nquest.

As many more can discover that a man is richer than that he is wiser
than themselves, superiority of understanding is not so readily
acknowledged as that of fortune; nor is that haughtiness, which the
consciousness of great abilities incites, borne with the same submission
as the tyranny of affluence; and, therefore, Savage, by asserting his
claim to deference and regard, and by treating those with contempt whom
better fortune animated to rebel against him, did not fail to raise a
great number of enemies in the different classes of mankind. Those who
thought themselves raised above him by the advantages of riches, hated
him, because they found no protection from the petulance of his wit.
Those who were esteemed for their writings feared him as a critick, and
maligned him as a rival, and almost all the smaller wits were his
professed enemies.

Among these Mr. Miller so far indulged his resentment as to introduce
him in a farce, and direct him to be personated on the stage, in a
dress like that which he then wore; a mean insult, which only insinuated
that Savage had but one coat, and which was, therefore, despised by him
rather than resented: for, though he wrote a lampoon against Miller, he
never printed it; and as no other person ought to prosecute that revenge
from which the person who was injured desisted, I shall not preserve
what Mr. Savage suppressed; of which the publication would indeed have
been a punishment too severe for so impotent an assault.

The great hardships of poverty were to Savage not the want of lodging or
of food, but the neglect and contempt which it drew upon him. He
complained that, as his affairs grew desperate, he found his reputation
for capacity visibly decline; that his opinion in questions of criticism
was no longer regarded, when his coat was out of fashion; and that those
who, in the interval of his prosperity, were always encouraging him to
great undertakings, by encomiums on his genius and assurances of
success, now received any mention of his designs with coldness, thought
that the subjects on which he proposed to write were very difficult, and
were ready to inform him, that the event of a poem was uncertain, that
an author ought to employ much time in the consideration of his plan,
and not presume to sit down to write in confidence of a few cursory
ideas, and a superficial knowledge; difficulties were started on all
sides, and he was no longer qualified for any performance