ter all these obstructions and compliances, he was only able to bring
his play upon the stage in the summer, when the chief actors had
retired, and the rest were in possession of the house for their own
advantage. Among these, Mr. Savage was admitted to play the part of sir
Thomas Overbury[64], by which he gained no great reputation, the theatre
being a province for which nature seemed not to have designed him; for
neither his voice, look, nor gesture, were such as were expected on the
stage; and he was so much ashamed of having been reduced to appear as a
player, that he always blotted out his name from the list, when a copy
of his tragedy was to be shown to his friends.

In the publication of his performance he was more successful, for the
rays of genius that glimmered in it, that glimmered through all the
mists which poverty and Cibber had been able to spread over it, procured
him the notice and esteem of many persons eminent for their rank, their
virtue, and their wit.

Of this play, acted, printed, and dedicated, the accumulated profits
arose to a hundred pounds, which he thought at that time a very large
sum, having been never master of so much before.

In the dedication[65], for which he received ten guineas, there is
nothing remarkable. The preface contains a very liberal encomium on the
blooming excellencies of Mr. Theophilus Cibber, which Mr. Savage could
not in the latter part of his life see his friends about to read without
snatching the play out of their hands. The generosity of Mr. Hill did
not end on this occasion; for afterwards, when Mr. Savage's necessities
returned, he encouraged a subscription to a Miscellany of Poems in a
very extraordinary manner, by publishing his story in the Plain
Dealer[66], with some affecting lines, which he asserts to have been
written by Mr. Savage upon the treatment received by him from his
mother, but of which he was himself the author, as Mr. Savage afterwards
declared. These lines, and the paper in which they were inserted, had a
very powerful effect upon all but his mother, whom, by making her
cruelty more publick, they only hardened in her aversion.

Mr. Hill not only promoted the subscription to the Miscellany, but
furnished likewise the greatest part of the poems of which it is
composed, and particularly the Happy Man, which he published as a
specimen.

The subscriptions of those whom these papers should influence to
patronise merit in distress, without any ot