red to illustrate his position, that "the best
may sometimes deviate from virtue," by an instance of murder committed
by Savage in the heat of wine, Savage remarked, that it was no very just
representation of a good man, to suppose him liable to drunkenness, and
disposed in his riots to cut throats.

He was now indeed at liberty, but was, as before, without any other
support than accidental favours and uncertain patronage afforded him;
sources by which he was sometimes very liberally supplied, and which at
other times were suddenly stopped; so that he spent his life between
want and plenty; or, what was yet worse, between beggary and
extravagance; for as whatever he received was the gift of chance, which
might as well favour him at one time as another, he was tempted to
squander what he had, because he always hoped to be immediately
supplied.

Another cause of his profusion was the absurd kindness of his friends,
who at once rewarded and enjoyed his abilities, by treating him at
taverns, and habituating him to pleasures which he could not afford to
enjoy, and which he was not able to deny himself, though he purchased
the luxury of a single night by the anguish of cold and hunger for a
week.

The experience of these inconveniencies determined him to endeavour
after some settled income, which, having long found submission and
entreaties fruitless, he attempted to extort from his mother by rougher
methods. He had now, as he acknowledged, lost that tenderness for her,
which the whole series of her cruelty had not been able wholly to
repress, till he found, by the efforts which she made for his
destruction, that she was not content with refusing to assist him, and
being neutral in his struggles with poverty, but was as ready to snatch
every opportunity of adding to his misfortunes; and that she was to be
considered as an enemy implacably malicious, whom nothing but his blood
could satisfy. He, therefore, threatened to harass her with lampoons,
and to publish a copious narrative of her conduct, unless she consented
to purchase an exemption from infamy, by allowing him a pension.

This expedient proved successful. Whether shame still survived, though
virtue was extinct, or whether her relations had more delicacy than
herself, and imagined that some of the darts which satire might point at
her would glance upon them; lord Tyrconnel, whatever were his motives,
upon his promise to lay aside his design of exposing the cruelty