intimate the two men were is shown by the following passage in Johnson’s Life of Savage:—‘Savage left London in July, 1739, having taken leave with great tenderness of his friends, and parted from the author of this narrative with tears in his eyes.’ Johnson’s Works, viii. 173.
[469] As a specimen of his temper, I insert the following letter from him to a noble Lord, to whom he was under great obligations, but who, on account of his bad conduct, was obliged to discard him. The original was in the hands of the late Francis Cockayne Cust, Esq., one of His Majesty’s Counsel learned in the law:
‘Right Honourable BRUTE, and BOOBY,
‘I find you want (as Mr. —— is pleased to hint,) to swear away my life, that is, the life of your creditor, because he asks you for a debt.—The publick shall soon be acquainted with this, to judge whether you are not fitter to be an Irish Evidence, than to be an Irish Peer.—I defy and despise you.
‘I am,
‘Your determined adversary,
‘R. S.’
BOSWELL. The noble Lord was no doubt Lord Tyrconnel. See Johnson’s Works, viii. 140. Mr. Cust is mentioned post, p. 170.
[470] ‘Savage took all opportunities of conversing familiarly with those who were most conspicuous at that time for their power or their influence; he watched their looser moments, and examined their domestic behaviour with that acuteness which nature had given him, and which the uncommon variety of his life had contributed to increase, and that inquisitiveness which must always be produced in a vigorous mind by an absolute freedom from all pressing or domestic engagements.’ Johnson’s Works, viii. 135.
[471] ‘Thus he spent his time in mean expedients and tormenting suspense, living for the greatest part in the fear of prosecutions from his creditors, and consequently skulking in obscure parts of the town, of which he was no stranger to the remotest corners.’ Ib. p. 165.
[472] Sir John Hawkins gives the world to understand, that Johnson, ‘being an admirer of genteel manners, was captivated by the address and demeanour of Savage, who, as to his exterior, was, to a remarkable degree, accomplished.’ Hawkins’s Life, p. 52. But Sir John’s notions of gentility must appear somewhat ludicrous, from his stating the following circumstance as presumptive evidence that Savage was a good swordsman: ‘That he understood the exercise of a gentleman’s weapon, may be inferred from the use made of it in that rash encounter which is related in his life.’ The dexterity here alluded to was, that Savage, in a nocturnal fit of drunkenness, stabbed a man at a coffee-house, and killed him; for which he was tried at the Old-Bailey, and found guilty of murder.
Johnson, indeed, describes him as having ‘a grave and manly deportment, a solemn dignity of mien; but which, upon a nearer acquaintance, softened into an engaging easiness of manners.’ [Johnson’s Works, viii. 187.] How highly Johnson admired him for that knowledge which he himself so much cultivated, and what kindness he entertained for him, appears from the following lines in the Gentleman’s Magazine for April, 1738, which I am assured were written by Johnson:
‘Ad RICARDUM SAVAGE.
‘Humani studium generis cui pectore
fervet
O colat humanum te foveatque
genus.’
BOSWELL. The epigram is inscribed Ad Ricardum Savage, Arm. Humani
Generis Amatorem. Gent. Mag. viii. 210.
[473] The following striking proof of Johnson’s extreme indigence, when he published the Life of Savage, was communicated to the author, by Mr. Richard Stow, of Apsley, in Bedfordshire, from the information of Mr. Walter Harte, author of the Life of Gustavus Adolphus:
‘Soon after Savage’s Life was published, Mr. Harte dined with Edward Cave, and occasionally praised it. Soon after, meeting him, Cave said, ‘You made a man very happy t’other day.’—‘How could that be,’ says Harte; ‘nobody was there but ourselves.’ Cave answered, by reminding him that a plate of victuals was sent behind a screen, which was to Johnson, dressed so shabbily, that he did not choose to appear; but on hearing the conversation, was highly delighted with the encomiums on his book.’ MALONE. ‘He desired much to be alone, yet he always loved good talk, and often would get behind the screen to hear it.’ Great-Heart’s account of Fearing; Pilgrim’s Progress, Part II. Harte was tutor to Lord Chesterfield’s son. See post, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell’s Collectanea, and March 30, 1781.
[474] ‘Johnson has told me that whole nights have been spent by him and Savage in a perambulation round the squares of Westminster, St. James’s in particular, when all the money they could both raise was less than sufficient to purchase for them the shelter and sordid comforts of a night’s cellar.’ Hawkins’s Johnson, P. 53. Where was Mrs. Johnson living at this time? This perhaps was the time of which Johnson wrote, when, after telling of a silver cup which his mother had bought him, and marked SAM. I., he says:—‘The cup was one of the last pieces of plate which dear Tetty sold in our distress.’ Account of Johnson’s Early Life, p. 18. Yet it is not easy to understand how, if there was a lodging for her, there was not one for him. She might have been living with friends. We have a statement by Hawkins (p. 89) that there was ‘a temporary separation of Johnson from his wife.’ He adds that, ‘while he was in a lodging in Fleet Street, she was harboured by a friend near the Tower.’ This separation, he insinuates, rose by an estrangement caused by Johnson’s ‘indifference in the discharge of the domestic virtues.’ It is far more likely that it rose from destitution.
Shenstone, in a letter written in 1743, gives a curious account of the streets of London through which Johnson wandered. He says;—‘London is really dangerous at this time; the pickpockets, formerly content with mere filching, make no scruple to knock people down with bludgeons in Fleet Street and the Strand, and that at no later hour than eight o’clock at night; but in the Piazzas, Covent Garden, they come in large bodies, armed with couteaus, and attack whole parties, so that the danger of coming out of the playhouses is of some weight in the opposite scale, when I am disposed to go to them oftener than I ought.’ Shenstone’s Works (edit.), iii. 73.
[475] ‘Savage lodged as much by accident as he dined, and passed the night sometimes in mean houses, … and sometimes, when he had not money to support even the expenses of these receptacles, walked about the streets till he was weary, and lay down in the summer upon a bulk, or in the winter, with his associates in poverty, among the ashes of a glass-house. In this manner were passed those days and those nights which nature had enabled him to have employed in elevated speculations, useful studies, or pleasing conversation.’ Johnson’s Works, viii. 159.
[476] See ante, p. 94.
[477] Cave was the purchaser of the copyright, and the following is a copy of Johnson’s receipt for the money:—‘The 14th day of December, received of Mr. Ed. Cave the sum of fifteen guineas, in full, for compiling and writing The Life of Richard Savage, Esq., deceased; and in full for all materials thereto applied, and not found by the said Edward Cave. I say, received by me, SAM. JOHNSON. Dec. 14, 1743.’ WRIGHT. The titlepage is as follows:—‘An account of the Life of Mr. Richard Savage, son of the Earl Rivers. London. Printed for J. Roberts, in Warwick-Lane. MDCCXLIV. It reached a second edition in 1748, a third in 1767, and a fourth in 1769. A French translation was published in 1771.
[478] Roberts published in 1745 Johnson’s Observations on Macbeth. See Gent. Mag. xv. 112, 224.
[479] Horace, Ars Poetica l. 317.
[480] In the autumn of 1752. Northcote’s Reynolds i. 52
[481] Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed. p. 35 [p. 55. Aug. 19, 1773]. BOSWELL.
[482] ‘mint of ecstasy:’ Savage’s Works (1777), ii. 91.
[483]