66 in these almost incredible scenes of distress, we may suppose that Savage mentioned many of the anecdotes with which Johnson afterwards enriched the life of his unhappy companion, and those of other poets. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that one night in particular, when Savage and he walked round St. James's-square for want of a lodging, they were not at all depressed by their situation; but, in high spirits and brimful of patriotism, traversed the square for several hours, inveighed against the minister, and "resolved they would stand by their country." That Johnson was anxious that thentick and favourable account of traordinary friend should first get sion of the publick attention, is e from a letter which he wrote in the tleman's Magazine for August of th preceding its publication. "MR. URBAN,-As your collection how often you have owed the orn of your poetical pages to the correspo of the unfortunate and ingenious M age, I doubt not but you have so regard to his memory as to encoura design that may have a tendency preservation of it from insults or cal and therefore with some degree of ance, entreat you to inform the that his life will speedily be publish person who was favoured with his I am afraid, however, that by associating with Savage, who was habituated to the dissipation and licentiousness of the town, Johnson, though his good principles remained steady, did not entirely preserve that conduct, for which, in days of greater simplicity, he was remarked by his friend Mr. Hec-dence, and received from himself tor; but was imperceptibly led into some indulgences which occasioned much distress to his virtuous mind1. ever could have been driven to stroll about with count of most of the transactions w proposes to mention, to the time of tirement to Swansea in Wales. "From that period, to his death prison of Bristol, the account will tinued from materials still less liable jection; his own letters, and those friends, some of which will be inse the work, and abstracts of others su in the margin. "It may be reasonably imagine others may have the same design; b is not credible that they can obtain th materials, it must be expected they w ply from invention the want of intell and that under the title of The Savage,' they will publish only a no ed with romantick adventures and nary amours. Ma You may therefore, p gratify the lovers of truth and wit, by me leave to inform them in your that my account will be published by Mr. Roberts, in Warwick-lane." [No Signa posing that this temporary separation w duced by pecuniary distress, and not by ruption of affection. Johnson would be solicitous that his wife should find in family a temporary refuge from the w which he was struggling. There never isted any human being, all the details of w all the motives of whose actions, all the of whose mind, have been so unreservedly before the publick; even his prayers, his cret meditations, and his most scrupulous [Sir John Hawkins very uncharitably attri- proaches, have been laid before the wo butes to the influence of Savage a separation there is not to be found, in all the unp which took place (as he alone asserts), between mass of information thus exposed to us, Johnson and his wife about this period, "when trace to justify the accusation which Ha she was harboured," as he expressess it, "by a wantonly and so odiously, and it may be friend near the Tower." This separation (if Haw- so falsely makes. Johnson's fate in this kins be even so far correct) may be explained with-lar is a little hard; he is at once ridi out any reference to Savage. The whole course being extravagantly uxorious, and censu of Johnson's life and conduct warrants us in sup- profligate disregard of his wife.-ED.] "No tenth transmitter of a foolish face." But the fact is, that this poem was published some years before Johnson and Savage were acquainted. of date. In February, 1744, it accordingly came forth from the shop of Roberts, between whom and Johnson I have not traced any connexion, except the casual one of this publication. In Johnson's "Life of Savage," although it must be allowed that its acquainted 3, and in the whole of Johnson's It no where appears when they became moral is the reverse of " Respicere exem-life of his profligate friend there is no kind plar vita morumque jubebo," a very useful lesson is inculcated, to guard men of warm passions from a too free indulgence of them; and the various incidents are related in so clear and animated a manner, and illuminated throughout with so much philosophy, that it is one of the most interesting narratives in the English language2. Sir Joshua Reynolds told me, that upon his return from Italy he met with it in Devonshire, knowing nothing of its authour, and began to read it while he was standing with his arm leaning against a chimneypiece. It seized his attention so strongly, that, not being able to lay down the book till he had finished it, when he attempted to move, he found his arm totally benumbed. The rapidity