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William Huntington

afterwards two plays, Woman's a Riddle, and, Love in a Veil: he was allowed no part of the profits from the first; but by the second he acquired the acquaintance of Sir Richard Steel and Mr. Wilkes, by whom he was pitied, caressed, and relieved. But the kindness of his friends not affording him a constant supply, he wrote the tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury; which not only procured him the esteem of many persons of wit, but brought him £200. The celebrated Aaron Hill, Esq. was of great service to him in correcting and fitting this piece for the stage and the press; and extended his patronage still farther. But Savage was, like many other wits, a bad economist. As fast as his friends raised him out of one difficulty, he sunk into another; and when he found himself greatly involved, he rambled about like a vagabond, with scarcely a shirt on his back. He was in one of these situations all the time he wrote his tragedy above mentioned; without a lodging, and often without a dinner. Mr. Hill also promoted a subscription to a volume of his Miscellanies, and furnished part of the poems of which it was composed. To this Miscellany Savage wrote a preface, in which he gives an account of his mother's cruelty, in a very uncommon strain of humour. The profits of his tragedy and his Miscellanies had now somewhat raised him, both in circumstances and credit, so that the world began to behold him with a more favourable eye, when both his fame and life were endangered by a most unhappy event: a drunken frolic, in which he one night engaged, ended in a fray, and Savage unfortunately killed a man, for which he was condemned to be hanged his friends earnestly solicited the mercy of the crown, while his mother as earnestly exerted herself to prevent his receiving it. The Countess of Hertford, at length, laid. his whole case before Queen Caroline, and Savage obtained a pardon. Savage now lost that affection for his mother which the whole series of her cruelty had not been able wholly to repress; and considering her as an implacable enemy, whom nothing but his blood could satisfy, threatened to harass her with lampoons, and to publish a copious narrative of her conduct, unless she consented to allow him a pension. This expedient proved successful; and Lord Tyrconnel, upon his promise of laying aside his design of exposing his mother's cruelty, took him into his family, treated him as an equal, and engaged to allow him a pension of £200 a year. This was the happy period of Savage's life. .