Lives of the Poets

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage,
etc. by Samuel Johnson
(#5 in our series by Samuel Johnson)
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Title: Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, etc.
Author: Samuel Johnson
Release Date: November, 2003 [EBook #4679]
[Yes, we are more
than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on
February 26, 2002]
[Most recently updated: February 26, 2002]

Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage,
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LIVES OF THE POETS (ADDISON, SAVAGE, SWIFT)
Contents.
Introduction by Henry Morley.
Joseph Addison.
Richard Savage.

Jonathan Swift.
INTRODUCTION.
Johnson's "Lives of the Poets" were written to serve as
Introductions
to a trade edition of the works of poets whom the booksellers selected
for republication. Sometimes, therefore, they dealt briefly with men in
whom the public at large has long ceased to be interested. Richard

Savage would be of this number if Johnson's account of his life had not
secured for him lasting remembrance. Johnson's Life of Savage in this
volume has not less interest than the Lives of Addison and Swift,
between which it is set, although Savage himself has no right at all to
be remembered in such company. Johnson published this piece of
biography when his age was thirty-five; his other lives of poets
appeared when that age was about doubled. He was very poor when the
Life of Savage was written for Cave. Soon after its publication, we are
told, Mr. Harte dined with Cave, and incidentally praised it. Meeting
him again soon afterwards Cave said to Mr. Harte, "You made a man
very happy t'other day." "How could that be?" asked Harte. "Nobody
was there but ourselves." Cave answered by reminding him that a plate
of victuals was sent behind a screen, which was to Johnson, dressed so
shabbily that he did not choose to appear.
Johnson, struggling, found Savage struggling, and was drawn to him by
faith in the tale he told. We have seen in our own time how even an
Arthur Orton could find sensible and good people to believe the tale
with which he sought to enforce claim upon the Tichborne baronetcy.
Savage had literary skill, and he could personate the manners of a
gentleman in days when there were still gentlemen of fashion who
drank, lied, and swaggered into midnight brawls. I have no doubt
whatever that he was the son of the nurse with whom the Countess of
Macclesfield had placed a child that died, and that after his mother's
death he found the papers upon which he built his plot to personate the
child, extort money from the Countess and her family, and bring
himself into a profitable notoriety.
Johnson's simple truthfulness and ready sympathy made it hard for him
to doubt the story told as Savage told it to him. But when he told it
again himself, though he denounced one whom he believed to be an
unnatural mother, and dealt gently with his friend, he did not translate