haps not have published under his own name, and on which Mr. Savage afterwards reflected with no great fatisfaction; the enumeration of the bad effects of the uncontroled freedom of the prefs, and the affertion that the "liberties "taken by the writers of Journals with their "fuperiors were exorbitant and unjustifiable," very ill became men, who have themselves not always fhewn the exacteft regard to the laws of fubordination in their writings, and who have often fatisfied thofe that at least thought themfelves their fuperiors, as they were eminent for their hereditary rank, and employed in the highest offices of the kingdom. But this is only an instance of that partiality which almost every man indulges with regard to himself; the liberty of the prefs is a bleffing when we are inclined to write against others, and a calamity when we find ourselves overborne by the multitude of our affailants; as the power of the . crown is always thought too great by those who fuffer by its influence, and too little by those in whofe favour it is exerted; and a ftanding army is generally accounted necessary by thofe who command, and dangerous and oppreffive by those who support it.

Mr. Savage was likewife very far from believing, that the letters annexed to each species of bad poets in the Bathos, were, as he was directed to affert, "fet down at random;" for

when

when he was charged by one of his friends with putting his name to fuch an improbability, he had no other answer to make, than that "he "did not think of it," and his friend had too much tenderness to reply, that next to the crime of writing contrary to what he thought, was that of writing without thinking.

After having remarked what is falfe in this dedication, it is proper that I obferve the impartiality which I recommend, by declaring what Savage afferted, that the account of the circumftances which attended the publication of the Dunciad, however frange and improbable, was exactly true.

The publication of this piece at this time raifed Mr. Savage a great number of enemies among those that were attacked by Mr. Pope, with whom he was confidered as a kind of confederate, and whom he was fufpected of fupplying with private intelligence and fecret incidents: fo that the ignominy of an informer was added to the terror of a fatirift.

That he was not altogether free from literary hypocrify, and that he fometimes fpoke one thing, and wrote another, cannot be denied; because he himself confeffed, that, when he lived in great familiarity with Dennis, he wrote an epigram against him.

*

*This epigram was, I believe, never published. Should Dennis publish you had ftabb'd your brother, Lampoon'd your monarch, or debauch'd your mother;

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Mr.

Say

Mr. Savage however fet all the malice of all the pigmy writers at defiance, and thought the friendship of Mr. Pope cheaply purchased by being expofed to their cenfure and their hatred; nor had he any reason to repent of the preference, for he found Mr. Pope a steady and unalienable friend almost to the end of his life.

About this time, notwithstanding his avowed neutrality with regard to party, he published a panegyric on Sir Robert Walpole, for which he was rewarded by him with twenty guineas; a fum not very large, if either the excellence of the performance, or the affluence of the patron, be confidered; but greater than he afterwards obtained from a perfon of yet higher rank, and more defirous in appearance of being diftinguifhed as a patron of literature.

As he was very far from approving the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole, and in converfation mentioned him fometimes with acrimony, and generally with contempt; as he was one of those who were always zealous in their affertions of the justice of the late oppofition, jealous of the rights of the people, and alarmed by the long-continued triumph of the court;

Say, what revenge on Dennis can be had,
Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad?
On one fo poor you cannot take the law,
On one fo old your fword you fcorn to draw.
Uncag'd then, let the harmless monfter rage,
Secure in dulneis, madnefs, want, and age.

it was natural to afk him what could induce him to employ his poetry in praise of that man who was, in his opinion, an enemy to liberty, and an oppreffor of his country? He alledged, that he was then dependent upon the Lord Tyrconnel, who was an implicit follower of the miniftry, and that being enjoined by him, not without menaces, to write in praise of his leader, he had not refolution fufficient to facrifice the pleafure of affluence to that of integrity.

On this, and on many other occafions, he was ready to lament the mifery of living at the tables of other men, which was his fate from the beginning to the end of his life; for I know not whether he ever had, for three months together, a fettled habitation, in which he could claim a right of refidence.

To this unhappy ftate it is just to impute much of the inconftancy of his conduct; for though a readinefs to comply with the inclination of others was no part of his natural character, yet he was fometimes obliged to relax his obftinacy, and fubmit his own judgment, and even his virtue, to the government of those by whom he was fupported: fo that, if his miferies were fometimes the confequences of his faults, he ought not yet to be wholly excluded from compaffion, because his faults were very often the effects of his misfortunes.

In this gay period of his life, while he was furrounded by affluence and pleasure, he published THE WANDERER, a moral Poem, of which the defign is comprised in these lines:

I fly all public care, all venal ftrife,
To try the ftill, compar'd with active life;
To prove, by these the fons of men may owe
The fruits of blifs to bursting clouds of woe;
That cv'n calamity, by thought refin'd,
Infpirits and adorns the thinking mind.

And more diftinctly in the following paffage:

Ey woe, the foul to daring action fwells;
By wee, in plaintlefs patience it excels;
From patience, prudent clear experience fprings,
And traces knowledge thro' the course of things!
Thence hope is form'd, thence fortitude, fuccefs,
Renown-whate'er men covet and careís.

This performance was always confidered by himfelf as his mafter-piece; and Mr. Pope, when he afked his opinion of it, told him, that he read it once over, and was not difpleafed with it, that it gave him more pleasure at the fecond perufal, and delighted him ftill more at the third.

It has been generally objected to THE WANDERER, that the difpofition of the parts is irre