SAVAGE.

T has been obferved in all ages, that the ad

IT

vantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happinefs; and that thofe whom the fplendor of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the fummits of human life, have not often given any juft occafion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower ftation. Whether it be that apparent fuperiority incites great defigns, and great defigns are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that the general lot of mankind is mifery, and the misfortunes of those whose eminence drew upon them an univerfal attention, have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality been only more confpicuous than those of others, not more frequent, or more fevere.

That affluence and power, advantages extrin fic and adventitious, and therefore eafily fepab

rable

rable from thofe by whom they are poffeffed, fhould very often flatter the mind with expectations of felicity which they cannot give, raifes no astonishment; but it feems rational to hope, that intellectual greatness should produce better effects; that minds qualified for great attainments fhould first endeavour their own benefit ; and that they who are most able to teach others the way to happinefs, fhould with most certainty follow it themselves.

But this expectation, however plaufible, has been very frequently difappointed. The heroes of literary as well as civil hiftory have been very often no less remarkable for what they have atchieved; and volumes have been written only to enumerate the miseries of the learned, and relate their unhappy lives, and untimely deaths.

To thefe mournful narratives, I am about to add the Life of Richard Savage, a man whose writings intitle him to an eminent rank in the claffes of learning, and whofe misfortunes claim a degree of compaffion, not always due to the unhappy, as they were often the confequencés of the crimes of others, rather than his own.

In the year 1697, Anne Countess of Maccleffield, having lived for fome time upon very uneafy terms with her husband, thought a public confeffion of adultery the most obvious and expeditious method of obtaining her liberty; and therefore declared, that the child, with which

fhe

fhe was then great, was begotten by the Earl Rivers. This, as may be easily imagined, made her husband no lefs defirous of a feparation than herself, and he profecuted his defign in the most effectual manner; for he applied not to the ecclefiaftical courts for a divorce, but to the parliament for an act, by which his marriage might be diffolved, the nuptial contract totally annulled, and the children of his wife illegiti mated. This act, after the ufual deliberation, he obtained, though without the approbation of fome, who confidered marriage as an affair only cognizable by ecclefiaftical judges *; and on March 3d was feparated from his wife, whofe fortune, which was very great, was repaid her; and who having, as well as her husband, the liberty of making another choice, was in a fhort time married to Colonel Bret.

This year was made remarkable by the diffolution of a marriage folemnized in the face of the church. SALMON'S REVIEW.

The following proteft is registered in the books of the Houfe of Lords.

Diffentient.

Because we conceive that this is the firft bill of that nature that hath paffed, 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 confequence in the future.

HALIFAX.

ROCHESTER

b 2

While

While the Earl of Macclesfield was profecuting this affair, his wife was, on the roth of January 1697-8, delivered of a fon, and the Earl Rivers, by appearing to confider him as his own, left none any reafon to doubt of the fincerity of her declaration; for he was his godfather, and gave him his own name, which was by his direction inferted in the register of St. Andrew's parish in Holborn, but unfortunately left him to the care of his mother, whom, as fhe was now fet free from her husband, he probably imagined likely to treat with great tenderness the child that had contributed to fo pleafing an event. It is not indeed easy to difcover 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 fome wretches have been incited to abandon or to murder their children, cannot be fupposed to have affected a woman who had proclaimed her crimes and folicited reproach, and on whom the clemency of the legislature had undefervedly beftowed a fortune, which would have been very little diminifled by the expences which the care of her child could have brought upon her. It was therefore not likely that the would be wicked without temptation, that she would look upon her fon from his birth with a kind of resentment and abhorrence; and, instead