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."

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. Hector; but was imperceptibly led into some indulgences which occasioned much distress to his virtuous mind1.

ever could have been driven to stroll about with Savage, all night, for want of a lodging. But it should be remembered, that Johnson, at different periods, had lodgings in the vicinity of London; and his finances certainly would not admit of a double establishment. When, therefore, he spent a convivial day in London, and found it too late to return to any country residence he may occasionally have had, having no lodging in town, he was obliged to pass the night in the manner described above; for though, at that period, it was not uncommon for two men to sleep together, Savage, it appears, could accommodate him with nothing but his company in the open air.-The epigram given above, which doubtless was written by Johnson, shows, that their acquaintance commenced before April, 1738. See p. 103, n. MALONE. [Mr. Malone appears to have forgotten that Sir J. Hawkins relates, that about this period of Johnson's intimacy with Savage, a kind of separation took place between him and his wife, who went to reside with some relations near the Tower: this was, probably, part of the period which Johnson calls their distress; which, if Mr. Malone's anecdote of the plate of victuals sent behind the screen be correct, must have extended to, at least, 1744, and may, it is feared, have lasted a few years later. As to the inference Mr. Malone draws from the epigram, it may be observed, that it by no means proves any intimacy, and it has been shown in the last note that if any acquaintance existed at the time the epigram was written, it must have been very recent.-ED.]

That Johnson was anxious that an authentick and favourable account of his extraordinary friend should first get possession of the publick attention, is evident from a letter which he wrote in the Gentleman's Magazine for August of the year preceding its publication.

"MR. URBAN,-As your collections show how often you have owed the ornaments of your poetical pages to the correspondence of the unfortunate and ingenious Mr. Savage, I doubt not but you have so much regard to his memory as to encourage any design that may have a tendency to the preservation of it from insults or calumnies; and therefore with some degree of assurance, entreat you to inform the publick, that his life will speedily be published by a person who was favoured with his confidence, and received from himself an account of most of the transactions which he proposes to mention, to the time of his retirement to Swansea in Wales.

"From that period, to his death in the prison of Bristol, the account will be continued from materials still less liable to objection; his own letters, and those of his friends, some of which will be inserted in the work, and abstracts of others subjoined in the margin.

"It may be reasonably imagined, that others may have the same design; but as it is not credible that they can obtain the same materials, it must be expected they will supply from invention the want of intelligence; and that under the title of The Life of Savage, they will publish only a novel, filled with romantick adventures and imaginary amours. You may therefore, perhaps, gratify the lovers of truth and wit, by giving me leave to inform them in your Magazine, that my account will be published in 8vo. by Mr. Roberts, in Warwick-lane."

[No Signature.]

posing that this temporary separation was produced by pecuniary distress, and not by an interruption of affection. Johnson would be naturally solicitous that his wife should find in her own family a temporary refuge from the want with which he was struggling. There never has existed any human being, all the details of whose life, all the motives of whose actions, all the thoughts of whose mind, have been so unreservedly brought before the publick; even his prayers, his most secret meditations, and his most scrupulous self re[Sir John Hawkins very uncharitably attri- proaches, have been laid before the world; and butes to the influence of Savage a separation there is not to be found, in all the unparalleled which took place (as he alone asserts), between mass of information thus exposed to us, a single Johnson and his wife about this period, "when trace to justify the accusation which Hawkins so she was harboured," as he expressess it, "by a wantonly and so odiously, and it may be assumed, friend near the Tower." This separation (if Haw- so falsely makes. Johnson's fate in this particukins be even so far correct) may be explained with-lar is a little hard; he is at once ridiculed for out any reference to Savage. The whole course being extravagantly uxorious, and censured for a of Johnsor'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.

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 SavIt no where appears when they became age," although it must be allowed that its acquainted 3, and in the whole of Johnson's moral is the reverse of" Respicere exem-life of his profligate friend there is no kind plar vitæ 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

of date,

disquisition there appears a very strong It is remarkable, that in this biographical clear and animated a manner, and illuminat- symptom of Johnson's prejudice against ed throughout with so much philosophy, buted to the following causes: first, the players 4; a prejudice which may be attrithat it is one of the most interesting narratives in the English language2. Sir Joshua defective that he was not susceptible of the imperfection of his organs, which were so Reynolds told me, that upon his return fine impressions which theatrical excellence from Italy he met with it in Devonshire, knowing nothing of its authour, and began secondly, the cold rejections of his tragedy; produces upon the generality of mankind; to read it while he was standing with his arm leaning against a chimneypiece. It who had been his pupil, who had come to and, lastly, the brilliant success of Garrick, seized his attention so strongly, that, not London at the same time with him, not in being able to lay down the book till he had finished it, when he attempted to move, he self, and whose talents he undoubtedly a much more prosperous state than himfound his arm totally benùmbed. The ra- rated low, compared with his own. His pidity with which this work was composed being outstripped by his pupil in the race is a wonderful circumstance. Johnson has of immediate fame, as well as of fortune, been heard to say, "I wrote forty- probably made him feel some indignation, eight of the printed octavo pages as thinking whatever might be Garrick's of the Life of Savage at a sitting; merits in his art, the reward was too great but then I sat up all night." 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 aid 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:

Aug. 19, 1773.

1 [There seen's reason to Suppose that Cave sometimes permitted the name of another printer to appear on the title pages of books of which he was 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.]

