HAMMOND.

He was equerry to the Prince of Wales, and | fiction, there is no passion; he that describes seems to have come very early into public no- himself as a shepherd and his Neæra or Delia tice, and to have been distinguished by those as a shepherdess, and talks of goats and lambs, whose friendships prejudiced mankind at that feels no passion. He that courts his mistress time in favour of the man on whom they were with Roman imagery deserves to lose her: for bestowed; for he was the companion of Cob- she may with good reason suspect his sincerity. ham, Lyttelton, and Chesterfield. He is said Hammond has few sentiments drawn from nato have divided his life between pleasure and ture, and few images from modern life. He books; in his retirement forgetting the town, produces nothing but frigid pedantry. It would and in his gayety losing the student. Of his be hard to find in all his productions three literary hours all the effects are here exhibited, stanzas that deserve to be remembered. of which the Elegies were written very early, and the prologue not long before his death.

In 1741, he was chosen into parliament for Truro, in Cornwall, probably one of those who were elected by the Prince's influence; and died next year, in June, at Stowe, the famous seat of Lord Cobham. His mistress long outlived him, and in 1779 died unmarried. The character which her lover bequeathed her was, indeed, not likely to attract courtship.

The Elegies were published after his death; and while the writer's name was remembered with fondness, they were read with a resolution to admire them.

The recommendatory preface of the editor, who was then believed, and is now affirmed, by Dr. Maty, to be the Earl of Chesterfield, raised strong prejudices in their favour.

Like other lovers, he threatens the lady with dying; and what then shall follow?

Wilt thou in tears thy lover's corse attend?
With eyes averted light the solemn pyre:
Till all around the doleful flames ascend,
Then, slowly sinking, by degrees expire?
To sooth the hov'ring soul be thine the care,
With plaintive cries to lead the mournful band;
In sable weeds the golden vase to bear,

And cull my ashes with thy trembling hand.
Panchaia's odours be their costly feast,

And all the pride of Asia's fragrant year;
Give them the treasures of the farthest east;
And, what is still more precious, give thy tear.
Surely no blame can fall upon a nymph who
rejected a swain of so little meaning.

His verses are not rugged, but they have no sweetness; they never glide in a stream of But of the prefacer, whoever he was, it may melody. Why Hammond or other writers have be reasonably suspected that he never read the thought the quatrain of ten syllables elegiac, it poems; for he professes to value them for a very is difficult to tell. The character of the Elegy high species of excellence, and recommends them is gentleness and tenuity; but this stanza has as the genuine effusions of the mind, which ex-been pronounced by Dryden, whose knowledge press a real passion in the language of nature. of English metre was not inconsiderable, to be But the truth is, these Elegies have neither the most magnificent of all measures which our passion, nature, nor manners. Where there is language affords.

SOMERVILLE.

Or Mr. SOMERVILLE's life I am not able to say any thing that can satisfy curiosity.

myself on this occasion.—Sublatum quærimus. I can now excuse all his foibles; impute them to age, and to distress of circumstances; the last of these considerations wrings my very soul to think on. For a man of high spirit, conscious of having (at least in one production) generally pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are low in every sense; to be forced to drink himself into pains of the body, order to get rid of the pains of the mind, is a misery."

He was a gentleman whose estate was in Warwickshire: his house, where he was born in 1692, is called Edston, a seat inherited from a long line of ancestors; for he was said to be of the first family in his county. He tells of himself that he was born near the Avon's banks. He was bred at Winchester-school, and was elected fellow of New College. It does not ap-in pear that in the places of his education he exhibited any uncommon proofs of genius or literature. His powers were first displayed in the country, where he was distinguished as a poet, a gentleman, and a skilful and useful justice of the peace.

Of the close of his life, those whom his poems have delighted will read with pain the following account, copied from the letters of his friend Shenstone, by whom he was too much resembled. "Our old friend Somerville is dead! I did not imagine I could have been so sorry as I find

• William.

He died July 19, 1742, and was buried at Wotton, near Henley on Árden.

His distresses need not be much pitied; his estate is said to have been fifteen hundred a year, which by his death devolved to Lord Somerville of Scotland. His mother, indeed, who lived till ninety, had a jointure of six hundred.

It is with regret that I find myself not better enabled to exhibit memorials of a writer who at least must be allowed to have set a good example to men of his own class, by devoting part of his time to elegant knowledge; and who has shown, by the subjects which his poetry has

adorned, that it is practicable to be at once a skilful sportsman and a man of letters.

