thdrew the allowance which he had paid
him, and never afterwards admitted him to his house.

It is not, indeed, unlikely that Savage might, by his imprudence, expose
himself to the malice of a talebearer; for his patron had many follies,
which, as his discernment easily discovered, his imagination might
sometimes incite him to mention too ludicrously. A little knowledge of
the world is sufficient to discover that such weakness is very common,
and that there are few who do not sometimes, in the wantonness of
thoughtless mirth, or the heat of transient resentment, speak of their
friends and benefactors with levity and contempt, though, in their
cooler moments, they want neither sense of their kindness, nor reverence
for their virtue: the fault, therefore, of Mr. Savage was rather
negligence than ingratitude. But sir Richard must, likewise, be
acquitted of severity, for who is there that can patiently bear contempt
from one whom he has relieved and supported, whose establishment he has
laboured, and whose interest he has promoted?

He was now again abandoned to fortune, without any other friend than
Mr. Wilks; a man who, whatever were his abilities or skill as an actor,
deserves, at least, to be remembered for his virtues[59], which are not
often to be found in the world, and, perhaps, Jess often in his
profession than in others. To be humane, generous, and candid, is a very
high degree of merit in any case; but those qualities deserve still
greater praise, when they are found in that condition which makes almost
every other man, for whatever reason, contemptuous, insolent, petulant,
selfish, and brutal.

As Mr. Wilks was one of those to whom calamity seldom complained without
relief, he naturally took an unfortunate wit into his protection, and
not only assisted him in any casual distresses, but continued an equal
and steady kindness to the time of his death.

By his interposition Mr. Savage once obtained from his mother[60] fifty
pounds, and a promise of one hundred and fifty more; but it was the
fate of this unhappy man, that few promises of any advantage to him were
performed. His mother was infected, among others, with the general
madness of the South-sea traffick; and, having been disappointed in her
expectations, refused to pay what, perhaps, nothing but the prospect of
sudden affluence prompted her to promise.

Being thus obliged to depend upon the friendship of Mr. Wilks, he was,
consequently, an assiduous fr