to make exceptions, but was
ravished with the favours which he had received, and probably yet more
with those which he was promised: he considered himself now as a
favourite of the queen, and did not doubt but a few annual poems would
establish him in some profitable employment.

He, therefore, assumed the title-of volunteer laureate, not without some
reprehensions from Cibber, who informed him, that the title of laureate
was a mark of honour conferred by the king, from whom all honour is
derived, and which, therefore, no man has a right to bestow upon
himself; and added, that he might with equal propriety style himself a
volunteer lord or volunteer baronet. It cannot be denied that the remark
was just; but Savage did not think any title, which was conferred upon
Mr. Cibber, so honourable as that the usurpation of it could be imputed
to him as an instance of very exorbitant vanity, and, therefore,
continued to write under the same title, and received every year the
same reward.

He did not appear to consider these encomiums as tests of his abilities,
or as any thing more than annual hints to the queen of her promise, or
acts of ceremony, by the performance of which he was entitled to his
pension, and, therefore, did not labour them with great diligence, or
print more than fifty each year, except that for some of the last years
he regularly inserted them in the Gentleman's Magazine, by which they
were dispersed over the kingdom.

Of some of them he had himself so low an opinion, that he intended to
omit them in the collection of poems, for which he printed proposals,
and solicited subscriptions; nor can it seem strange, that, being
confined to the same subject, he should be at some times indolent, and
at others unsuccessful; that he should sometimes delay a disagreeable
task till it was too late to perform it well; or that he should
sometimes repeat the same sentiment on the same occasion, or at others
be misled by an attempt after novelty to forced conceptions and
far-fetched images.

He wrote, indeed, with a double intention, which supplied him with some
variety; for his business was, to praise the queen for the favours which
he had received, and to complain to her of the delay of those which she
had promised: in some of his pieces, therefore, gratitude is
predominant, and in some discontent; in some, he represents himself as
happy in her patronage; and, in others, as disconsolate to find himself
neglected.

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