bill, than he vanished from the fight of all his acquaintances, and lay for fome time out of the reach of all the enquiries that friendship or cu riofity could make after him; at length he ap-. peared again pennylefs as before, but never informed even those whom he seemed to regard most, where he had been, nor was his retreat ever difcovered.

This was his conftant practice during the whole time that he received the penfion from the Queen: He regularly disappeared and returned. He indeed affirmed, that he retired to study, and that the money fupported him in folitude for many months;. but his friends declared,, that the short time in which it was spent fufficiently confuted his own account of his conduct.

His politenefs and his wit ftill raifed him: friends, who were defirous of fetting him at length free from that indigence by which he had: been hitherto oppreffed; and therefore folicited Sir Robert Walpole in his favour with fo much. earnestness, that they obtained a promife of the next place that should become vacant, not exceeding two hundred pounds a year. This pro mife was made with an uncommon declaration, "that it was not the promise of a minister to a "petitioner, but of a friend to his friend."

Mr. Savage now concluded himself fet at cafe for ever, and, as he observes in a poem written on that incident of his life, trufted and was trufted;

trufted; but foon found that his confidence was ill-grounded, and this friendly promise was not inviolable. He fpent a long time in folicitations, and at last despaired and defifted.

He did not indeed deny that he had given the minifter fome reason to believe that he should not ftrengthen his own intereft by advancing him, for he had taken care to distinguish himself in coffee-houses as an advocate for the miniftry of the last years of Queen Anne, and was always ready to juftify the conduct, and exalt the character of Lord Bolingbroke, whom he mentions with great regard in an epiftle upon authors, which he wrote about that time, but was too wife to publish, and of which only fome fragments have appeared, inferted by him in the MAGAZINE after his retirement.

To defpair was not, however, the character of Savage; when one patronage failed, he had' recourfe to another. The prince was now extremely popular, and had very liberally re-warded the merit of fome writers, whom Mr. Savage did not think fuperior to himself, and therefore he refolved to address a poem to him.

For this purpose he made choice of a fubject, which could regard only perfons of the highest rank and higheft affluence, and which was therefore proper for a poem intended to procure the patronage of a prince; and having retired for fome time to Richmond, that he might profecute his design in full tranquillity, without the tempta

temptations of pleasure, or the folicitations of creditors, by which his meditations were in equal danger of being difconcerted, he produced a poem ON PUBLIC SPIRIT, WITH REGARD TO PUBLIC WORKS.

The plan of this poem is very extensive, and comprises a multitude of topicks, each of which might furnish matter fufficient for a long performance, and of which some have already employed more eminent writers; but as he was perhaps not fully acquainted with the whole extent of his own defign, and was writing to obtain a fupply of wants too preffing to admit of long or accurate enquiries, he paffes negligently over many public works, which, even in his own opinion, deferved to be more elaborately treated.

But though he may fometimes disappoint his reader by tranfient touches upon thefe fubjects, which have often been confidered, and therefore naturally raise expectations, he must be allowed amply to compenfate his omiffions, by expatiating, in the conclufion of his work, upon a kind of beneficence not yet celebrated by any eminent poet, though it now appears more fufceptible of embellishments, more adapted to exalt the ideas, and affect the paffions, than many of those which have hitherto been thought moft worthy of the ornaments of verse. The fettlement of colonies in uninhabited countries, the establishment of thofe in fecurity, whose misfortunes

misfortunes have made their own country no longer pleafing or fafe, the acquifition of property without injury to any, the appropriation of the waste and luxuriant bounties of nature, and the enjoyment of those gifts which heaven has scattered upon regions uncultivated and unoccupied, cannot be confidered without giving rife to a great number of pleafing ideas, and bewildering the imagination in delightful profpects; and, therefore, whatever fpeculations they may produce in those who have confined themselves to political studies, naturally fixed the attention, and excited the applaufe, of a poet. The politician, when he confiders men driven into other countries for fhelter, and obliged to retire to forefts and deferts, and pafs their lives and fix their posterity in the remoteft corners of the world, to avoid those hardships which they fuffer or fear in their native place, may very properly enquire, why the legislature does not provide a remedy for these miseries, rather than encourage an escape from them. He may conclude, that the flight of every honeft man is a lofs to the community; that thofe who are unhappy without guilt ought to be relieved; and the life, which is overburthened by accidental calamities, fet at ease by the care of the public; and that those, who have by misconduct forfeited their claim to favour, ought rather to be made useful to the fociety which they have injured, than be driven

from it. But the poet is employed in a more pleafing undertaking than that of propofing laws, which, however juft or expedient, will never be made, or endeavouring to reduce to rational schemes of government focieties which were formed by chance, and are conducted by the private paffions of thofe who prefide in them. He guides the unhappy fugitive from want and perfecution, to plenty, quiet, and fecurity, and feats him in fcenes of peaceful folitude, and undisturbed repofe.

Savage has not forgotten, amidst the pleafing fentiments which this profpect of retirement fuggested to him, to cenfure thofe crimes which have been generally committed by the discoverers of new regions, and to expofe the enormous wickedness of making war upon barbarous nations because they cannot refift, and of invading countries because they are fruitful; of extending navigation only to propagate vice, and of visiting distant lands only to lay them waste. He has afferted the natural equality of mankind, and endeavoured to fupprefs that pride which inclines men to imagine that right is the confequence of power.

His defcription of the various miferies which. force men to feek for refuge in diftant countries, affords another inftance of his proficiency in the important and extenfive ftudy of human life; and the tenderness with which he recounts them, another proof of his humanity and benevolence.