SAVAGE, an English poet, was b. in London, Jan. 16, 1696-97. He was the fruit of an illicit intercourse between lord Rivers and the countess of Macclesfield. which resulted in the divorce of the lady, and the declared illegitimacy of her offspring. Lord Rivers, though permitting his name to be given to the child, seems not to have concerned himself further with him at all; and at the hands of his mother he met with only the grossest neglect. To the interference of her mother, lady Mason, he was indebted for his education, received at the grammar school of St. Albans. Afterward, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker in Holborn, but an accident revealing to him the secret of his birth, lie quitted this obscure handicraft. Repeatedly and in vain he appealed to the tender sympathies of his mother, who declined even to see him, and withheld all acknowledgement and assistance. Failing other means of subsistence, lie turned his attention to literature, and at an early age produced several comedies, which met with but little success. Somewhat more fortunate was his tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury. which though indifferently received on the stage, with the author himself as actor of the leading part, obtained in print some approval, and put a little money in his purse. In 1727 he killeda man,in a drunken tavern brawl—an offense for which he was tried. and sentenced to death. A pardon was, however, obtained for him on the intercession of the countess of Hertford with the queen, and the details of his story becoming widely known, a strong feeling arose in his favor. Though his mother continued inexorable, and would, it was thought, have been well pleased to be rid of him by the hands of the hangman, certain of her relations interested themselves in him, and he.was received into the household of lord Tyrconnel, who allowed him £200 a year, and otherwise treated him with considerate generosity. His poem, The Wanderer, was now published; its
success was great, and for a time the career of Savage was prosperous, and even brill iant. But it did not very long remain so. The inveterate irregularity of his habits. involved him in difficulties with lord Tyrconncl, and they parted with mutual recrimi nations. After this, he sunk irretrievably. Though lie failed in an attempt to obtain the post of poet-laureate, a poem which he wrote to commemorate her birthday so pleased the queen, that along with "a permission to write annually on the same subject," she conferred on him a pension of £50 a year. This sum, which might have been to him the basis of a modest subsistence, it was his regular habit to dissipate in a week's debauchery, passing the rest of the year in what disreputable fashion he could. On the failure of his pension by the death of the queen, a subscription was set on foot, mainly "through the influence of Pope, with the view of sending him to live quietly at Swan sea in Wales. Thither, accordingly, he retired; hut happening to visit Bristol, where he lived in the realtss manner habitual to him, he was arrested for a debt of £8, and died in prison there, on July 31, 1743.
The poetry of Savage, though a few vigorousi lines of it continue to be remembered, is scarcely.such as of itself would have sufficed for a permanent reputation. His most powerful and finished piece is The Bastard, in which, when he had finally broken with the relations of his mother, he held her up to public execration. Such celebrity as still attends his name lie owes, however, almost entirely to the masterly life of hint by Dr. Johnson, who, in the time of his own early struggles, was thrown much into his society.