n'rous race,
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.
His daring hope, no fire's example bounds;
His first-born nights no prejudice confounds.
He, kindling from within requires no flame,
He glories in a bastard's glowing name.
--Nature's unbounded son he stands alone,
His heart unbiass'd, and his mind his own.
--O mother! yet no mother!--'Tis to you
My thanks for such distinguish'd claims are due.
--What had I lost if conjugally kind,
By nature hating, yet by vows confin'd,
You had faint drawn me with a form alone,
A lawful lump of life, by force your own!
--I had been born your dull domestic heir,
Load of your life and motive of your care;
Perhaps been poorly rich and meanly great;
The slave of pomp, a cypher in the state:
Lordly neglectful of a worth unknown,
And slumb'ring in a feat by chance my own,
After mentioning the death of Sinclair, he goes on thus:
--Where shall my hope find rest?--No mother's care
Shielded my infant innocence with prayer;
No father's guardian hand my youth maintain'd,
Call'd forth my virtues, and from vice refrain'd.
This poem had extraordinary success, great numbers were immediately
dispersed, and editions were multiplied with unusual rapidity.
One circumstance attended the publication, which Savage used to relate
with great satisfaction. His mother, to whom the poem with due reverence
was inscribed, happened then to be at Bath, where she could not
conveniently retire from censure, or conceal herself from observation;
and no sooner did the reputation of the poem begin to spread, than she
heard it repeated in all places of concourse; nor could she enter the
assembly rooms, or cross the walks, without being saluted with some
lines from the Bastard. She therefore left Bath with the utmost haste,
to shelter herself in the crowds of London. Thus Savage had the
satisfaction of finding, that tho' he could not reform, he could yet
punish his mother.
Some time after Mr. Savage took a resolution of applying to the queen,
that having once given him life, she would enable him to support it, and
therefore published a short poem on her birth day, to which he gave the
odd title of Volunteer-Laureat. He had not at that time one friend to
present his poem at court, yet the Queen, notwithstanding this act of
ceremony was wanting, in a few days after publication, sent him a bank
note of fifty-pounds, by lord North and Guildford; and her permission
|