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Samuel Bisset. - John Philip Baratier: Macclesfield

CURIOSITIES RESPECTING MAN. - (Continued.) RICHARD SAVAGE, one of the most extraordinary characters that is to be met with in all the records of biography, was the son of Anne, countess of Macclesfield, by the earl of Rivers, according to her own confession; and was born in 1698. This confession of adultery was made, to procure a separation from her husband, the earl of Macclesfield: yet, having obtained this end, no sooner was a spurious offspring brought into the world, than she resolved to disown him; and, as long as he lived, she treated him with the most unnatural cruelty. She delivered him over to a poor woman to educate as her own; maliciously prevented the earl of Rivers from leaving him a legacy of £6000, by declaring him dead; and deprived him of another legacy which his godmother, Mrs. Lloyd, had left him, by concealing from him his birth, and thereby rendering it impossible for him to prosecute his claim. She endeavoured to send him secretly to the plantations; but this plan being frustrated, she placed him apprentice with a shoemaker. In this situation, however, he did not long continue; for his nurse dying, he went to take care of the effects of his supposed mother, and found in her boxes some letters, which discovered to young Savage his birth, and the cause of its concealment. From the moment of this discovery he became dissatisfied. He conceived that he had a right to share in the affluence of his real mother; and therefore he applied to her, and tried every art to attract her regard. But in vain did he solicit this unnatural parent; she avoided him with the utmost precaution, and took measures to prevent his ever entering her house. Meantime, while he was endeavouring to rouse the affections of a mother, in whom all natural affection was extinct, he was destitute of the means of support. Having a strong inclination to literary pursuits, especially poetry, he wrote poems; and