2-"' S. TI. 152., Nov. 27. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



425 



LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27. 1858. 



EICHAKD SAVAGE. 



(^Continued from p. 389.) 



Although Johnson was closely intimate with 

 Savage, it is remarkable that he had no know- 

 ledge of the facts of Savage's childhood beyond 

 what he obtained from Jacob's Lives, lite Plain 

 Dealer, the Life of Mr. Richard Savage, 1727, and 

 Savage's Preface to the second edition of his 

 Miscellanies. These publications are referred to 

 by Johnson as his authorities : nor does he even 

 correct the important statements in the Life which 

 Savage himself acknowledged to be false in his 

 private letter to Mrs. Carter in 1739. From this 

 I infer that, even with his most intimate friends, 

 Savage was not communicative on the subject 

 of his early life. Johnson's authorities, however, 

 may all, as I have shown, be satisfactorily traced 

 to Savage himself; and it is therefore important 

 to examine some of his statements by the light 

 of such information as I have now obtained from 

 other sources. 



The evidence on the proceedings in the Arches 

 Court and before the House of Lords, set forth 

 in my first paper, was then unpublished, but it 

 is quite certain that Savage might with a little 

 trouble have obtained the particulars of his al- 

 leged mother's divorce. If he had really had 

 faith in his own story, it would be naturally ex- 

 pected that he would have taken every acces- 

 sible means of informing himself accurately upon 

 the subject. Documents which could be found 

 by a mere literary inquirer more than a century 

 later, could surely have been found by him 

 whose interest and whose business it was to find 

 them, and who, for some time at least, was not 

 wanting in wealthy, or even noble, friends. For 

 every fact, however, he seems to have been con- 

 tent with such particulars as imperfect and in- 

 correct tradition afforded. Hence probably the 

 statement that " the Earl Rivers gave him his 

 own name," &c. This statement appears in the 

 Life of 1 727, where it is asserted that the name of 

 Savage's nurse 



" was the only one for many years he knew he had any 

 claim to, and [he] was called after it accordingly ; 

 although his real father, the late Earl Rivers, was himself 

 one of his Godfathers, and had his right name regularly 

 entered in the Parish Books, &c." 



This could only mean that the child was chris- 

 tened with the S2irname of the father, " Savage ;" 

 and this was evidently Savage's belief, founded, 

 no doubt, on a tradition which had confused the 

 story of the first child (of whom Savage appears 

 never to have heard) with the second. Hence 

 probably also the erroneous statement that the 

 Countess made "a public confession of adultery" 



in order to obtain a separation from her husband ; 

 and, as stated in the Life, " declared that th8 

 child with which she was then great, was begotten 

 by the Earl Rivers." Consistently enough with 

 these errors, the date of Savage's birth is placed, 

 not before the Earl's proceedings for divorce, bat 

 afterwai-ds, viz. on the 10th of January, 169^. 

 But we have seen by the evidence on the trial, 

 that the date of the birth of the Countess's male 

 child does not agree, either in day or year, with 

 this statement. Yet if Savage and this child were 

 one, it is hardly possible that he could have fallen 

 into such mistatements. We are told that up to 

 his tenth year Savage was tenderly protected 

 by his " godmother " and by his grandmother, 

 Lady Mason. These ladies must have known the 

 day and year of his birth ; and Lady Mason did 

 not die, as appears by the register of Sutton, till 

 July, 1717, when the Countess's child, if living, 

 would have been in his twenty-first year. It is 

 impossible, therefore, to believe that he would 

 not have learnt, from one or other of these ladies, 

 what was his true age, and what day of the month 

 was the true anniversary of his birthday. 



If Savage's godmother, indeed, had been really 

 the godmother of the Countess's child, she must 

 have been particularly well informed on these 

 points. It will be remembered from the evi- 

 dence, that the child, which was baptized al- 

 most as soon as born, had but one godmother, 

 which was indeed all that a boy required. She 

 was Dorothy Ousley, the agent of Lord Rivers, 

 who had been actively employed in every stage 

 of the matter. This fact is deposed to by several 

 witnesses ; among others, the clergyman who per- 

 formed the ceremony at the house in Fox Court. 

 Circumstances so strange and exciting must have 

 left a deep impression on her mind. Mrs. Ousley 

 was a lady in a good position of life ; and both she 

 and her brother were so much compromised by 

 the affair, that they were compelled for awhile to 

 abscond to Aix-la-Chapelle to avoid exposure. 

 The dates and particulars of such matters are not 

 easily forgotten ; and if Mrs. Ousley had really 

 cherished her godchild until his tenth year, and 

 taken care of him, according to Savage's quota- 

 tion in his letter to Mrs. Carter, " as tenderly as 

 the apple of her eye," she would surely not have 

 neglected to inform him on this point. The name 

 of the godmother in Savage's story, however, is 

 not Ousley, but Loyd. It is of course possible 

 that Mrs. Dorothy Ousley became Mrs. Dorothy 

 Loyd ; but the probability is that her brother 

 Newdigate, who was a gentleman of fortune, 

 would not have engaged with her in such a mat- 

 ter if she had not been a matronly person, ar- 

 rived at least at middle age : a fact which would 

 render her subsequent marriage improbable. Mrs. 

 Ousley had at all events not changed her name 

 at the time of the divorce, when the child of the 