with which this work was composed is a wonderful circumstance. Johnson has disquisition there appears a very strong It is remarkable, that in this biographical symptom of Johnson's prejudice against players 4; a prejudice which may be attributed to the following causes: first, the defective that he was not susceptible of the imperfection of his organs, which were so fine impressions which theatrical excellence produces upon the generality of mankind; secondly, the cold rejections of his tragedy; who had been his pupil, who had come to and, lastly, the brilliant success of Garrick, London at the same time with him, not in self, and whose talents he undoubtedly a much more prosperous state than himrated low, compared with his own. His being outstripped by his pupil in the race of immediate fame, as well as of fortune, probably made him feel some indignation, as thinking whatever might be Garrick's merits in his art, the reward was too great He exhibits the genius of Savage to the cessful efforts of literary labour could atwhen compared with what the most sucbest advantage, in the specimens of his poe-tain. At all periods of his life Johnson try which he has selected, some of which are of uncommon merit. We, indeed, occasionally find such vigour and such point, as might make us suppose that the generous sid of Johnson had been imparted to his friend. Mr. Thomas Warton made this remark to me; and, in support of it, quoted from the poem entitled "The Bastard," a line in which the fancied superiority of one "stamped in Nature's mint with ecstasy" is contrasted with a regular lawful descendant of some great and ancient family: been heard to say, "I wrote fortyeight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting; bot then I sat up all night." [There seems reason to Suppose that Cave sometimes permitted the name of another printer to appear on the title pages of books of which he we in fact the publisher; see ante, p. 53. In this case the fact is certain; as it appears from the letter to Cave, August, 1738 (ante, p. 62), that Johnson sold the work to him even before it was written.-ED.] * [It gives, like Raphael's Lazarus or Murillo's Beggar, pleasure as a work of art, while the origmal could only excite disgust. Johnson has read over Savage's character the varnish, or rither the veil, of stately diction and extenuatory phrase, but cannot prevent the observant reader from seeing that the subject of this biograpical say was, as Mr. Boswell calls him, "an ungrateful and insolent profligate;" and so little his works show of that poetical talent for sch te has been celebrated, that if it had not been for Johnson's embalming partiality, his works would probably be now as unheard of as bey are unread.-ED.] used to talk contemptuously of players; but in this work he speaks of them with peculiar acrimony; for which, perhaps, there centious and dissolute manners of those enwas formerly too much reason from the lito add, that in our own time such a change gaged in that profession. It is but justice has taken place, that there is no longer room for such an unfavourable distinction. His schoolfellow and friend, Dr. Taylor, told me a pleasant anecdote of Johnson's triumphing over his pupil, David Garrick. When that great actor had played some 3 [This acquaintance probably commenced in the spring of 1738; certainly not earlier, if it be true, that they first met at St. John's Gate, as Johnson was not known to Cave till February or March, 1738.-ED.] 4 [It is another of those remarkable inconsistencies in Johnson's character, before alluded to (p. 49), that as the first publication of this determined admirer of the metropolis was a satire on London, so the first production of this despiser of the stage should be a play! Mr. Boswell is obliged to admit what was too obvious to be concealed-but he does so with reluctance and great tenderness of expression-that Dr. Johnson envied Garrick, and we shall see that he even envied Sheridan, and to this source must, we fear, be attributed his " indignation" against players. This is no doubt a blot on Johnson's character, and we have seen, and shall see, too many instances of this infirmity.—ED.] little time at Goodman's-fields, Johnson and Taylor went to see him perform, and afterwards passed the evening at a tavern with him and old Giffard. Johnson, who was ever depreciating stage-players, after censuring some mistakes in emphasis, which Garrick had committed in the course of that night's acting, said, "The players, sir, have got a kind of rant, with which they run on, without any regard either to accent or emphasis." Both Garrick and Giffard were offended at this sarcasm, and endeavoured to refute it; upon which Johnson rejoined, "Well now, I'll give you something to speak, with which you are little acquainted, and then we shall see how just my observation is. That shall be the criterion. Let me hear you repeat the ninth commaniment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."" Both tried at it, said Dr. Taylor, and