Mr. Savage however fet all the malice of all the pigmy writers at defiance, and thought the friendship of Mr. Pope cheaply purchased by being expofed to their cenfure and their hatred; nor had he any reafon to repent of the preference, for he found Mr. Pope a fteady and unalienable friend almoft to the end of his life.

About this time, notwithftanding his avow ed neutrality with regard to party, he published a panegyric on Sir Robert Walpole, for which he was rewarded by him with twenty guineas, a fum not very large, if either the excellence of the performance, or the affluence of the patron, be confidered; but greater than he afterwards obtained from a perfon of yet higher rank, and more defirous in appearance of being distinguished as a patron of literature.

Say, what revenge on Dennis can be had,
Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad?
On one fo poor you cannot take the law,
On one fo old your sword you scorn to draw.
Uncag'd then, let the harmless monster rage,
Secure in dulnefs, madness, want, and age.

As he was very far from approving the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole, and in converfation mentioned him fometimes with acrimony, and generally with contempt; as he was one of those who were always zealous in their affertions of the juftice of the late oppofition, 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 praife of that man who was, in his opinion, an enemy to liberty, and an oppreffor of his country? He alleged, that he was then dependent upon the Lord Tyrconnel, who was an implicit follower of the miniftry; and that being enjoined by him, not without menaces, to write in praise of his leader, he had not refolution fufficient to facrifice the pleasure of affluence to that of integrity.

On this, and on many other occafions, he was ready to lament the mifery of living at the tables of other men, which was his fate from the beginning to the end of his life; for I know not whether he ever had, for three months together, a fettled habitation,

in

in which he could claim a right of refidence.

To this unhappy ftate it is juft to impute much of the inconftancy of his conduct; for though a readiness to comply with the inclination of others was no part of his natural character, yet he was fometimes obliged to relax his obftinacy, and submit his own judgement, and even his virtue, to the government of those by whom he was fupported: so that, if his miferies were fometimes the confequences of his faults, he ought not yet to be wholly excluded from compaffion, because his faults were very often the effects of his mif fortunes.

In this gay period of his life, while he was furrounded by affluence and pleasure, he published The Wanderer, a moral poem, of which the defign is comprised in these lines:

I fly all public care, all venal ftrife,
To try the still compar'd with active life;
To prove, by thefe the fons of men may owe
The fruits of blifs to bursting clouds of woe;

That ev'n calamity, by thought refin❜d,
Infpirits and adorns the thinking mind.

And more diftinctly in the following paffage:

By woe, the foul to daring action fwells;
By woe, in plaintless patience it excels;
From patience, prudent clear experience fprings,
And traces knowledge thro' the course of things!
Thence hope is form'd, thence fortitude, fuccefs,
Renown:-whate'er men covet and carefs.

This performance was always confidered by himself as his mafter-piece; and Mr. Pope, when he asked his opinion of it, told him, that he read it once over, and was not difpleased with it, that it gave him more pleafure at the second perufal, and delighted him ftill more at the third.

It has been generally objected to The Wanderer, that the difpofition of the parts is irregular; that the defign is obfcure, and the plan perplexed; that the images, however beautiful, fucceed each other without order; and that the whole performance is not so much a regular fabric, as a heap of shining materials

materials thrown together by accident, which ftrikes rather with the folemn magnificence of a ftupendous ruin, than the elegant grandeur of a finished pile.

This criticism is univerfal, and therefore it is reasonable to believe it at least in a great degree juft; but Mr. Savage was always of a contrary opinion, and thought his drift could only be miffed by negligence or ftupidity, and that the whole plan was regular, and the parts diftinct.

It was never denied to abound with strong representations of nature, and just observations upon life; and it may easily be obferved, that most of his pictures have an evident tendency to illustrate his first great position, "that good is the confequence of evil.” The fun that burns up the mountains, fructifies the vales; the deluge that rushes down the broken rocks with dreadful impetuofity, is feparated into purling brooks; and the rage of the hurricane purifies the air,

Even in this poem he has not been able to forbear one touch upon the cruelty of his moS 3

ther,