Mr. Savage was, likewise, very far from believing, that the letters annexed to each species of bad poets in the Bathos were, as he was directed to assert, set down at random; for when he was charged by one of his friends with putting his name to such 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 false in this dedication, it is proper that I observe the impartiality which I recommend, by declaring what Savage asserted; that the account of the circumstances which attended the publication of the Dunciad, however strange and improbable, was exactly true.
The publication of this piece, at this time, raised Mr. Savage a great number of enemies among those that were attacked by Mr. Pope, with whom he was considered as a kind of confederate, and whom he was suspected of supplying with private intelligence and secret incidents: so that the ignominy of an informer was added to the terrour of a satirist.
That he was not altogether free from literary hypocrisy, and that he sometimes spoke one thing and wrote another, cannot be denied; because he himself confessed, that, when he lived in great familiarity with Dennis, he wrote an epigram77 against him.
Mr. Savage, however, set all the malice of all the pygmy writers at defiance, and thought the friendship of Mr. Pope cheaply purchased by being exposed to their censure 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 panegyrick on sir Robert Walpole, for which he was rewarded by him with twenty guineas, a sum not very large, if either the excellence of the performance, or the affluence of the patron, be considered; but greater than he afterwards obtained from a person of yet higher rank, and more desirous in appearance of being distinguished as a patron of literature.
As he was very far from approving the conduct of sir Robert Walpole, and in conversation mentioned him sometimes with acrimony, and generally with contempt; as he was one of those who were always zealous in their assertions of the justice of the late opposition, jealous of the rights of the people, and alarmed by the long-continued triumph of the court; it was natural to ask 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 oppressor of his country? He alleged, that he was then dependent upon the lord Tyrconnel, who was an implicit follower of the ministry, and that, being enjoined by him, not without menaces, to write in praise of his leader, he had not resolution sufficient to sacrifice the pleasure of affluence to that of integrity.
16
Dec. 17, 1714, and May 3, 1718, he received a patent for the same place for life.
17
The Historical Register says Jan. 19. æt. 57.
18
Except! Dr. Warton exclaims, Is not this a high sort of poetry? He mentions, likewise, that Congreves opera, or oratorio, of Semele, was set to musick by Handel; I believe, in 1743.
19
At Saddlers hall.
20
The book he alludes to was Nova Hypothesis ad explicanda febrium intermittentium symptomata, &c. Authore Gulielmo Cole, M.D. 1693.
21
The Kit-cat Club, says Horace Walpole, though generally mentioned as a set of wits, were, in fact, the patriots who saved Britain. See, for the history of its origin and name, Addisoniana, i. 120; Wards complete and humorous account of the remarkable Clubs and Societies. Ed.
22
He was born at Shelton, near Newcastle, May 20, 1683; and was the youngest of eleven children of John Fenton, an attorney-at-law, and one of the coroners of the county of Stafford. His father died in 1694; and his grave, in the church-yard of Stoke upon Trent, is distinguished by the following elegant Latin inscription from the pen of his son:
H.S.EJOHANNES FENTON,de Sheltonantiqua stirpe generosus:juxta reliquias conjugisCATHERINÆforma, moribus, pietate,optimo viro dignissimæ:Quiintemerata in ecclesiam fide,et virtutibus intaminatis enituit;necnon ingenii leporebonis artibus expoliti,ac animo erga omnes benevolo,sibi suisque jucundus vixitDecem annos uxori dilectee superstesmagnum sui desiderium bonisomnibus reliquit,anno{salutis humanai 1694,{ætatis suffi 56See Gent. Mag. 1791, vol. lxi. p. 703. N23
He was entered of Jesus college, and took a bachelors degree in 1704: but it appears, by the list of Cambridge graduates, that he removed, in 1726, to Trinity hall. N.
24
1717. M.
25
Ford was Johnsons relation, his mothers nephew, and is said to have been the original of the parson in Hogarths Modern Midnight Conversation. See Boswell, i. and iii. Ed.
26
July 16.
27
Spence.
28
Shiels, Dr. Johnsons amanuensis, who says, in Cibbers Lives of the Poets, that he received this anecdote from a gentleman resident in Staffordshire. M.
29
Goldworthy does not appear in the Villare. Dr. J.Holdsworthy is probably meant.
30
Spence.
31
This mishap of Gays is said to have suggested the story of the scholars bashfulness in the 157th Rambler; and to similar stories in the Adventurer and Reptons Variety. Ed.
32
It was acted seven nights. The authors third night was by command of their royal highnesses. R.
33
Spence.
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid.
37
To Trinity college. By the university register it appears, that he was admitted to his masters degree in 1679; we must, therefore, set the year of his birth some years back. H.
38
We need not remark to any of our readers, but to those who are not Oxford men, that Pullens name is now remembered in the university, not as a tutor, but by the venerable elm tree which was the term of his morning walks. I have the honour to be well known to Mr. Josiah Pullen, of our hall above-mentioned, (Magdalen hall,) and attribute the florid old age I now enjoy to my constant morning walks up Headington lull, in his cheerful company. Guardian, No. 2. Ed.
39
The vicarage of Willoughby, which he resigned in 1708. N.
40
This preferment was given him by the duke of Beaufort. N.
41
Not long after.
42
Dr. Atterbury retained the office of preacher at Bridewell till his promotion to the bishoprick of Rochester. Dr. Yalden succeeded him as preacher, in June, 1713. N.
43
This account is still erroneous. James Hammond, our author, was of a different family, the second son of Anthony Hammond, of Somersham-place, in the county of Huntingdon, esq. See Gent. Mag. vol. lvii. p. 780. R.
44
Mr. Cole gives him to Cambridge. MSS. Athenæ Cantab, in Mus. Brit.
45
William.
46
An allusion of approbation is made to the above in Nichols Literary Anecdotes of the eighteenth century, ii. 58. Ed.
47
The first edition of this interesting narrative, according to Mr. Boswell, was published in 1744, by Roberts. The second, now before me, bears date 1748, and was published by Cave. Very few alterations were made by the author, when he added it to the present collection. The year before publication, 1743, Dr. Johnson inserted the following notice of his intention in the Gentlemans Magazine.
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, intreat 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 that 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 octavo, by Mr. Roberts, in Warwick-lane.