174 



>\r>si IUTK 



SAVANNAH 



to UM Minimi! of Mont Blanc, in 1787. During this 

 conne of travel be made numerous observations 

 on UM minerals, physical features, botany, and 

 of the districts he visited ; and these 

 put together in the work Voyage* dan* let 

 Alpet,ttc.(4 vols. Geneva, 1779-96). HU obser- 

 vations were made with considerable labour; he 

 had in many cases to perfect or even invent the 

 instruments he used. In 1786 he resigned his 

 chair, and, after a long i>eriod of suffering, 

 died at Geneva, 22d January 1799. He a)w.>>- 

 took a deep and active interest in the public affairs 

 of his native canton. Besides the great work 

 above mentioned, and some minor productions, he 

 wrote .S'nr I'Hyyrumrtrit (1783), which, according 

 to Cutler, U one of the most important contribu- 

 tions to science in the 18th century. HU Life was 

 written by Senehier ( 1801 ), by Cuvier in Biographie 

 Unirertflle, and by De Candolle in Phil. Magazine, 

 i. 4. See also Douglas Freshfield, De Sautture and 

 the Alp*, in 'Great Explorers' (1892). HU son 

 NlOM.AsTimiixiRK ( 1707 Is4."i) lived a very retired 

 life, but wrote a valuable work on the physiology 

 of plants, entitled IlechercJiu Chimiquet tur /a 

 Vtgttation ( Paris, 1804). 



SaiisMiritr (named after Saussnre), a dull, 

 opaque, whit*, gray, or greenish com pact mineral, of 

 indeterminate or variable eOfnpOsittOB, which has 

 resulted from the alteration of felspar, as in the 

 rock called Gahhro (q.v. i. K\aniined microscopi- 

 cally saussurite i- seen to con-i-i of a compound 

 aggregate of minute fibres and grains of zoisite and 

 other minerals. 



Bauvage, FREDERIC, a shipbuilder of Boulogne, 

 whom the French regard as the inventor of the 

 screw-propeller, in virtue of his having in 1832 

 improved the pattern in use. 



S.-nanr. Ki' H\i:i>. a minor Kngli-h poet. \\h,i 

 loudly claimed to lie the illegitimate child of Lord 

 Rivers ami the Countess of Macclesfield a story 

 for which he himself was the only original author- 

 ity. HU alleged mother married in 1683, but 

 lived unhappily with her husband, and separated 

 from him in March 1685. She bore two children 

 to Kicliard Savage, fourth and last Lord Rivers, 

 during the period of separation ; the one, christened 

 Ann Savage, was born in 169.), and died in infancy ; 

 the other, whom Richard Savage, afterward claimed 

 to be, was liorn January 16, 1697, was baptised 

 and registered as Richard Smith, and most prob- 

 ably died also at nurse. The Earl of Macclesfield 

 raised proceedings against his wife in the Arches 

 Court in 1697, and obtained a divorce in the House 

 of Lords in 1698, but some extenuation seems to 

 have lieen found in the husband's conduct, for the 

 whole of the wife's fortune was restored to her. 

