the sixty-second year made me ashamed of gazing upon girls. I had now nothing left but retirement, and for retirement I never found a time, till disease forced me from public employment. 5 Such was my scheme, and such has been its consequence. With an insatiable thirst for knowledge, I trifled away the years of improvement; with a restless desire of seeing different countries, I have always resided in the same city; with the highest expectation 10 of connubial felicity, I have lived unmarried; and with unalterable resolutions of contemplative retirement, 1 am going to die within the walls of Bagdat." PREFATORY NOTE ON THE LIFE OF SAVAGE Johnson's Life of Savage, though usually included among his Lives of the Poets, was written in 1744, long before any thought of that larger undertaking, and midway between his London and The Vanity of Human Wishes. The whole was written in thirty-six hours. 'I wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting; but then I sat up all night' (Life 1. 166). He was wretchedly poor. His wife, after they had sold all they had, was forced to take refuge with a friend. Johnson, too shabby to appear in company, was allowed to dine behind a screen at the house of his publisher, that he might hear his book praised in the tabletalk of Cave's guests. Savage and he were comrades in destitution. The book was highly praised; but what was worth more, some eight years later it won Johnson the friendship of Sir Joshua Reynolds, then just entering upon his great career. 'He met with it in Devonshire, knowing nothing of its author, and began to read it while he was standing with his arm leaning against a chimney-piece. It seized his attention so strongly, that, not being able to lay the book down till he had finished it, when he attempted to move, he found his arm totally benumbed' (Life 1. 165). The Life of Savage has the advantage over Johnson's other biographical writings that he knew Savage well and loved him. Aside from Savage's impudence and irresponsibility, the two men had many traits in common. Johnson's account is full of feeling, though sometimes a little too much governed by consciousness of his championship for his irregular friend. The Life of 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 splendor of their rank, or the extent of their ca5 pacity, have placed upon the summits 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, 10 or that the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose eminence drew upon them an universal attention, have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality been only more conspicuous than those 15 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 can20 not 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 endeavor their own benefit; and that they, who are most able to teach others the way to happiness, 25 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 en- 5 title 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. 10 In the year 1697, Anne, Countess of Macclesfield, having lived for 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 15 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 20 divorce, but to the Parliament for an act by which his marriage might be dissolved, the nuptial contract totally annulled, and the children of his wife illegitimated. This act, after the usual deliberation, he obtained, though without the approbation of some, who considered 25 marriage as an affair only cognizable by ecclesiastical judges; and on March 3d 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 1 This year was made remarkable by the dissolution of a marriage solemnized in the face of the church. SALMON'S 1 REVIEW. The following protest is registered in the books of the Dissentient. Because we conceive that this is the first bill of that nature that hath passed, where there was not a divorce first obtained in the spiritual court; which we look upon as an ill precedent, and may be of dangerous consequence in the future. HALIFAX. ROCHESTER. making another choice, was in a short time married to Colonel Brett. While the Earl of Macclesfield was prosecuting this affair, his wife was, on the 10th of January, 1697-8, 5 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 10 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 15 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 to murder their children, cannot be sup20 posed 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 25 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 30 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. 35 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 |