Somerville has tried many modes of poetry; and though perhaps he has not in any reached such excellence as to raise much envy, it may commonly be said at least, that "he writes very well for a gentleman." His serious pieces are sometimes elevated, and his trifles are sometimes elegant. In his verses to Addison, the couplet which mentions Clio is written with the most exquisite delicacy of praise; it exhibits one of those happy strokes that is seldom attained. In his Odes to Marlborough there are beautiful lines; but in the second ode he shows that he knew little of his hero, when he talks of his private virtues. His subjects are commonly such as require no great depth of thought or energy of expression. His Fables are generally stale, and therefore excite no curiosity. Of his favourite, The Two Springs," the fiction is unnatural and the moral inconsequential. In his Tales there is too much coarseness, with too little care of language, and not sufficient rapidity of narration.

His great work is his "Chase," which he undertook in his maturer age, when his ear was improved to the approbation of blank verse, of which however his two first lines gave a bad specimen. To this poem praise cannot be totally denied. He is allowed by sportsmen to write with great intelligence of his subject, which is the first requisite to excellence; and though it is impossible to interest the common readers of verse in the dangers or pleasures of the chase, he has done all that transition and variety could easily effect; and has with great propriety enlarged his plan by the modes of hunting used in other countries.

With still less judgment did he choose blank verse as the vehicle of rural sports. If blank verse be not tumid and gorgeous, it is crippled prose; and familiar images in laboured language have nothing to recommend them but absurd novelty, which, wanting the attractions of nature, cannot please long. One excellence of the "Splendid Shilling" is, that it is short. Disguise can gratify no longer than it deceives.

SAVAGE.*

Ir has been observed in all ages, that the ad- | vantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank or the extent of their capacity have placed upon the summits of human life, have not often given any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower station; whether it be that apparent superiority incites great designs, and great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages, or that the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose eminence drew upon them an universal attention have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality been only more conspicuous than those of others, not more frequent or more severe.

volumes have been written only to enumerate the miseries of the learned, and relate their unhappy lives and untimely deaths.

To these mournful narratives I am about to add the life of Richard Savage, a man whose writings entitle him to an eminent rank in the classes of learning, and whose misfortunes claim a degree of compassion not always due to the unhappy, as they were often the consequences of the crimes of others, rather than his own.

In the year 1697, Anne Countess of Maccles field having lived some time upon very uneasy terms with her husband, thought a public confession of adultery the most obvious and expeditious method of obtaining her liberty; and therefore declared, that the child with which she was then great was begotten by the Earl Rivers. That affluence and power, advantages extrinsic This, as may be imagined, made her husband and adventitious, and therefore easily separable no less desirous of a separation than herself, and from those by whom they are possessed, should he prosecuted his design in the most effectual very often flatter the mind with expectations of manner; for he applied not to the ecclesiastical felicity which they cannot give, raises no astonish-courts for a divorce, but to the parliament for an ment; but it seems rational to hope, that intellectual greatness should produce better effects; that minds qualified for great attainments should first endeavour their own benefit; and that they who are most able to teach others the way to happiness, should with most certainty follow it themselves.

But this expectation, however plausible, has been very frequently disappointed. The heroes of literary as well as civil history have been very often no less remarkable for what they have suffered, than for what they have achieved; and

The first edition of this interesting narrative, accord. ing to Mr. Boswell, was published in 1744, by Roberts. The second, now before me, bears date 1748, and was

act, by which his marriage might be dissolved, the nuptial contract totally annulled, and the children of his wife illegitimated. This act, after the usual deliberation, he obtained, though without the approbation of some, who considered marriage as an affair only cognizable by ecclesiastical judges; and on March 3d was separat ed from his wife, whose fortune, which was very great, was repaid her, and who having, as well as her husband, the liberty of making another choice, was in a short time married to Colonel Brett.

While the Earl of Macclesfield was prose

published by Cave. Very few alterations were made by the author when he added it to the present collection.-C.