 Two years later she married Colonel Henry Brett, 

 who died in 17:24, apparently before the startling 

 story was made fully public. Meantime the dU- 

 repiitahle claimant, having no profession, hail 

 1-ecoine by necessity an author, and had assumed 

 the name of Savage at least as early as 1717 in 

 title to a pamphlet on the Bangorian contro- 

 versy. In the title page and dedication to Love 

 in a Veil (1718) he first claims the parentage 

 oi,rnly, but in Curll's Poetical Register, or Live* of 

 the Poet*, edited by (Hies Jacob (1719), the story 

 i- for the first time fully given, no doubt by his 

 own pen. Aaron Hill liefriended him, and in June 

 7-24 published in The 1'ln,,, Drnler a brief outline 

 of his story. Further letters and allusions followed, 

 T with significant hints of pecuniary distress, 

 which brought subscribers for his Mitcrl/tntirs 

 (1726). A Life appeared in 1727, from the pen of 

 Buckingham and another, and undoubtedly Mined 

 to get him off the sentence of death for m'uidci in 

 a tavern brawl. HU insulting attacks upon Mrs 



Brett now became louder and more bitter in a 

 ' Preface ' ( 1728 ) Ui the Life of the year before ; in 

 hi* poem, Tht liiutanl (I7'28). Mrs Brett herself 

 took not the -lightest notice of the claim ; hut her 

 nephew , Lord Tyrconnell, seems to have laboured 

 privately to procure Savage's pardon, ami after the 

 publication of The Batttird to have silenced him 

 with a bribe. The Wanderer was dedicated to him 

 in 1729, but his bounty soon ceased, and Savage 

 was again thrown upon the world. His dint-put 

 able habits brought with them misery and hunger, 

 and the pension of i'.Vl which the queen allowed 

 him in return fora birthday ode was usually di--i 

 patetl in a week's debauchery. On the queen's 

 death Tope set agoing a subscription to lind him 

 the means of living quietly at Swansea, but after 

 alxiut a year of impatient exile he went over to 

 liristol, where he wearied out the benevolence of 

 the most long-suffering sympathising friends. \VM~ 

 llung into gaol for debt, and there languished till 

 he died, July HI. 1743. 



Neither to his poetry nor yet to his remark- 

 able story does Savage owe his enduring reputa- 

 tion, but solely to the noble and touching 

 Apology in which Samuel Johnson immortal < 

 his ill fated friend (1744). He knew Savage in 

 his own years of hunger in London, hud walked 

 round St James's Square with him all night 

 for want of a lodging, warmed only by the re- 

 solution to stand \>v their country, and out of the 

 profound pity of his heart for a dead friend'.- suffer- 

 ings wrote what is perhaps the most perfect shorter 

 Lite in Knglish literature. He had heard 

 story from his own lips, and the natural strength 

 and shrewdness of his own intelligence was lietrayed 

 by the partiality of friendship. Yet Savage hod 

 not been communicative of the facts of his early 

 life, and he never furnished the world with the 

 pi.. of- he boa-tcd in 1724 that he possessed. All 

 Johnson's authorities were traceable to Savage 

 himself, and the story remains imperishably en- 

 shrined in literature, although marked, as Mr 

 Mov Thomas has proved, by 'inherent improb- 

 abilities, cautious vagueness, ino insistencies, and 

 proved falsehoods." But even so stout a friend as 

 Johnson should have paused for proof of such 

 startling and unnatural charges as that Mrs Brett 

 kept the child out of a death Led legacy ( 1712) of 

 si\ thousand pounds liy giving Lord Rivers a false 

 n nrance of his death, ami still further that she 

 tiled txi kidnap him to the American plantations, 

 and even laboured to prevent his obtaining a 

 pardon when lying under sentence of death. 



See the five ]>]KTS by W. Moy Thomas in Note* and 

 Querirt, November 6 to December 4, 1868. 



Savage Island, or NIUE, a coral islet to the 

 east of the Friendly Islands. The 6000 inhabitants 

 lielong to the same Polynesian stock, and were 

 formerly notorious for their ferocity, but are now 

 < hiistianised. 

 Savaii. See SAMOA. 



S;i> aiiilla. a poi i of Colombia, on a bay of the 

 same name on the Caribl>eaii Sea, 17 miles WN\V. 

 of Bariane|uilla by the railway to Puerto Colombia. 

 The roadstead U roomy but shallow, and its trade 

 is passing away to Puerto Colombia. 



Savannah (Span, salxtna, 'a sheet;' at first 

 used of a plain covered with ice or snow ), a name 

 given by the early Spanish settlers to the great 

 treeless plains of the North American continent. 

 It U practically the equivalent of 'prairie' and 

 steppe;' but is a term in use mainly in the 

 southern Atlantic States of the American Union, 

 especially l-'lorida. 



Savannah, a river which, with ite right branch, 

 forms the lioundary between Georgia and South 

 Carolina, rises near the southern border of North 



