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world that of a friend with whom he had been closely intimate, whofe fingular character and adverfe fortunes afforded ample scope for difcuffion, and furnifhed matter for many admirable leffons of morality.

This friend was Savage, of whom it has above been related, that his friends had undertaken to raife an annual fubfcription for his fupport at Swansea in Wales, but that his departure for that place was retarded by fome difficulties that occurred in the course of their endeavours to raise it: thefe, however, were overcome, and Savage, in July 1739, took leave of London, and also of Johnson, who, as himself tells us, parted from him with tears in his eyes. His fubfequent history is, that taking his way through Bristol, he was for fome time detained there by an embargo on the fhipping. After fome stay he was enabled to depart, and he reached Swanfea; but not liking the place, and refenting the treatment of his contributors, who feem to have been flack in the performance of their engagements to fupport him, he returned to Bristol with an intent to come to London, a purpofe he was hindered from effecting by an arreft of his perfon, on the 10th of January 1742-3, for the fmall fum of eight pounds, and carried to Newgate in that city, where, not being able to extricate himself from his confinement, he, on the 31ft day of July, in the fame year, died.

This event, and the affection which he had long entertained for the man, called forth Johnson to an exercife of his pen, which, as it is faid, employed it only thirty-fix hours, in a narrative of events fo fingula

as

as could fcarcely fail to gratify the curiofity of every one who wished to be instructed in the fcience of human life. The fubject was fuch an one as is feldom exhibited to view; a man dropped into the world as from a cloud, committed to the care of those who had little intereft in his preservation, and none in the forming his temper, or the infusing into him those little precepts of morality, which might germinate in his mind, and be productive of habitual virtue; these are advantages which children of the lowest birth enjoy, in fome degree, in common with those of a higher; but of these he never participated. All the knowledge he attained to, from his infancy upwards, was felf-acquired, and, bating that he was born in a city where the refinements of civil life prefented to his view a rule of moral conduct, he may be said to have been little lefs a miracle than Hai Ebn Yokdhan is feigned to be.

It has been obferved of thofe children who owe their nurture and education to a certain benevolent inftitution in this metropolis, that being by their misfortune ftrangers to thofe charities that arife from the relations of father, fon, and brother, their characters affume a complexion that marks their conduct through life. The fame may be faid of Savage, and will perhaps account for that want of gratitude to his benefactors, and other defects in his temper, with which he feems to have been justly chargeable.

The manner in which Johnfon has written this life is very judicious: it afforded no great actions to celebrate, no improvements in fcience to record, nor any variety of events to remark on. It was a fucceffion

of

of difappointments, and a complication of miferies; and as it was an uniform contradiction to the axiom that human life is chequered with good and evil accidents, was alone fingular. The virtues and vices which like flowers and weeds fprang up together, and perhaps with an equal degree of vigour, in the mind of this unfortunate man, afforded, it is true, a fubject of fpeculation, and Johnfon has not failed to avail himself of fo extraordinary a moral phenomenon as that of a mind exalted to a high degree of improvement without the aid of culture.

But if the events of Savage's life are few, the reflections thereon are many, fo that the work may as well be deemed a feries of ceconomical precepts as a narrative of facts. In it is contained a character, which may be faid to be fui generis; a woman who had proclaimed her crimes, and folicited reproach, difowning from the inftant of his birth, and procuring to be illegitimated by parliament, her own fon, dooming him to poverty and obfcurity, and launching him upon the ocean of life, only that he might be swallowed by its quick-fands, or dashed upon its rocks, and lastly, endeavouring to rid herself from the danger of being at any time made known to him, by fecretly fending him to the American plantations.

It farther exhibits to view, a man of genius deftitute of relations and friends, and with no one to direct his purfuits, becoming an author by neceffity, and a writer for the stage, and forming fuch connections as that profeffion leads to, fometimes improving, and at others flighting them, but at all times acting with a fpirit that better became his birth than his circumftances

ftances; for who that knew how to diftinguish between one and the other, would, like Savage, have folicited affiftance, and fpurned at the offer of it? or repaid reiterated kindneffes with neglect or oblivious taciturnity?

Interspersed in the course of the narrative are a great variety of moral fentiments, prudential maxims, and mifcellaneous obfervations on men and things; but the fentiment that feems to pervade the whole is, that idleness, whether voluntary or neceffitated, is productive of the greatest evils that human nature is exposed to; and this the author exemplifies in an enumeration of the calamities that a man is fubjected to by the want of a profeffion, and by fhewing how far lefs happy fuch an one must be than he who has only a mere manual occupation to depend on for his fupport.

The concluding paragraph of the book explains the author's intention in writing it, and points out the use that may be made of it in fuch pointed terms, that I fhall need, as I truft, no excufe for inferting fo fine a fpecimen of ftile and fentiment.

This relation will not be wholly without its ufe, if those who languish under any part of his fufferings fhall be enabled to fortify their patience by reflecting, that they feel only thofe afflictions from which the abilities of Savage did not exempt him or if those who in confidence of fuperior capacities or attainments, difregard the common maxims of life, 'fhall be reminded, that nothing will fupply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregu'larity long continued, will make knowledge useless, it ridiculous, and genius contemptible.'

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This celebrated effay in biography was published in the month of February 1744, and gave occafion to Henry Fielding, the author of a periodical paper intitled

The Champion,' to commend it in these words: This pamphlet is, without flattery to its author, as juft and well written a piece as, of its kind, I ever faw; fo that, at the fame time that it highly deferves, ⚫ it stands certainly very little in need of this recom<mendation.As to the history of the unfortunate • person whose memoirs compose this work, it is certainly penned with equal accuracy and fpirit, of which I am so much the better judge, as I knew ⚫ many of the facts mentioned in it to be ftrictly true, ⚫ and very fairly related. Besides, it is not only the story of Mr. Savage, but innumerable incidents relating

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to other perfons and other affairs, which render this a very amufing, and withal, a very inftructive ⚫ and valuable performance. The author's obfervations are short, fignificant and juft, as his narrative is remarkably fmooth and well difpofed: his reflections open to us all the receffes of the human ‹ heart, and, in a word, a more just or pleasant, a more engaging or a more improving treatise on the • excellencies and defects of human nature, is scarce to be found in our own or perhaps in any other language.'

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The life I am now writing feems to divide itself into two periods; the first marked by a series of afflictions, the last by fome cheering rays of comfort and comparative affluence. Johnson, at this time, had passed nearly the half of his days: here, therefore, let me make a stand, and having hitherto reprefented

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