himself, they might have been justly mentioned as inftances of a philofophical mind, and very properly propofed to the imitation of multitudes, who, for want of diverting their imaginations with the fame dexterity, languifh under afflictions which might be easily removed. It were doubtlefs to be wifhed, that truth and reafon were univerfally prevalent; that every thing were efteemed according to its real value; and that men would fecure themfelves from being disappointed in their endeavours after happiness, by placing it only in virtue, which is always to be obtained; but if adventitious and foreign pleafures must be purfued, it would be perhaps of fome benefit, fince that purfuit must frequently be fruitless, if the practice of Savage could be taught, that folly might be an antidote to folly, and one fallacy be obviated by another. But the danger of this pleafing intoxication must not be concealed; nor indeed can any one, after having obferved the life of Savage, need to be cautioned against it. By imputing none of his miferies to himself, he continued to act upon the fame principles, and to follow the fame path; was never made wifer by his fufferings, nor preferved by one misfortune from falling into another. He proceeded throughout his life to tread the fame steps on the fame circle; always applauding his past conduct, or at leaft least forgetting it, to amufe himself with phantoms, of happinefs, which were dancing before him; and willingly turned his eyes from the light of reafon, when it would have difcovered the illufion, and fhewn him, what he never wifhed to fee, his real ftate. He is even accufed, after having lulled his imagination with thofe ideal opiates, of having tried the fame experiment upon his confcience; and, having accustomed himself to impute all deviations from the right to foreign caufes, it is certain that he was upon every occafion too eafily reconciled to himfelf, and that he appeared very little to regret thofe practices which had impaired his reputation. The reigning error of his life was, that he mistook the love for the practice of virtue, and was indeed not fo much a good man, as the friend of good-ncfs. This at least must be allowed him, that he always preferved a ftrong-fenfe of the dignity, the beauty, and the neceffity, of virtue, and that he never contributed deliberately to fpread corruption amongst mankind; his actions, which were generally precipitate, were often blameable; but his writings, being the productions of study, uniformly tended to the exaltation of the mind, and the propagation of morality and piety, Thefe Thefe writings may improve mankind, when his failings thall be forgotten; and therefore he must be confidered, upon the whole, as a bene. factor to the world; nor can his perfonal example do any hurt, fince, whoever hears of his faults, will hear of the miferies which they brought upon him, and which would deferve lefs pity, had not his condition been fuch as made his falts pardonable. He may be confidered as a child expofed to all the temptations of indigence, at an age when refolution was not yet ftrengthened by conviction, nor virtue confirmed by habit; a circumstance which in his BASTARD he laments in a very affecting man ner: -No Mother's care Shielded my infant innocence with prayer: - THE BASTARD, however it might provoke or mortify his mother, could not be expected to melt her to compaffion, so that he was still under the fame want of the neceffities of life; and he therefore exerted all the intereft which his wit, or his birth, or his misfortunes, could procure, to obtain, upon the death of Eufden, the place of Poet Laureat, and profecuted his application with fo much diligence, that the King publickly lickly declared it his intention to bestow it upon him; but fuch was the fate of Savage, that even the King, when he intended his advantage, was disappointed in his fchemes; for the Lord Chamberlain, who has the difpofal of the laurel, as one of the appendages of his office, either did not know the King's defign, or did not approve it, or thought the nomination of the Laureat an encroachment upon his rights, and therefore beftowed the laurel upon Colly Cibber. Mr. Savage, thus difappointed, took a refolution of applying to the Queen, that, having once given him life, fhe would enable him to fupport it, and therefore published a fhort poem on her birth-day, to which he gave the odd title of VOLUNTEER LAUREAT. The event of this effay he has himself related in the following letter, which he prefixed to the poem, when he afterwards reprinted it in THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, from whence I have copied it intire, as this was one of the few attempts in which Mr. Savage fucceeded. "Mr. URBAN, "In your Magazine for February you pub"lished the laft VOLUNTEER LAUREAT, written ་་ on a very melancholy occafion, the death of "the royal patronefs of arts and literature in "general, and of the author of that poem in "particular: I now fend you the first that Mr. Savage wrote under that title.-This gentle"man, notwithstanding a very confiderable "intereft, being, on the death of Mr. Eufden, "disappointed of the Laureat's place, wrote "the before-mentioned poem ; which was "no fooner published, but the late Queen fent "to a bookfeller for it: the author had not "at that time a friend either to get him intro"duced, or his poem prefented at court; yet "fuch was the unspeakable goodness of that "Princess, that, notwithstanding this act of .46 ceremony was wanting, in a few days after "publication, Mr. Savage received a Bank-bill "of fifty pounds, and a gracious meffage from "her Majefty, by the Lord North and Guil"ford, to this effect; "That her Majesty was "highly pleafed with the verfes; that he took "particularly kind his lines there relating to "the King; that he had permiffion to write "annually on the fame fubject; and that he "fhould yearly receive the like prefent, till "fomething better (which was her Majesty's "intention) could be done for him." After "this, he was permitted to prefent one of his " annual |