But a return of invective was not thought a sufficient punishment. The court of King's-Bench was 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 only criminal, when it was intended to promote the practice of vice; but that Mr. Savage had only introduced obscene ideas, with a view of exposing them to detestation, and of amending the age, by shewing the deformity of wickedness. This plea was admitted, and Sir Philip York, now lord Chancellor, who then presided in that court, dismissed the information, with encomiums upon the purity and excellence of Mr. Savage's writings.

He was still in his usual exigencies, having no certain support, but the pension allowed him from the Queen, which was not sufficient to last him the fourth part of the year. 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 acquaintances, and lay, for some time, out of the reach of his most intimate friends. At length he appeared again pennyless as before, but never informed any person where he had been, nor was his retreat ever discovered. This was his constant practice during the whole time he received his pension. 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.