This year was made remarkable by the dissolution

cuting this affair, his wife was, on the 10th of January, 1697-8, delivered of a son; and the Earl Rivers, by appearing to consider him as his own, left none any reason to doubt of the sincerity of her declaration; for he was his godfather, and gave him his own name, which was by his direction inserted in the register of St. Andrew's parish, in Holborn, but unfortunately left him to the care of his mother, whom, as she was now set free from her husband, he probably imagined likely to treat with great tenderness the child that had contributed to so pleasing an event. It is not indeed easy to discover what motives could be found to overbalance that natural affection of a parent, or what interest could be promoted by neglect or cruelty. The dread of shame or of poverty, by which some wretches have been incited to abandon or to murder their children, cannot be supposed to have affected a woman who had proclaimed her crimes and solicited reproach, and on whom the clemency of the legislature had undeservedly bestowed a fortune, which would have been very little dimininished by the expenses which the care of her child could have brought upon her. It was therefore not likely that she would be wicked without temptation; that she would look upon her son from his birth with a kind of resentment and abhorrence; and, instead of supporting, assisting, and defending him, delight to see him struggling with misery, or that she would take every opportunity of aggravating his misfortunes, and obstructing his resources, and with an implacable and restless cruelty continue her persecution from the first hour of his life to the last.

But whatever were her motives, no sooner was her son born, than she discovered a resolution of disowning him; and in a very short time removed him from her sight, by committing him to the care of a poor woman, whom she directed to educate him as her own, and enjoined never to inform him of his true parents.

Such was the beginning of the life of Richard Savage. Born with a legal claim to honour and to affluence, he was in two months illegitimated by the parliament, and disowned by his mother, doomed to poverty and obscurity, and launched upon the ocean of life, only that he might be swallowed by its quicksands, or dashed upon its rocks.

In this charitable office she was assisted by his godmother, Mrs. Lloyd, who while she lived, always looked upon him with that tenderness which the barbarity of his mother made peculiarly necessary; but her death, which happened in his tenth year, was another of the misfortunes of his childhood; for though she kindly endeavoured to alleviate his loss by a legacy of three hundred pounds, yet, as he had none to prosecute his claim, to shelter him from oppression, or call in law to the assistance of justice, her will was eluded by the executors, and no part of the money was ever paid.

He was, however, not yet wholly abandoned. The Lady Mason still continued her care, and directed him to be placed at a small grammarschool near St. Alban's, where he was called by the name of his nurse, without the least intimation that he had a claim to any other.

Here he was initiated in literature, and passed through several of the classes, with what rapidity or with what applause cannot now be known. As he always spoke with respect of his master, it is probable that the mean rank in which he then appeared did not hinder his genius from being distinguished, or his industry from being rewarded; and if in so low a state he obtained distinction and rewards, it is not likely that they were gained but by genius and industry.

It is very reasonable to conjecture, that his application was equal to his abilities, because his improvement was more than proportioned to the opportunities which he enjoyed; nor can it be doubted, that if his earliest productions had been preserved, like those of happier students, we might in some have found vigorous sallies of that sprightly humour which distinguishes "The Author to be let," and in others strong touches of that ardent imagination which painted the solemn scenes of "The Wanderer.".

While he was thus cultivating his genius, his father, the Earl Rivers, was seized with a distemper, which in a short time put an end to his life. He had frequently inquired after his son, and had always been amused with fallacious and evasive answers; but, being now in his own opinion on his deathbed, he thought it his duty to provide for him among his other natural children, and therefore demanded a positive account of him, with an importunity not to be diverted or denied. His mother, who could no longer His mother could not indeed infect others refuse an answer, determined at least to give with the same cruelty. As it was impossible to such as should cut him off for ever from that avoid the inquiries which the curiosity or ten-happiness which competence affords, and therederness of her relations made after her child, she was obliged to give some account of the measures she had taken; and her mother, the Lady Mason, whether in approbation of her design, or to prevent more criminal contrivances, engaged to transact with the nurse, to pay her for her care, and to superintend the education of the child.

fore declared that he was dead; which is perhaps the first instance of a lie invented by a mother to deprive her son of a provision which was designed him by another, and which she could not expect herself, though he should lose it.

This was therefore an act of wickedness which could not be defeated, because it could not be suspected; the Earl did not imagine there could exist in a human form a mother that would ruin her son without enriching herself, six thousand pounds, which he had in his will and therefore bestowed upon some other person bequeathed to Savage.

The same cruelty which incited his mother to intercept this provision which had been intended him, prompted her in a short time to

He died August 18th, 1712-R.

another project, a project worthy of such a disposition. She endeavoured to rid herself from the dangers of being at any time made known to him, by sending him secretly to the American plantations.*

seeing her as she might come by accident to the window, or cross her apartment with a candle in her hand.

most miseries of want, while he was endeavouring to awaken the affection of a mother. He was therefore obliged to seek some other means of support; and, having no profession, became by necessity an author.

