386 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



C2»a S. VI. 160., Nov. 13. '68. 



band's pursuit — when the utmost exposure was 

 past, and all farther danger at an end — she sud- 

 denly lost every instinct of affection, and sense of 

 duty towards this her only child ? If she had had 

 a perm of that malignant cruelty and unnatural 

 indifference towards her offspring with which she is 

 charged, it was surely in the time of her trouble and 

 danger that it would have developed itself. She 

 would at least not have voluntarily exposed herself 

 on their account to disgrace and ruin. Indeed, if, 

 during the period when she was compelled to place 

 them with a nurse, she had wholly refrained from 

 seeing or inquiring after her children, trusting to 

 the constant attention of the Ousleys, it could hardly 

 be said that she had done more than exercise a 

 self-restraint which she might have considered 

 necessary and prudent for the children's sake as 

 well as her own. 



The Countess of Macclesfield's divorce created 

 much gossip at the time, and no exact report hav- 

 ing been published led to a variety of mistatements, 

 as may be seen by comparing Luttrell and other 

 contemporaries with the facts established by the 

 hitherto unpublished depositions from which I have 

 quoted. These false accusations are traceable in the 

 reported "public confession of adultery," and other 

 melodramatic villanies, alleged by Savage or his 

 friends. The Countess married within two years 

 after her divorce Colonel Henry Brett. The 

 Bretts were an old and respectable family in 

 Gloucestershire. Soon after the marriage, her 

 sister Lady Brownlowe having died, Sir William 

 Brownlowe, the Countess's brother-in-law, mar- 

 ried into the same family, his second wife being 

 Henrietta, own sister to Colonel Brett. From 

 this I infer that the friends of the late Countess of 

 Macclesfield were not dissatisfied with her mar- 

 riage. She afterwards lived a respectable and re- 

 tired life ; and it is said by Boswell that her taste 

 and judgment were much esteemed by Gibber, 

 who submitted every scene of his Careless Hus- 

 band to her revisal and correction. Her husband 

 died, I believe, in 1714, and was at all events 

 dead before 1719, when Savage's claim to be the 

 son of the Countess was first put forth in Jacob's 

 Lives. 



AVhatever errors there might be in the common 

 tradition of the Countess of Macclesfield's story, 

 it was at least well known that she had a male 

 child whose father was Lord Rivers, and which 

 child had disappeared. Speculation and gossip on 

 the fate of this child were sure to be rife, and 

 were not unlikely to produce a pretender, who, 

 if he could not convince the mother of his claims, 

 might at least find some sympathy and support in 

 the public, who were not so well informed. A 

 romantic story, a noble birth discovered by acci- 

 dent, an unnatural mother, and a neglected child, 

 could not fail to captivate some persons ; and ex- 

 perience shows that the partisans of such claim- 



ants are not scrupulous about proof, and that even 

 the claimants themselves, if not checked by expo- 

 sure, grow at length into a kind of faith in their 

 story, which helps them to sustain their part. I 

 am on the whole, and notwithstanding some cir- 

 cumstances in his favour, to which I would allow 

 due weight, strongly of opinion that this was Sa- 

 vage's case. 



He had at least assumed the name of Savage as 

 early as 1717, when he published his poem on the 

 Bangorian Controversy, with the following title : 



" The Convocation, or a Battle of Pamphlets ; a Poem. 

 Written by Mr. Richard Savage. London : printed for 

 E. Young, .it the Angel, near Lincoln's Inn Back Gate, 

 and sold by J. Morphew, near Stationers' Hal', 1717." 



This is the earliest indication of Savage's exist- 

 ence. Here he does not describe himself as a " son 

 of the late Lord Rivers," as was for long after- 

 wards his invariable custom; or allude, in poem or 

 any preface, to his mother or his case ; but in the 

 following year his story advanced another step. 

 His Love in a Veil, acted for the first time 17th of 

 June, 1718, was published by Curll, and stated on 

 the title-page to be " written by Richard Savage, 

 Gent., son of the late Earl Rivers." In the dedi- 

 cation to Lord Lansdowne, Savage says : 



" It is my misfortune to stand in such a relationship 



to the late Earl of Rivers by the Countess of , as 



neither of us can be proud of owning. 1 am one of those 

 sons of sorrow to whom he left nothing to alleviate the sin 

 of my birth." 



The amours of Lord Rivers had long been a 

 subject of common gossip. His " sons of sorrow" 

 were supposed to be pretty numerous ; and there 



was nothing in " the Countess of ," pointing 



particularly to any one. Soon after this, in 1719, 

 Curll published his Poetical Registe?; or Lives of 

 the Poets. Pope taxed Dennis with writing his 

 own memoir for this collection, and Dennis re- 

 plied with a tu quoque. That the memoirs of 

 living persons were, in fact, contributed by the 

 persons themselves — as is the case with almost all 

 such publications — was no secret. The editor, 

 G. J. [Giles Jacob], professes himself " obliged to 

 Mr. Congreve for his free and early communica- 

 tion of what relates to himself, as well as his kind 

 directions for the composing of this work;" and 

 adds, " I forbear to mention the names of other 

 gentlemen who have transmitted their accounts 

 to me." The facts in the memoir of Savage, al- 

 though the responsibility of publishing them was 

 laid upon the unscrupulous Curll, were such as 

 could have come from no other person than Sa- 

 vage himself, and they were afterwards repeated 

 by him. Here we find his story, for the first time, 

 almost complete : — 



" This gentleman [says the Poetical Register'] is a 

 natural son of the late Earl Rivers by the Countess of 

 Maccleslield (now widow of the late Colonel Brett), she 

 behig divorced by the House of Lords from the Earl of 



