In this manner were passed those days and nights, which nature had enabled him to have employed in elevated speculations. On a bulk, in a cellar, or in a glass-house, among thieves and beggars, was to be found the author of The Wanderer, the man, whose remarks in life might have assisted the statesman, whose ideas of virtue might have enlightened the moralist, whose eloquence might have influenced senates, and whose delicacy might have polished courts. His distresses, however afflictive, never dejected him. In his lowest sphere he wanted not spirit to assert the natural dignity of wit, and was always ready to repress that insolence, which superiority of fortune incited, and to trample that reputation which rose upon any other basis, than that of merit. He never admitted any gross familiarity, or submitted to be treated otherwise than as an equal.
Once, when he was without lodging, meat, or cloaths, one of his friends, a man indeed not remarkable for moderation in prosperity, left a message, that he desired to see him about nine in the morning. Savage knew that his intention was to assist him, but was very much disgusted, that he should presume to prescribe the hour of his attendance; and therefore rejected his kindness.
The greatest hardships of poverty were to Savage, not the want of lodging, or of food, but the neglect and contempt it drew upon him. He complained that as his affairs grew desperate, he found his reputation for capacity visibly decline; that his opinion in questions of criticism was no longer regarded, when his coat was out of fashion; and that those, who in the interval of his prosperity, were always encouraging him to great undertakings, by encomiums on his genius, and assurances of success, now received any mention of his designs with coldness, and, in short, allowed him to be qualified for no other performance than volunteer-laureat. Yet even this kind of contempt never depressed him, for he always preserved a steady confidence in his own capacity, and believed nothing above his reach, which he should at any time earnestly endeavour to attain.
This life, unhappy as it may be already imagined, was yet embittered in 1738 with new distresses. The death of the Queen deprived him of all the prospects of preferment, with which he had so long entertained his imagination. But even against this calamity there was an expedient at hand. He had taken a resolution of writing a second tragedy upon the story of Sir Thomas Overbury, in which he made a total alteration of the plan, added new incidents, and introduced new characters, so that it was a new tragedy, not a revival of the former. With the profits of this scheme, when finished, he fed his imagination, but proceeded slowly in it, and, probably, only employed himself upon it, when he could find no other amusement. Upon the Queen's death it was expected of him, that he should honour her memory with a funeral panegyric: He was thought culpable for omitting it; but on her birth-day, next year, he gave a proof of the power of genius and judgment. He knew that the track of elegy had been so long beaten, that it was impossible to travel in it, without treading the footsteps of those who had gone before him, and therefore it was necessary that he might distinguish himself from the herd of encomists, to find out some new walk of funeral panegyric.
This difficult task he performed in such a manner, that this poem may be justly ranked the best of his own, and amongst the best pieces that the death of Princes has produced. By transferring the mention of her death, to her birth-day, he has formed a happy combination of topics, which any other man would have thought it difficult to connect in one view; but the relation between them appears natural; and it may be justly said, that what no other man could have thought on, now seems scarcely possible for any man to miss. In this poem, when he takes occasion to mention the King, he modestly gives him a hint to continue his pension, which, however, he did not receive at the usual time, and there was some reason to think that it would be discontinued. He did not take those methods of retrieving his interest, which were most likely to succeed, for he went one day to Sir Robert Walpole's levee, and demanded the reason of the distinction that was made between him and the other pensioners of the Queen, with a degree of roughness which, perhaps, determined him to withdraw, what had only been delayed. This last misfortune he bore not only with decency, but cheerfulness, nor was his gaiety clouded, even by this disappointment, though he was, in a short time, reduced to the lowest degree of distress, and often wanted both lodging and food. At this time he gave another instance of the insurmountable obstinacy of his spirit. His cloaths were worn out, and he received notice, that at a coffee-house some cloaths and linen were left for him. The person who sent them did not, we believe, inform him to whom he was to be obliged, that he might spare the perplexity of acknowledging the benefit; but though the offer was so far generous, it was made with some neglect of ceremonies, which Mr. Savage so much resented, that he refused the present, and declined to enter the house 'till the cloaths, which were designed for him, were taken away.
His distress was now publicly known, and his friends therefore thought it proper to concert some measures for his relief. The scheme proposed was, that he should retire into Wales, and receive an allowance of fifty pounds a year, to be raised by subscription, on which he was to live privately in a cheap place, without aspiring any more to affluence, or having any farther sollicitude for fame.
This offer Mr. Savage gladly accepted, though with intentions very different from those of his friends; for they proposed that he should continue an exile from London for ever, and spend all the remaining part of his life at Swansea; but he designed only to take the opportunity which their scheme offered him, of retreating for a short time, that he might prepare his play for the stage, and his other works for the press, and then to return to London to exhibit his tragedy, and live upon the profits of his own labour.
After many sollicitations and delays, a subscription was at last raised, which did not amount to fifty pounds a year, though twenty were paid by one gentleman. He was, however, satisfied, and willing to retire, and was convinced that the allowance, though scanty, would be more than sufficient for him, being now determined to commence a rigid oeconomist.
Full of these salutary resolutions, he quitted London in 1739. He was furnished with fifteen guineas, and was told, that they would be sufficient, not only for the expence of his journey, but for his support in Wales for some time; and that there remained but little more of the first collection. He promised a strict adherence to his maxims of parsimony, and went away in the stage coach; nor did his friends expect to hear from him, 'till he informed them of his arrival at Swansea. But, when they least expected, arrived a letter dated the 14th day after his departure, in which he sent them word, that he was yet upon the road, and without money, and that he therefore could not proceed without a remittance. They then sent him the money that was in their hands, with which he was enabled to reach Bristol, from whence he was to go to Swansea by water. At Bristol he found an embargo laid upon the shipping, so that he could not immediately obtain a passage, and being therefore obliged to stay there some time, he, with his usual felicity, ingratiated himself with many of the principal inhabitants, was invited to their houses, distinguished at their public feasts, and treated with a regard that gratified his vanity, and therefore easily engaged his affection.
After some stay at Bristol, he retired to Swansea, the place originally proposed for his residence, where he lived about a year very much disatisfied with the diminution of his salary, for the greatest part of the contributors, irritated by Mr. Savage's letters, which they imagined treated them contemptuously, withdrew their subscriptions. At this place, as in every other, he contracted an acquaintance with those who were most distinguished in that country, among whom, he has celebrated Mr. Powel, and Mrs. Jones, by some verses inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine. Here he compleated his tragedy, of which two acts were wanting when he left London, and was desirous of coming to town to bring it on the stage. This design was very warmly opposed, and he was advised by his chief benefactor, who was no other than Mr. Pope, to put it in the hands of Mr. Thomson and Mr. Mallet, that it might be fitted for the stage, and to allow his friends to receive the profits, out of which an annual pension should be paid him. This proposal he rejected with the utmost contempt. He was by no means convinced that the judgment of those to whom he was required to submit, was superior to his own. He was now determined, as he expressed, to be no longer kept in leading-strings, and had no elevated idea of his bounty, who proposed to pension him out of the profits of his own labours. He soon after this quitted Swansea, and, with an intent to return to London, went to Bristol, where a repetition of the kindness which he had formerly found, invited him to stay. He was not only caressed, and treated, but had a collection made for him of about thirty pounds, with which it had been happy if he had immediately departed for London; but he never considered that such proofs of kindness were not often to be expected, and that this ardour of benevolence was, in a great degree, the effect of novelty.