446 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"<« S. VI. 153., Dec. 4. '5?. 



ne.arly all of which Savage is, beyond doubt, 

 responsible : and it is obvious to ask how he could 

 have obtained a knowledge of them. IIow could 

 Lord Rivers's frequent inquiries, — Mrs. Brett's 

 fallacious and evasive answers, — the dying man's 

 importunity, — the cruel mother's falsehood, — and 

 the abortive intentions of the Earl, be conveyed 

 to Savage ? The inconsistency of the whole story 

 is manifest. IMrs. Brett in 1712, and for at least 

 twelve years previously, had been living with her 

 husband Colonel Brett. Lord Rivers could there- 

 fore hardly have had interviews with her on the 

 subject. He could not have failed to know from 

 the godmother, his intimate friend Mrs. Ousley, 

 that his child was existing at ten, or at least at 

 seven years old : nor could he have remained ig- 

 norant of the unnatural cruelty of the mother, 

 since the godmother, we are told, knew it well, 

 and protected him in consequence. Again, New- 

 digate Ousley, the godfather, was living when Lord 

 Rivers died, and he also was the Earl's friend, and 

 could surely have acquainted him with the facts, 

 ■which he must have known from his sister. 

 Again, in 1712, Lady Mason was still living, and 

 she had no interest in supporting the wicked 

 falsehood of her daughter, and according to the 

 accounts of her, no disposition so to do. Is it 

 possible that, with all these sources of informa- 

 tion, the Earl's frequent inquiries should never 

 have brought him the slightest tidings of his 

 child? Lord Rivers died at Bath, and it is 

 therefore highly improbable that he could have 

 summoned Mrs. Brett to his death-bed. Lastly, 

 his will was not made on his death-bed. It is 

 dated June 13, 1711, more than fourteen months 

 before he died : it contains no allusion to his 

 child Richard Smith, and has not any codicil 

 revoking a legacy of six thousand pounds, nor, in 

 fact, any codicil at all. 



In like manner Savage is the authority for the 

 assertion that Mrs. Brett endeavoured to have 

 him kidnapped and transported to the American 

 plantations. The fuct of the attempt and its 

 failure was first put forth in the Life (1727), and 

 Savage himself afterwards adopts it in his " Pre- 

 face," and tells us that the attempt was instigated 

 by his mother, who " offered a bribe " for the 

 purpose. The absurdity and impossibility of the 

 story must he evident to any one who will read 

 and reflect upon it. To whom could a lady in 

 Mrs. Brett's station — her husband being living — 

 " offer a bribe " to kidnap and transport a youth 

 who was at a grammar-school near St. Alban's, 

 under the patronage of her mother Lady IMason ? 



The statement in Johnson concerning the pen- 

 sion from Mrs. Old field, atlords another instance 

 of the way in which Savage endeavoured to mo- 

 dify statements previously put forth, and which 

 he had no doubt discovered to be inconsistent. In 

 the Life of 1727 it is asserted, as remarked in my 



last paper, that about the time of Savage cancel- 

 ling the Preface to his Miscellarnes, " through the 

 imposition of some very considerable persons," he 

 " had a pension of fifty pounds a year settled upon 

 him ;" and the writer remarks : — 



" I will not venture to say whether this allowance 

 came ilirectly from her ['his mother'], or, if so, upon 

 what motives she was induced to grant it him, but chuse 

 to leave the reader to guess at it." 



The insinuation, however, could not, as I have 

 shown, be made to accord with Savage's subse- 

 quent statements and attacks upon her ; and it is 

 quite inconsistent with the whole story of her be- 

 haviour. Accordingly, we find it again in John- 

 son ; but instead of the unmistakeable allusion to 

 the mother, we now learn that his benefactress 

 was the famous Mrs. Oldfield — a person upon 

 whom he could have no claim. She, Johnson says, 



" was so much pleas?d with his conversation, and touched 

 with his misfortunes, that she allowed him a settled pen- 

 sion of 50/., which was during her life regularly paid." 



This important variation would not have been 

 ventured on by Johnson, if he had not had Sa- 

 vage's authority ; but Johnson himself appears to 

 have felt difficulties. Such generosity from a 

 stranger would surely have called forth some al- 

 lusion in Savage's writings : but there is none. Her 

 death would surely have left him bewailing in 

 verse the loss of his benefactress ; but Johnson is 

 compelled to admit that he " did not celebrate her 

 in elegies." The biographer's explanation is cu- 

 rious. Savage, we are told, "knew that too great 

 a profusion of praise would only have revived those 

 faults which his natural equity did not allow him 

 to think less because they were committed by one 

 who favored him." We are indeed assured (a 

 fact for which no doubt Savage was also his au- 

 thority), that "he endeavoured to show his grati- 

 tude, in the most decent manner, by wearing 

 mourning as for a mother;'' but suits of mourn- 

 ing, unlike elegies, wear out and leave no trace. 

 Mrs. Oldfield's generosity to Savage was at all 

 events unknown to the gossiping Egerton (or 

 Curll), whose Life of Mrs. Oldfield appeared im- 

 mediately after her death, and when Savage's 

 loss and his suit of mourning — he beinjr then 

 m the height of his notoriety — must have been 

 talked about ; nor, I believe, does any hint of 

 the fact appear in any of the numerous publi- 

 cations that record the tattle of the stage. AV^e 

 are told in the original story that the pension 

 was granted about the time when Savage was 

 publishing his Miscellanies ; to which every friend 

 and friend's friend were of course invited to sub- 

 scribe. But the name of Mrs. Oldfield does not 

 appear among the subscribers even for one copy. 

 \\q are told moreover tliat the pension was con- 

 tinued till her death ; and it is natural, therefore, 

 to suppose, that when she could continue it no 

 longer without a formal settlement, she would 