both mistook the emphasis, which should be upon not and false witness1. Johnson put them right, and enjoyed his victory with great glee. His "Life of Savage" was no sooner published, than the following liberal praise was given to it, in "The Champion," a periodical paper: "This pamphlet is, without flattery to its authour, as just and well written a piece of its kind as I ever saw; so that at the same time that it highly deserves, it certainly stands very little in need of this recommendation. As to the history of the unfortunate person, whose memoirs compose this work, it is certainly penned with equal accuracy and spirit, of which I am so much the better judge, as I know many of the facts mentioned to be strictly true, and very fairly related. Besides, it is not only the story 1 I suspect Dr. Taylor was inaccurate in this statement. The emphasis should be equally upon shalt and not, as both concur to form the negative injunction; and false witness, like the other acts prohibited in the decalogue, should not be marked by any peculiar emphasis, but only be distinctly enunciated.- BosWELL. of Mr. Savage, but innumerable incidents relating to other persons, and other af fairs, which render this a very amusing, and, withal, a very instructive and valuable performance. The authour's observations are short, significant, and just, as his narrative is remarkably smooth and well disposed; his reflections open to all the recesses of the human heart; and, in a word, a more just or pleasant, a more engaging or a more improving treatise, on all the excellences and defects of human nature, is scarce to be found in our own, or, perhaps, any other language 2." Johnson's partiality for Savage made him entertain no doubt of his story, however extraordinary and improbable. It never occurred to him to question his being the son of the Countess of Macclesfield, of whose unrelenting barbarity he so loudly complained, and the particulars of which are related in so strong and affecting a manner in Johnson's Life of him. Johnson was certainly well warranted in publishing his narrative, however offensive it might be to the lady and her relations, because her alleged unnatural and cruel conduct to her son, and shameful avowal of guilt, were stated in a Life of Savage now lying before me, which came out so early as 1727, and no attempt had been made to confute it, or to punish the authour or printer as a libeller: but for the honour of human nature, we should be glad to find the shocking tale not true; and from a respectable gentleman 3, connected with the lady's family, I have received such information and remarks, as, joined to my own inquiries, will, I think, render it at least somewhat doubtful, especially when we consider that it must have originated from the person himself who went by the name of Richard Savage. If the maxim, falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus, were to be received without qualification, the credit of Savage's narrative, as conveyed to us, would be annihilated; for it contains some assertions which, beyond a question, are not true. A moderate emphasis should be placed on false. -KEARNEY. Dr. Kearney is clearly right; Earl Rivers, on account of a criminal con1. In order to induce a belief that the whatever emphasis there is should be on false. nexion with whom Lady Macclesfield is The error of Johnson's suggestion of making two or three emphatic words will be the more clearly said to have been divorced from her husshown by observing that several of the command-hand, by Act of Parliament (1697), had a ments consist, in the Greek and the Latin (as peculiar anxiety about the child which she well as in the original Hebrew), of only two words, as Ou xefus, Non furaberis; and Boswell's opinion, that false witness should not be emphatical, is contradicted by the fact, that in the Greek version false witness is doubly forbidden, Ou feudiμreTugnous magtugier food. Yet Dr. Wooll, in his Life of J. Warton (p. 101) seems to have so little considered the matter as to approve of, what he calls, Johnson's "reproof of Garrick."-ED.] 2 This character of the Life of Savage was not written by Fielding, as has been supposed, but most probably by Ralph, who, as appears from the minutes of the Partners of "The Champion," in the possession of Mr. Reed of Staple Inn, succeeded Fielding in his share of the paper, before the date of that eulogium.-BOSWELL. The late Francis Cockayne Cust, esq. one of his majesty's council-BOSWELL, bore to him, it is alleged, that his lordship gave him his own name, and had it duly recorded in the register of St. Andrew's, Holborn. I have carefully inspected that register, but no such entry is to be found. Mr. Cust's reasoning, with respect to the filiation of Richard Savage, always appeared to me extremely unsatisfactory; and is entirely overturned by the following decisive observations, for which the reader is indebted to the unwearied researches of Mr. Bindley.