and that they, who are most able to teach others the way to
happiness, should with most certainty follow it themselves.

But this expectation, however plausible, has been very frequently
disappointed. The heroes of literary as well as civil history, have been
very often no less remarkable for what they have suffered, than for what
they have achieved; and volumes have been written only to enumerate the
miseries of the learned, and relate their unhappy lives and untimely
deaths.

To these mournful narratives, I am about to add the life of Richard
Savage, a man whose writings entitle him to an eminent rank in the
classes of learning, and whose misfortunes claim a degree of compassion,
not always due to the unhappy, as they were often the consequences of
the crimes of others, rather than his own.

In the year 1697, Anne, countess of Macclesfield, having lived, for same
time, upon very uneasy terms with her husband, thought a publick
confession of adultery the most obvious and expeditious method of
obtaining her liberty; and, therefore, declared, that the child, with
which she was then great, was begotten by the earl Rivers. This, as may
be imagined, made her husband no less desirous of a separation than
herself, and he prosecuted his design in the most effectual manner; for
he applied not to the ecclesiastical courts for a divorce, but to the
parliament for an act, by which his marriage might be dissolved, the
nuptial contract totally annulled, and the children of his wife
illegitimated. This act, after the usual deliberation, he obtained,
though without the approbation of some, who considered marriage as an
affair only cognizable by ecclesiastical judges[48]; and, on March 3rd,
was separated from his wife, whose fortune, which was very great, was
repaid her, and who having, as well as her husband, the liberty of
making another choice, was, in a short time, married to colonel Brett.

While the earl of Macclesfield was prosecuting this affair, his wife
was, on the 10th of January, 1697-8, delivered of a son; and the earl
Rivers, by appearing to consider him as his own, left none any reason to
doubt of the sincerity of her declaration; for he was his godfather, and
gave him his own name, which was, by his direction, inserted in the
register of St. Andrew's parish[49] in Holborn, but, unfortunately, left
him to the care of his mother, whom, as she was now set free from her
husband, he, probably, imagined likely to treat wi