But all his assiduity and tenderness were without effect, for he could neither soften her heart By whose kindness this scheme was counter-nor open her hand, and was reduced to the utacted, or by whose interposition she was induced to lay aside her design, I know not: it is not improbable that the Lady Mason might persuade or compel her to desist, or perhaps she could not easily find accomplices wicked enough to concur in so cruel an action; for it may be At this time the attention of all the literary conceived, that those who had by a long grada- world was engrossed by the Bangorian controtion of guilt hardened their hearts against the versy, which filled the press with pamphlets, and sense of common wickedness, would yet be the coffee-houses with disputants. Of this subshocked at the design of a mother to expose her ject, as most popular, he made choice for his first son to slavery and want, to expose him without attempt, and without any other knowledge of the interest, and without provocation; and Savage question than he had casually collected from conmight on this occasion find protectors and ad-versation, published a poem against the Bishop.§ vocates among those who had long traded in crimes, and whom compassion had never touched before.

Being hindered, by whatever means, from banishing him into another country, she formed soon after a scheme for burying him in poverty and obscurity in his own; and that his station of life, if not the place of his residence, might keep him for ever at a distance from her, she ordered him to be placed with a shoemaker in Holborn, that, after the usual time of trial, he might become his apprentice.†

It is generally reported that this project was for some time successful, and that Savage was employed at the awl longer than he was willing to confess; nor was it perhaps any great advantage to him that an unexpected discovery determined him to quit his occupation.

What was the success or merit of this performance I know not, was probably lost among the innumerable pamphlets to which that dispute gave occasion. Mr. Savage was himself in a little time ashamed of it, and endeavoured to suppress it, by destroying all the copies that he could collect.

He then attempted a more gainful kind of writing, || and in his eighteenth year offered to the stage a comedy borrowed from a Spanish plot, which was refused by the players, and was therefore given by him to Mr. Bullock, who, having more interest, made some slight alterations, and brought it upon the stage, under the title of "Woman's a Riddle," but allowed the unhappy author no part of the profit.

Not discouraged however at his repulse, he wrote two years afterwards "Love in a Veil," another comedy, borrowed likewise from the Spanish, but with little better success than before; for though it was received and acted, yet it appeared so late in the year, that the Author obtained no other advantage from it, than the acquaintance of Sir Richard Steele and Mr. Wilks, by whom he was pitied, caressed, and relieved.

About this time his nurse, who had always treated him as her own son, died; and it was natural for him to take care of those effects which by her death were, as he imagined, become his own; he therefore went to her house, opened her boxes, and examined her papers, among which he found some letters written to her by the Lady Mason, which informed him of his birth and the reasons for which it was Sir Richard Steele, having declared in his faconcealed. vour with all the ardour of benevolence which He was no longer satisfied with the employ-constituted his character, promoted his interest ment which had been allotted him, but thought he had a right to share the affluence of his mother; and therefore without scruple applied to her as her son, and made use of every art to awaken her tenderness, and attract her regard. But neither his letters, nor the interposition of Nor was Mr. Savage admitted to his acquaintthose friends which his merit or his distress pro-ance only, but to his confidence, of which he cured him, made any impression upon her mind. sometimes related an instance too extraordinary She still resolved to neglect, though she could to be omitted, as it affords a very just idea of his no longer disown him. patron's character.

It was to no purpose that he frequently solicited her to admit him to see her; she avoided him with the most vigilant precaution, and ordered him to be excluded from her house, by whom-. soever he might be introduced, and what reason soever he might give for entering it.

Savage was at the same time so touched with the discovery of his real mother, that it was his frequent practice to walk in the dark eveningst for several hours before her door, in hopes of

Savage's Preface to his Miscellanies.

Ibid.
See the "Plain Dealer."

with the utmost zeal, related his misfortunes, applauded his merit, took all the opportunities of recommending him, and asserted, that "the inhumanity of his mother had given him a right to find every good man his father."**

He was once desired by Sir Richard, with an air of the utmost importance, to come very early to his house the next morning. Mr. Savage came as he had promised, found the chariot at the door, and Sir Richard waiting for him, and ready to go out. What was intended, and whither they were to go, Savage could not conjecture, and was not willing to inquire; but imme

It was called "The Battle of the Pamphlets." Jacob's Lives of the Dramatic Poets.-Dr. J. This play was printed first in 8vo. ; and afterwards in 12mo. the fifth edition.-Dr. J. **"Plain Dealer."-Dr J.