—The story on which Mr. Cust so much relies, that Savage was a supposititious child, not the son of Lord Rivers and Lady Macclesfed, but the offspring of a shoemaker, introduced in consequence of her real son's death, was, without desht, grounded on the circumstance of Lady Macclesfield having, in 1696, previously to the birth of Savage, had a daughter by the Earl Rivers, who died in her infancy: a fact which, as the sarce gentleman observes to me, was proved in the use of the proceedings on Lord Macclesfe'd's Fill of Divorce. Most fictions of this kind beve some admixture of truth in them.-MALONE. From the Earl of Macclesfield's Case," which, in 1697-8, was presented to the Lords, in order to procure an act of divorce, it appears that Anne, Countess of Macclesfield, under the name of Madam SMITH, was delivered of a male child in Fos-court, near Brook-street, Holborn, by Mr. Wright, a midwife, on Saturday, the 16th of January, 1696-7, at six o'clock in the morning, who was baptized on the Monday following, d registered by the name of RICHARD, the son of John Smith, by Mr. Burbridge, assistant to Dr. Manningham's curate for St. Andrew's, Holborn: that the child was christened on Monday, the 18th of January, in Fox-court; and, from the privacy, was supposed by Mr. Burbridge to be "a byblow, or bastard." It also appears that, during her delivery, the lady wore a mask; and that Mary Fegier, on the next day after the baptism (Tuesday), took a male child, whose mother was called Madam Smith, from the house of Mrs. Pheasant, in Fox-court [running from Brook-street into Gray's-inn-lane], who went by the name of Mr. Lee. Conformable to this statement is the entry in the register of St. Andrew's, Holborn, which is as follows, and which unquestionably records the bap of Richard Savage, to whom Lord Rivers are his own Christian name, prefixed to the asmaved samname of his mother: Jan. 1696-7. - RICHARD, son of John Smith and Mary, in Fes-court, in Gray's-in-lane, baptized the 18th." -BINDLEY. [Mr. Cust and Mr. Boswell's share the argument and assertions in the text not bemy detinguished, it is not possible to say which of them hazarded the assertion relative to the parish register of St. Andrew's, which certainly drontain what the text asserts is not to be fed in it. If the maxim, therefore, falsum in ww, falsum in omnibus, were to be applied to th, all their observations must be rejected. On the other hand, Mr. Bindley's researches s only to prove what has been generally aded, that Lady Macclesfield had a child, by Land Pivars, baptized by the name of Richard; 2. It is stated, that "Lady 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 Johnson, assuming this to be true, stigmatises her with indignation, as "the wretch who had, without scruple, proclaimed herself an adulteress 2." But I have perused the Journals of both houses of Parliament at the period of her divorce, and there find it authentically ascertained, that so far from voluntarily submitting to the ignominious charge of adultery, she made a strenuous defence by her counsel; the bill having been first moved the 15th of January, 1697-8, in the House of Lords, and proceeded on (with various applications for time to bring up witnesses at a distance, &c.) at intervals, till the 3d of March, when it passed. It was brought to the Commons, by a message from the Lords, the 5th of March, proceeded on the 7th, 10th, 11th, 14th, and 15th, on which day, after a full examination of witnesses on both sides, and hearing of counsel, it was reported without amendments, passed, and carried to the Lords. That Lady Macclesfield was convicted of the crime of which she was accused, cannot he denied; but the question now is, whether the person calling himself Richard Savage was her son. It has been said3, that when Earl Rivers was dying, and anxious to provide for all his natural children, he was informed by Lady Macclesfield that her son by him was dead. Whether, then, shall we believe that this was a malignant lie, invented by a mother to prevent her own child from receiving the bounty of his father, which was accordingly the consequence, if the person whose life Johnson wrote was her son; or shall we not rather believe that the person who then assumed the name of Richard Sayage was an impostor, being in reality the son of the shoemaker under whose wife's care4 Lady Macclesfield's child was placed; but it does not disprove the assertion, that this child died in its infancy, and that Savage, when between seventeen and eighteen, assumed its name. Savage, in a letter to Miss Carter, admits that he did pass under another name till he was seventeen years of age, but not the name of any person he lived with.-Life of Mrs. Carter, vol. i. p. 59.-Ed.] 2 No divorce can be obtained in the courts on confession of the party. There must be proofs.