Savage, which confifted in the gentleness of his manners, the elegance of his difcourfe, and the vivacity of his imagination, we must attribute the afcendant which he maintained over the affections of Johnson, and the inability of the latter to pursue the fuggestions of his own fuperior understanding. To the purpose of this fentiment, I am tempted to relate a fact which Mr. Garrick once communicated to me in converfation, who, speaking of the irresistible charm of engaging manners, told me, that being an actor at Drury-lane theatre, under Mr. Fleetwood, the ра tentee thereof, whofe extravagances rendered him incapable of fulfilling his engagements, his falary became deeply in arrear, and he began to feel the want of money in answer to his many applications for payment, he had obtained promises, and even oaths; but these had been so often broken, that pressed by neceffity, and provoked by ill usage, he was determined to have recourfe to law for payment: he however thought it but right to declare his intention; and, for that purpose, invited himself to breakfast with Fleetwood. 'It was on a Sunday,' faid Mr. Garrick,' that he appointed to fee me; he received 'me great courtesy and affability, and entertained me for fome hours with difcourfe, foreign to the fubject of our meeting, but fo bewitching in its kind, that it deprived me of the power of telling him that he owed me fix hundred pounds, and that my neceffities compelled me to demand it.'

<

The intimacy between Savage and Johnson continued till the beginning of the year 1738, when the diftreffes of the former, and the ceffation, by the death of Queen Caroline, of a penfion, which, for fome years, fhe had directed to be paid him, moved fome

of his friends to a fubfcription for his fupport, in a place fo far diftant from the metropolis, as to be out of the reach of its temptations; where he might beget new habits, and indulge himfelf in thofe exercises of his imagination, which had been the employment of his happiest hours. The place fixed on for his refidence was Swanfea in Wales; but as it was fome time before the fubfcription could be completed, his retirement thither was retarded.

In this fufpenfe of Savage's fortunes, Johnson feems to have confirmed himself in a refolution of quarrelling with the adminiftration of public affairs, and becoming a fatirift on the manners of the times; and because he thought he saw a resemblance between his own and those of Rome in its decline, he chose to exprefs his fenfe of modern depravity by an imitation of the third fatire of Juvenal, in which, with great judgment, and no lefs afperity, he drew a parallel between the corruptions of each, and exemplified it by characters then fubfifting. In it he anticipated the departure of his friend Thales, i. e. Savage, whom he defcribes as

с

refolv'd, from vice and London far,

To breathe, in diftant fields, a purer air;

And, fix'd in Cambria's folitary fhore,

'Give to St. David one true Briton more.'

To this exercife of his talent he was, probably, excited by the fuccefs of Mr. Pope, who had done the fame by fome of the fatires of Horace, and had vindicated, by the example of Dr. Donne, a divine, that fpecies of writing, even in Chriftian times, from the imputation of malevolence and the want of that charity which is not eafily provoked, and endureth all things.'

The

The poem was finished, as appears by a manufcript note of the author in his own corrected copy, in 1738. While he was writing it, he lodged in an upper room of a house in Exeter-ftreet, behind Exeter 'change, inhabited by one Norris, a ftay-maker; a particular which would have been hardly worth noticing, but that it, in fome measure, bespeaks his circumstances at the time, and accounts for his having, more than once, mentioned in the poem, and that with feeming abhorrence, the dungeons of the Strand. It is not unlikely that his averfion to fuch an abode was increafed by the reflection on that distress, which by this time had brought his wife to town, and obliged her to participate in the inconveniences of a dwelling too obfcure to invite refort, and to be a witness of the difficulties with which he was ftruggling.

Having completed his poem, he looked round for a bookfeller, to whom, with a likelihood of obtaining the value of it, he might treat for the fale of it. His friend Cave, in refpect of publications, was a haberdasher of fmall wares; the greatest of his undertakings being a translation of Du Halde's History of China, which was never completed.

Johnson thinking him a man for his purpose, made him an offer of his poem, in a letter in which, with great art, but without the leaft violation of truth, he conceals that himself was the author of it. The letter I here infert, as also another of his on the fame fubject.

• SIR,

When I took the liberty of writing to you a few days ago, I did not expect a repetition of the fame

pleasure

• pleasure fo foon, for a pleasure I fhall always think it to converse in any manner with an ingenious and candid man; but having the inclosed poem in my <hands to dispose of for the benefit of the author (of ⚫ whofe abilities I fhall fay nothing fince I send you

his performance,) I believed I could not procure ⚫ more advantageous terms from any perfon than from you, who have fo much diftinguished yourself by your generous encouragement of poetry, and whofe judgment of that art, nothing but your commendation of my trifle can give me any occafion to call in queftion. I do not doubt but you will look over this poem with another eye, and reward it in a diffe<rent manner from a mercenary bookfeller, who <counts the lines he is to purchase, and confiders no

thing but the bulk. I cannot help taking notice • that, befides what the author may hope for on account of his abilities, he has likewife another claim to your regard, as he lies at prefent under very difadvantageous circumstances of fortune. I beg, therefore, that you will favour me with a letter know what may to-morrow, that I you can afford to allow him, that he may either part with it to you, or find out (which I do not expect) fome other way more to his fatisfaction.

I have only to add, that I am fenfible I have transcribed it very coarfely, which, after having al<tered it, I was obliged to do. I will, if you please to tranfmit the fheets from the prefs, correct it for and will take the trouble of altering any stroke of fatire which you may dislike.

you,

By exerting on this occafion your ufual generofity, will not only encourage learning and relieve diftrefs,

you

diftrefs, but (though it be in comparison of the • other motives of very fmall account) oblige in a very fenfible manner, Sir,

• Your very humble servant,

< SIR,

SAM. JOHNSON.'

Monday, No. 6, Castle-street.

I am to return you thanks for the present you were fo kind to fend me, and to intreat that you will be pleased to inform me, by the Penny-Poft, ' whether you refolve to print the poem. If you

please to fend it me by the poft, with a note to • Dodfley, I will go and read the lines to him, that

we may have his confent to put his name in the 'title page. As to the printing, if it can be set im

mediately about, I will be fo much the author's 'friend, as not to content myself with mere folicita⚫tions in his favour. I propofe, if my calculation be near the truth, to engage for the reimbursement of all that you fhall loose by an impreffion of 500, pro'vided, as you very generously propose, that the profit, if any, be fet aside for the author's ufe, excepting 'the present you made, which, if he be a gainer, it is 'fit he should repay. I beg you will let one of your ⚫ fervants write an exact account of the expence of fuch

an impreffion, and fend it with the poem, that I 'may know what I engage for. I am very fenfible, 'from your generofity on this occafion, of your regard 'to learning, even in its unhappiest state; and cannot 'but think fuch a temper deferving of the gratitude of those, who fuffer fo often from a contrary difpo' I am, Sir,

• fition.

Your most humble fervant,

SAM. JOHNSON.'

Johnson