to
write annually on the same subject, and that he should yearly receive
the like present, till something better should be done for him. After
this he was permitted to present one of his annual poems to her majesty,
and had the honour of kissing her hand.

When the dispute between the bishop of London, and the chancellor,
furnished for some time the chief topic of conversation, Mr. Savage who
was an enemy to all claims of ecclesiastical power, engaged with his
usual zeal against the bishop. In consequence of his aversion to the
dominion of superstitious churchmen, he wrote a poem called The Progress
of a Divine, in which he conducts a profligate priest thro' all the
gradations of wickedness, from a poor curacy in the country, to the
highest preferment in the church; and after describing his behaviour in
every station, enumerates that this priest thus accomplished, found at
last a patron in the bishop of London.

The clergy were universally provoked with this satire, and Savage was
censured in the weekly Miscellany, with a severity he did not seem
inclined to forget: But a return of invective was not thought a
sufficient punishment. The court of King's-Bench was moved against him,
and he was obliged to return an answer to a charge of obscenity. It was
urged in his defence, that obscenity was only criminal, when it was
intended to promote the practice of vice; but that Mr. Savage had only
introduced obscene ideas, with a view of exposing them to detestation,
and of amending the age, by shewing the deformity of wickedness. This
plea was admitted, and Sir Philip York, now lord Chancellor, who then
presided in that court, dismissed the information, with encomiums upon
the purity and excellence of Mr. Savage's writings.

He was still in his usual exigencies, having no certain support, but the
pension allowed him from the Queen, which was not sufficient to last him
the fourth part of the year. His conduct, with regard to his pension,
was very particular. No sooner had he changed the bill, than he vanished
from the sight of all his acquaintances, and lay, for some time, out of
the reach of his most intimate friends. At length he appeared again
pennyless as before, but never informed any person where he had been,
nor was his retreat ever discovered. This was his constant practice
during the whole time he received his pension. He regularly disappeared,
and returned. He indeed affirmed that he retired to study, and that the
mon