→→ KEARNEY. that after the death of the real Richard Sav- | age, he attempted to personate him; and that the fraud being known to Lady Macclesfield, he was therefore repulsed by her with just resentment. There is a strong circumstance in support of the last supposition; though it has been mentioned as an aggravation of Lady Macclesfield's unnatural conduct, and that is, her having prevented him from obtaining the benefit of a legacy left to him by Mrs. Lloyd, his godmother. For if there was such a legacy left, his not being able to obtain payment of it must be imputed to his consciousness that he was not the real per son. The just inference should be, that by the death of Lady Macclesfield's child before its godmother, the legacy became lapsed, and therefore that Johnson's Richard Savage was an impostor. If he had a title to the legacy, he could not have found any difficulty in recovering it; for had the executors resisted his claim, the whole costs, as well as the legacy, must have been paid by them, if he had been the child to whom it was given 1. The talents of Savage, and the mingled fire, rudeness, pride, meanness, and ferocity of his character 2, concur in making it credible that he was fit to plan and carry on an ambitious and daring scheme of imposture, similar instances of which have not been wanting in higher spheres, in the history of different countries, and have had a considerable degree of success. Yet on the other hand, to the companion of Johnson (who, through whatever medium he was conveyed into this world, be it ever so doubtful," to whom related, or by whom begot," was, unquestionably, a man of no common endowments), we must allow the weight of general repute as to his Status or parentage, though illicit; and supposing him to be an impostor, it seems strange that Lord Tyrconnel, the nephew of Lady Macclesfield, should patronise him, and even admit him as a guest in his family3. [This reasoning is decisive; if Savage were what he represented himself to be, nothing could have prevented his recovering his legacy.-ED.] 2 Johnson's companion appears to have persuaded that lofty-minded man, that he resembled him in having a noble pride; for Johnson, after painting in strong colours the quarrel between Lord Tyrconnel and Savage, asserts that "the spirit of Mr. Savage, indeed, never suffered him to solicit a reconciliation: he returned reproach for reproach, and insult for insult." But the respectable gentleman to whom I have alluded has in his possession a letter from Savage, after Lord Tyrconnel had discarded him, addressed to the Reverend Mr. Gilbert, his Lordship's chaplain, in which he requests him, in the humblest manner, to represent his case to the viscount.--BOSWELL. 'Trusting to Savage's information, Johnson Lastly, it must ever appear very s that three different accounts of th Richard Savage, one published i Plain Dealer," in 1724, another and another by the powerful pen son, in 1744, and all of them w Macclesfield 4 was alive, should, standing the severe attacks upon been suffered to pass without an and effectual contradiction 5. represents this unhappy man's being re pensioned by his lordship, as posterior t conviction and pardon. But I am a Savage had received the voluntary boun Tyrconnel, and had been dismissed by before the murder was committed, an lordship was very instrumental in proc age's pardon, by his intercession with through Lady Hertford. If, therefore, h he would have left him to his fate. desirous of preventing the publication b must observe, that although Johnson that Lord Tyrconnel's patronage of S 66 upon his promise to lay aside his des posing the cruelty of his mother," the ographer has forgotten that he himself tioned that Savage's story had been tol years before, in "The Plain Dealer;" fr he quotes this strong saying of the ger Richard Steele, that the " inhumanity ther had given him a right to find e man his father." At the same time it acknowledged, that Lady Macclesfield relations might still wish that her story s be brought into more conspicuous noti satirical pen of Savage.-BOSWELL. 4 Miss Mason, after having forfeited t Colonel Brett, and, it is said, was well Lady Macclesfield by divorce, was n all the polite circles. Colley Cibber, formed, had so high an opinion of her judgment as to genteel life and manner submitted every scene of his "Careless to Mrs. Brett's revisal and correction. Brett was reported to be free in his gall his lady's maid. Mrs. Brett came int one day in her own house, and found t and the maid both fast asleep in two cha tied a white handkerchief round her husba which was a suflicient proof that she h ered his intrigue; but she never at any notice of it to him. This incident, as gave occasion to the well-wrought sce Charles and Lady Easy and Edging.-E [Can Mr. Boswell have been well info Lady Macclesfield, after her divorc marriage, was received in all the polit —ED.] [It should, however, be recollecte we draw any conclusions from Lady field's forbearance to prosecute a lib however innocent she might be as to Sa was undeniably and inexcusably guilty respects, and would have been naturally to drag her frailties again before the pul it had not been for the accident of Johns near twenty years after, happened to |