2 [It gives, like Raphael's Lazarus or Murillo's Beggar, pleasure as a work of art, while the original could only excite disgust. Johnson has spread over Savage's character the varnish, or rather the veil, of stately diction and extenuatory phrases, but cannot prevent the observant reader from seeing that the subject of this biograpical essay was, as Mr. Boswell calls him, "an ungrateful and insolent profligate;" and so little do his works show of that poetical talent for which he has been celebrated, that if it had not been for Johnson's embalming partiality, his works would probably be now as unheard of as they are unread.—ED.]

pe

used to talk contemptuously of players; but in this work he speaks of them with culiar acrimony; for which, perhaps, there was formerly too much reason from the ligaged in that profession. It is but justice to add, that in our own time such a change has taken place, that there is no longer room for such an unfavourable distinction.

centious and dissolute manners of those en

told me a pleasant anecdote of Johnson's His schoolfellow and friend, Dr. Taylor, 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.]

[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.]

bore to him, it is alleged, that his lordship 2. It is stated, that "Lady Macclesfield gave him his own name, and had it duly having lived for some time upon very recorded in the register of St. Andrew's, uneasy terms with her husband, thought a Holborn. I have carefully inspected that public confession of adultery the most obviregister, but no such entry is to be found1.ous and expeditious method of obtaining her liberty;" and Johnson, assuming this to

"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.

1 Mr. Cust's reasoning, with respect to the fili-be true, stigmatises her with indignation, as ation 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 Macclesfield, but the offspring of a shoemaker, introduced in consequence of her real son's death, was, without doubt, 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 same gentleman observes to me, was proved in the course of the proceedings on Lord Macclesfield's Bill of Divorce. Most fictions of this kind have 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 Fox-court, near Brook-street, Holborn, by Mrs. 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, and 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 Pegler, 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

Mrs. 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 baptism of Richard Savage, to whom Lord Rivers gave his own Christian name, prefixed to the assumed surname of his mother: Jan. 1696-7. "RICHARD, son of John Smith and Mary, in Fox-court, in Gray's-in-lane, baptized the 18th." -BINDLEY. [Mr. Cust and Mr. Boswell's share of the argument and assertions in the text not being distinguished, it is not possible to say which of them hazarded the assertion relative to the parish register of St. Andrew's, which certainly does contain what the text asserts is not to be found in it. If the maxim, therefore, falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus, were to be applied to them, all their observations must be rejected. On the other hand, Mr. Bindley's researches seem only to prove what has been generally admitted, that Lady Macclesfield had a child, by Lot 1 Rivers, baptized by the name of Richard;

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 Savage was an impostor, being in reality the son of the shoemaker under whose wife's care 4 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.

3 By Johnson in his Life of Savage.-MALONE. 4 This, as an accurate friend remarks to me, is not correctly stated. The shoemaker under whose care Savage was placed, with a view to his becoming his apprentice, was not the husband of his nurse. See Johnson's Life of Savage.—J. BoSWELL.

that after the death of the real Richard Savage, he attempted to personate him; and that the fraud being known to Lady Macclesfield, he was therefore repulsed by her with just resentment.

Lastly, it must ever appear very suspicious that three different accounts of the Life of Richard Savage, one published in "The Plain Dealer," in 1724, another in 1727, and another by the powerful pen of Johnson, in 1744, and all of them while Lady Macclesfield 4 was alive, should, notwith

been suffered to pass without any publick and effectual contradiction 5.

There is a strong circumstance in support of the last supposition; though it has been mentioned as an aggravation of Lady Mac-standing the severe attacks upon her, have clesfield'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 perThe 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.

son.

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 given1.

The talents of Savage, and the mingled fire, rudeness, pride, meanness, and ferocity of his character, 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 family 3.

represents this unhappy man's being received and pensioned by his lordship, as posterior to Savage's conviction and pardon. But I am assured that Savage had received the voluntary bounty of Lord Tyrconnel, and had been dismissed by him long before the murder was committed, and that his lordship was very instrumental in procuring Savage's pardon, by his intercession with the queen, through Lady Hertford. If, therefore, he had been he would have left him to his fate. Indeed, I desirous of preventing the publication by Savage, must observe, that although Johnson mentions that Lord Tyrconnel's patronage of Savage was

66

upon his promise to lay aside his design of exposing the cruelty of his mother," the great biographer has forgotten that he himself has mentioned that Savage's story had been told, several years before, in "The Plain Dealer;" from which he quotes this strong saying of the generous Sir Richard Steele, that the inhumanity of his mother had given him a right to find every good man his father." At the same time it must be acknowledged, that Lady Macclesfield and her relations might still wish that her story should not be brought into more conspicuous notice by the satirical pen of Savage.-BOSWELL.

4 Miss Mason, after having forfeited the title of Colonel Brett, and, it is said, was well known in Lady Macclesfield by divorce, was married to all the polite circles. Colley Cibber, I am informed, had so high an opinion of her taste and judgment as to genteel life and manners, that he submitted every scene of his " Careless Husband" to Mrs. Brett's revisal and correction. Colonel Brett was reported to be free in his gallantry with his lady's maid. Mrs. Brett came into a room one day in her own house, and found the colonel and the maid both fast asleep in two chairs. She tied a white handkerchief round her husband's neck which was a sufficient proof that she had discovered his intrigue; but she never at any time took notice of it to him. This incident, as I am told, gave occasion to the well-wrought scene of Sir Charles and Lady Easy and Edging.-BOSWELL. [Can Mr. Boswell have been well informed that Lady Macclesfield, after her divorce and remarriage, was received in all the polite circles?

[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-ED.] 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. 3 Trusting to Savage's information, Johnson

[It should, however, be recollected, before we draw any conclusions from Lady Maccles field's forbearance to prosecute a libeller, that however innocent she might be as to Savage, she was undeniably and inexcusably guilty in other respects, and would have been naturally reluctant to drag her frailties again before the publick. If it had not been for the accident of Johnson having, near twenty years after, happened to write Sav